Throughout my four years of mandatory art courses in high school, I only produced one piece of work praised by my teacher. It was not the oil painting I worked on for three months, not the rug I spent six weeks weaving, and not the clay jar I molded for most of my junior year. No, the only creation I made ever praised by my teacher was not even a project at all. See, I was aiming to reproduce an ancient Greek painting of a pillared temple, with string outlining the basic structure. As I painted the strings orange and brown, I kept a blank piece of canvas underneath to keep from coloring on the art table. This piece of canvas--eventually covered in orange and brown scribbles and doodles and smudges--was apparently the most beautiful artwork I produced all through high school.
Does this seem counterintuitive? It does to me. How can an accidental mesh of autumn colors be more beautiful than the precise portrait for which it took six months for me to find the accurate dimensions and proper blend of colors? What makes one piece of work more beautiful than another? Can we actually say with confidence that something is better or worse than another?
My answer to that final question is: yes, yes we can. Most American teenagers prefer Lil Wayne to Johannes Brahms, but Brahms' music is certainly of higher quality. As Gardner put it, "...the greatest works of art are ... those that give the most intense pleasure, for the longest period of time, to the most competent critics." Thus one test is whether Lil Wayne's profane music will be as highly regarded in 150 years as Brahms' is today. However, we must also take into account WHO is judging the music. A teenager like me with little knowledge of musical structure and creation is less competent to judge the quality of music than a classically-trained musician and critic.
But there is a such thing as "quality" in terms of art, and although it can never be consummately defined, it can often be determined. One aspect of quality is the staying-time of the piece. Is the movie better the more you watch it, or do the jokes become more stale and the plot all the more predictable? Can you appreciate the song years later, or are you tired of hearing it even before it falls out of the top-40 charts?
In my English class, we had to write an analysis of the following poem by William Carlos Williams:
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
My first reaction to this assignment was similar to that of Gardner: I could write a poem of equal quality in less than a minute! But the more I delved into the context of the poem, the more I realized that this poem may, in fact, be of high quality. In just sixteen words, and 22 syllables, Williams outlines the plight of the American agricultural situation and highlights the dependence of the rest of this country upon this struggling institution. One measure of quality is that deeper analysis leads to deeper appreciation, and not the other way around.
More difficult to judge, perhaps, than music or literature, is visual art. In San Francisco, large sculptures appear throughout the city. Supposedly, they are wonderful pieces of architectural creativity, but I didn’t see it--to me, they lacked any set design; they seemed to be thrown together haphazardly, just odd shapes carved into stone. I don't know what to make of this type of abstract art. It cannot really be critiqued like other types of art, because it is meant to be illogical. I guess this comes down to personal preference.
However, personal preference alone cannot determine "good" or "bad" art. Certain characteristics determine the quality of a piece. In music, it may be the complexity of the lyrics, the full representation of chords, the effective use of build-up; in writing, it may be the vibrance of the imagery, the depth of characters, the promotion of the theme; in visual art, it may be the proper use of colors, the precision of the dimensions, the evocation of feeling.
Overall, when grading quality of art, three main terms come to mind: complexity, clarity, and effectiveness. The more complex the artwork, the more capable it is to withstand time, and the stronger it will stand after intense analysis. But without clarity, the complexity of a piece is meaningless. One needs to accurately relate the ideas to the audience in the most clear way possible. The perfect combination of complexity and clarity creates an effective piece of work. Whether the goal is to persuade, to calm, to inform, to enrage, or to provoke, the effectiveness of the piece is dependent upon its interaction with its audience. A quality piece is an effective piece.
Which brings me back to my scratch-paper masterpiece. I had no intention of creating a piece of work, and had no goal in mind, so in the terms I laid out, my piece was not of high-quality. This leads me to believe that my terms are not altogether accurate, that something may just be beautiful, whether it is trying to be or not. Perhaps even accidental art can be good.
I don't know what necessarily makes one piece of art better than another, but I know that there certainly are standards of quality. Otherwise, I could argue that my essays are just as well-written as Gardner's, my paintings as well done as Claude Monet's, and my songs as well-orchestrated as Tchaikovsky's. Even in today’s politically correct culture, some things are just plain better than others.
(Novermber 11, 2010)
Does this seem counterintuitive? It does to me. How can an accidental mesh of autumn colors be more beautiful than the precise portrait for which it took six months for me to find the accurate dimensions and proper blend of colors? What makes one piece of work more beautiful than another? Can we actually say with confidence that something is better or worse than another?
My answer to that final question is: yes, yes we can. Most American teenagers prefer Lil Wayne to Johannes Brahms, but Brahms' music is certainly of higher quality. As Gardner put it, "...the greatest works of art are ... those that give the most intense pleasure, for the longest period of time, to the most competent critics." Thus one test is whether Lil Wayne's profane music will be as highly regarded in 150 years as Brahms' is today. However, we must also take into account WHO is judging the music. A teenager like me with little knowledge of musical structure and creation is less competent to judge the quality of music than a classically-trained musician and critic.
But there is a such thing as "quality" in terms of art, and although it can never be consummately defined, it can often be determined. One aspect of quality is the staying-time of the piece. Is the movie better the more you watch it, or do the jokes become more stale and the plot all the more predictable? Can you appreciate the song years later, or are you tired of hearing it even before it falls out of the top-40 charts?
In my English class, we had to write an analysis of the following poem by William Carlos Williams:
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
My first reaction to this assignment was similar to that of Gardner: I could write a poem of equal quality in less than a minute! But the more I delved into the context of the poem, the more I realized that this poem may, in fact, be of high quality. In just sixteen words, and 22 syllables, Williams outlines the plight of the American agricultural situation and highlights the dependence of the rest of this country upon this struggling institution. One measure of quality is that deeper analysis leads to deeper appreciation, and not the other way around.
More difficult to judge, perhaps, than music or literature, is visual art. In San Francisco, large sculptures appear throughout the city. Supposedly, they are wonderful pieces of architectural creativity, but I didn’t see it--to me, they lacked any set design; they seemed to be thrown together haphazardly, just odd shapes carved into stone. I don't know what to make of this type of abstract art. It cannot really be critiqued like other types of art, because it is meant to be illogical. I guess this comes down to personal preference.
However, personal preference alone cannot determine "good" or "bad" art. Certain characteristics determine the quality of a piece. In music, it may be the complexity of the lyrics, the full representation of chords, the effective use of build-up; in writing, it may be the vibrance of the imagery, the depth of characters, the promotion of the theme; in visual art, it may be the proper use of colors, the precision of the dimensions, the evocation of feeling.
Overall, when grading quality of art, three main terms come to mind: complexity, clarity, and effectiveness. The more complex the artwork, the more capable it is to withstand time, and the stronger it will stand after intense analysis. But without clarity, the complexity of a piece is meaningless. One needs to accurately relate the ideas to the audience in the most clear way possible. The perfect combination of complexity and clarity creates an effective piece of work. Whether the goal is to persuade, to calm, to inform, to enrage, or to provoke, the effectiveness of the piece is dependent upon its interaction with its audience. A quality piece is an effective piece.
Which brings me back to my scratch-paper masterpiece. I had no intention of creating a piece of work, and had no goal in mind, so in the terms I laid out, my piece was not of high-quality. This leads me to believe that my terms are not altogether accurate, that something may just be beautiful, whether it is trying to be or not. Perhaps even accidental art can be good.
I don't know what necessarily makes one piece of art better than another, but I know that there certainly are standards of quality. Otherwise, I could argue that my essays are just as well-written as Gardner's, my paintings as well done as Claude Monet's, and my songs as well-orchestrated as Tchaikovsky's. Even in today’s politically correct culture, some things are just plain better than others.
(Novermber 11, 2010)
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