In my writing class, we had an interesting discussion of weather the medium is the message. The discussion itself quickly moved into the field of art, and of ways to measure its quality. Personally, I think that many artists focus too much on the medium, forgetting that, indeed, it is a medium, a tool, something to be used as a mean to the end, and not as the end itself.
Patrick concurred, and added something that, though interesting, is only partially linked to the quality of art. He claimed that good art will create a new abstract concept, like Hamlet and 1984 do. Yes, lots of good art does that. This is not, however, only because it is good. The main reason is that they successfully express an important concept.
So what is the measure of good art? How can we hold art to a scale of quality, measuring it like the length of a road, like the weight of a bag of rice? The answer is that we cannot. No, I am not advocating postmodernism, claiming that quality does not exist. I am, however, claiming that no one objective scale will ever give us the quality of art.
Why? Well, think of what good art is. Good art is art that feels good; good art shakes you; good art is art that conveys something; good art stands out for itself without a direct, clear message; good art is novel; good art expresses ideas deeply entrenched in society. Obviously, it cannot be all of those at once.
It can, however, be some of that, or something else. The important is the fact that it was assembled with, and conveys, meaning, meaning being not necessarally a clear statement or a creation of a new abstract concenpt, but the subjective, undefinable, concept of meaning.
I believe that similarly, holding art to a certain medium, or to the use of a novel medium, is absurd. Some operas will be horrible, some operas will be great; some raps will be interesting, and some raps will be trash. The fact is that good artists view the rules of a medium as mere recommendations, which can be used or broken to achieve a certain result.
In the end, the mark of good art is different for every piece, and the whole expectancy of finding a measuring tape to show us what is good seems to me to be absurd.
p_q said,
Mar 17, 07:12 #
NO U
Zombie said,
Mar 19, 09:47 #
Art cannot be labeled as good. Good and bad are just perspectives and opinions guided by the so called “morals” of the human who is judging the subject.
Noam Samuel said,
Mar 19, 11:52 #
Zombie, by ‘good’ and ‘bad’ I mean ‘quality’ and ‘trash’. Those terms, while subjective are, to a certain extent, more collectively subjective, since quality always requires thought being put into the creation.
p_q said,
Mar 19, 19:20 #
Ah, once again Noam gets completely high-and-mighty about his opinions.
Art is subjective, which means that you can’t label something as trash because you didn’t like it.
Grow up, and get over yourself. You aren’t the only person with an opinion.
Noam Samuel said,
Mar 20, 04:42 #
You mistook me, the fact that I don’t like something cannot determine a multi-subjective (subjective per many people) measure. The measure for quality has to do with what thought is put into the art, and with what thought it can provoke.
That is, I disagree with those going to the extreme of claiming that a quickly drawn scribble of a kindergardner is the same as any masterpiece.
p_q said,
Mar 21, 16:15 #
Nobody is claiming that. You’re just using an extreme in an attempt to save face after making an arrogant remark.
Noam Samuel said,
Mar 21, 17:53 #
If you want to continue attacking a strawman, you are most definately welcome. While it may not provide the level of enterntainment of watching religious people trapped in circular logic, it’s still quite a bunch of fun.
p_q said,
Mar 22, 11:31 #
Once again, you fail to provide anything resembling an actual argument. You don’t have ground to stand on at all, do you?