Can art be judged from a technical viewpoint?
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No. Anyone who tells you otherwise does not understand the underpinning of art. Art is inherently a label placed on a collection of objects by a society. It is a social construct reflecting social values and ideas. The best you can do is try and identify the aesthetics or values that make a society think of something as art but that is inherently a problem of cultural evaluation and thus really has no real "hard" or objective way to judge. It boils down to art being harder to pin down then a greased pig in a lubricant factory with a rocket strapped to its back.
Empirical evidence is evidence obtained through observation or experimentation. It is data that can be measured. At this point, I owe you an apology, as I appear to have misinterpreted your original question. I read it as: Can we, using objective, technical standards, tell which piece of art is better, as a piece of art (which is a 'better' painting, in the traditional understanding). The answer to that is simply no. Beauty is a subjective term, and as such is not subject to quantification. It is impossible to empirically measure how 'good' a painting is, as a piece of art.Dr Jones said:Please sir, define Empirical, my vocab is not that bigrgrekejin said:
But, if I'm reading this correctly, that's not quite what you're asking, is it? We appear to be talking about whether or not there are aspects of a painting that can be objectively judged, and if that's the case, then I suppose my answer depends on what criteria you're using. Can we tell which artist was more mechanically proficient in the actual process of putting paint to canvas? Yes, in that respect, we can. I cannot draw a perfectly round circle. I know people who can. If we were to both draw a circle, my circle would be objectively worse. It is not a perfect circle. It was my intention to draw one, and I was incapable of doing so. Objectively, mine is the inferior product. We can sort of extrapolate this out into measuring how effective a painting is at conveying the intent of the artist. If we were to compare a Picasso with the Mona Lisa, we of course cannot determine objectively which is a better painting. If, however, we could interview both Da Vinci and Picasso, and get them to tell us what they wished to convey with that particular painting, what emotions they wished to evoke in an observer, and then survey the people who see the painting about what they actually do feel, or see, or what have you, then we could make some sort of statement about how effective the painting was, that is, how good it was at getting across the things the artist intended for it to get across. Admittedly, this is still not terribly rigorous, and I'm not sure what good it would do, but it's about as close as we can come to measuring a 'technical' aspect of art. If I understand it correctly, this is, at least partially, how actual art classes are graded (although I only know one art student myself... I have no real great appreciation for art, and am a poor judge of it's quality).
So, while it's not a true measurement of how 'good' or 'bad' a painting is we can perhaps objectively say something about it's effectiveness. Sorry for rambling. That's about the best answer I can give you.
Well, I don't know about most art, but I consider myself an artist and I consider my art to be technical. I'm a programmer, and judging by everything I've seen, I would definitely argue that code design is as much of an art as painting or any other artistic medium. The biggest difference is, artistic painting, etc is meant to provoke emotion in the audience, while artistic coding is meant to achieve some task in such a way that most successfully balances the code's simplicity, human readability and ease of use, cohesion, resource management, and efficiency. So, while there is definitely the human factor in judging code, technical measurements are a big part of it too. Other forms of art ... I don't think so.Dr Jones said:
1. no, it's to tell the audience a message. if it's 'wake up you sheep' then great, but you can't always get through to everyone. I think art should show a person something they haven't seen before even if it's commercial art.Sporky111 said:
2. think about how these two colors interact ... shit I couldn't have possibly seen that before
3. skill isn't just measured in execution. the concept of color field is shallow and boring, and thus serves little in the realm of art except for a scratch in a timeline. in context, it is a rightfully dwarfed movement.
4. yes, you can and many, many people do who don't know design.
I'm not going to go into my experience of people thinking that they are artists. Just know that it happens all of the time.
Yeah, it can, the other escapists kinda elaborated it already for me.
though, if you believe THAT'S how you judge art, then your kinda missing the point.
though, if you believe THAT'S how you judge art, then your kinda missing the point.
No.
I don't care at all for technical ability if I connect with a piece of art.
Art doesn't need to be analyzed, ranked, checked for technical prowess. It is somebody's self expression. It's not for you, it's not for me, it's not for anyone else aside from the artist or artists themselves.
If you don't like a piece of art, move on to something else, don't flex your intellectual muscles stating why it's a heap of shit, because there's no such thing, just things you do and don't connect with, and just because you don't connect with a piece does not render it shitty or meaningless.
I don't care at all for technical ability if I connect with a piece of art.
Art doesn't need to be analyzed, ranked, checked for technical prowess. It is somebody's self expression. It's not for you, it's not for me, it's not for anyone else aside from the artist or artists themselves.
If you don't like a piece of art, move on to something else, don't flex your intellectual muscles stating why it's a heap of shit, because there's no such thing, just things you do and don't connect with, and just because you don't connect with a piece does not render it shitty or meaningless.
The only person that can answer that question is you.Dr Jones said:
Coding isn't that artful to me, but what I think of coding does not matter. What do YOU get from it?
I was so glad to find a logical answer to this stupid question only 2 posts down.Heart of Darkness said:
Well done sir. Saves me ranting.
It sounds like you're valuing art by aesthetics alone. There's nothing wrong with preferring beauty or one aesthetic/style over another, but to associate the purpose of art with creating beauty is naive. There is much more to art than beauty; it can be expressed brilliantly through ugliness, destruction, abstract minimalism, etc. From our contemporary perspective, I think it's too easy to write off the accomplishments of the likes of Picasso and Braque, but the truth is they lived in a different time with a completely different cultural/political context than the open "anything goes" atmosphere of the last quarter of the 20th century to present. To have an appreciation for artwork from different periods of time often requires an understanding of what was going on politically and culturally. Political and historical influences aside, Picasso was heavily influenced by Einstein's theory of general relativity, and his paintings reflect an exploration of spacial dimensions and ways represent dimensionality on a flat plane.incal11 said:
I don't think Picasso's work or cubism has any less value as an art movement than any of his contemporaries. It's picked on for its apparent simplicity, but he explored artistic concepts no differently than Brâncuşi's abstractions, Boccioni with Futurism, or Tatlin's Russian Constructivism. :\
On topic though, of course you can judge art technically. Technical execution isn't the only criterion by which art should be valued, but I'm unlikely to buy a photograph or intaglio print with shitty craftsmanship that detracts from the concept/message of the piece. And from a production art standpoint, we do it even more. We judge the artwork of portfolios as good or bad by technical skill every day, and it's the most important factor in who gets hired. Because without adequate skills, an artist can't do the job.
"Technicality" (as the way you put it) in art is horribly subjective, with a vast number of variables that no person could take into account.
Art is a means of physically interpretation an individual's viewpoint on subjects that they have experienced. The differences in how it is carried out, I feel, should be celebrated more than berated and torn apart, because it allows us to view these experiences in a way that we might have never been able to through our own eyes.
Art is a means of physically interpretation an individual's viewpoint on subjects that they have experienced. The differences in how it is carried out, I feel, should be celebrated more than berated and torn apart, because it allows us to view these experiences in a way that we might have never been able to through our own eyes.
While I haven't read through the entire thread, I'm not sure if you are ignoring music for the sake of this argument.
That IS something that can be judged from a technical viewpoint, you could judge it on whether it is in or out of time, the notes they are using fit well within the key they are playing, what the lyrics are about. The list goes on!
As for art as a visual medium, I think you can judge it on a technical basis, you cant have a 5 year old scribble something that looks like a blob but is supposed to be a dog and call it high art.
That IS something that can be judged from a technical viewpoint, you could judge it on whether it is in or out of time, the notes they are using fit well within the key they are playing, what the lyrics are about. The list goes on!
As for art as a visual medium, I think you can judge it on a technical basis, you cant have a 5 year old scribble something that looks like a blob but is supposed to be a dog and call it high art.
Everything is subjective my man. Reality is an illusion of our own creation. Screw the "definition" of it. What does art mean to you?Dr Jones said:
Talk of definition in an objective sense can only get you so far. Language will be a limit unto our verbal expression until we find a way to communicate Qualia in its purest, rawest form between one another.
Until then, I prefer not to speak in absolutes but only in ideas and emotions..
And what if you connect with the ridiculous blob that's supposed to be a dog more than the technically perfect painting of the same thing?lolelemental said:
Does the technical skill involved in the creation of the latter mean anything then? It's technically impressive, sure, but if one is not really connecting with the energy expressed in it.. Where's the point?
</devil's advocate>
1. Fair enough, that was a poor choice of wording on my part.instantbenz said:
2. Colour theory hasn't always been around, and colour field art was a big leap into exploring it. Colour field was also the first time in history that people were making artwork of things that didn't have any grounding in fantasy or reality. It represents "only what is on the canvas", as I believe Frank Stella said.
That being said, I think it's an obsolete movement and was more of an experimental phase. Some colour field art is interesting in complexity, but much of it carries little artistic merit these days in my opinion.
3. Just because you don't find it interesting doesn't mean it's not significant. Now you're judging it on whether or not you like it, and not on any of it's other merits. And you say "in context" when you don't seem to know the context, as I lined up above. That makes you shallow and boring, wouldn't you say?