4 ms·
Hmm, I'm not sure this necessarily follows. Just because we may not be able to concretely define what makes art "good", does not mean we can not discuss why we
by rhines 5y ago
Hmm, I'm not sure this necessarily follows.
Just because we may not be able to concretely define what makes art "good", does not mean we can not discuss why we like it.
If one person enjoys a piece because they appreciate the technical mastery of the brushwork, another enjoys it for how accurately it mimics reality, and another finds it special for the feelings evoked by the composition, each of those people can articulate why the piece speaks to them. They can describe why they like it, there's no reason anyone should suffer any sort of explanatory atrophy.
Now, can any of them convince another that the work is better than another? Probably not. The person who enjoyed the brushwork may find an even more masterfully painted piece, which they think is better. But perhaps the new piece doesn't demonstrate quite so much clarity in portraying reality, so the person who enjoyed that from the first piece still prefers the first. Who is to say whose values are more important?
For this reason, I think the multi-axis view is more constructive. Rather than spending our time arguing if technique or novelty or emotions or whatever else are what matters most, we can focus on appreciating each aspect as we see fit. And we can certainly articulate what a piece does well on any axis.
- keiferski 5y agoIt’s not that we can’t define it, but that we are not in the habit of doing so. Because it’s become culturally preferable to just be agreeable about others’ preferences. Since we aren’t in the habit of discussing the topic, our ability to formulate a firm position on it atrophies. Consequently we don’t actually have a good reason why we think X is better than Y and so we just revert to “everyone’s opinion is subjective anyway.” It’s not totally dissimilar from the idea of Newspeak in 1984, except we lose the ability to articulate concepts rather than lose the concept entirely. Taylor goes into this far more than me, so I really wouldn’t base the entire argument on my comment. Unfortunately I do not remember the exact lecture he said this but I think it was in this series: https://youtu.be/j_losVdiARc https://youtu.be/j_losVdiARc
- rhines 5y agoI'm not sure I see how arguing for goodness as an overarching quality promotes more discussion than arguing for goodness of various qualities. Perhaps you get more disagreement, as people who may agree about each individual quality will argue about the value of each quality, but the comments about the art itself will be unchanged - it's merely the discussion about the relative value of each quality that flourishes when we feel we can measure goodness as a whole. Now, perhaps this is the discussion you would like to see survive. If you feel that making arguments for things like why novelty is more valuable than technique is important, then I can understand your perspective and agree that we lose those conversations if we use a multi-axis approach. But if you care about articulating why a technique is impressive, or why a piece speaks to you, then I don't think we need to be able to rank all art on a single axis to have those discussions.
- GoblinSlayer 5y agoIf there was a reason to argue about taste, then people would do it, but such reason is unheard of.