| Yes, which means all of whom have recognized mastery of their art. So in a way they all are at the top. But can we "rank art" at all? I think we can but we need to look not at the masters, but at the multitude of nameless students, most of which will never get their works displayed. Let's take an thought experiment - an art class of local hobbyists is given the task of copying only one of them, let's say the Pissarro one. After everyone considers their work done, each student is given the task of distributing the paintings to two groups, "the better half" and "the not-as-good" half. Are the groupings random, or is there "a sense of taste and quality" guiding the students? If you agree that it is likely that this grouping can be done in a way that is not random, we can agree on my point that there is a non-numerical-yet-not-random way to rate art that can be applied at least some of the time. If we disagree, we disagree and that's fine. Another example: Our daughter likes to draw a lot in her own style. Now she is revisiting her old drawings and redrawing them few years later. While her earlier work has some naive charm, she tends to prefer her later pieces, and indeed I do find her current work "better" in the sense that the characters are "more" there - they are more skilfully renderered and have "more character". I think she is "a better artist" a few years later. Would others agree on this? Again, I would imagine they do. I think the condensed version of my claim is "There are scenarios where within a given genre/style art can be rated by a non-random yet non-numerical measure". I think piano competitions, especially the ones where the contestants play the same pieces work this way - there is a non-numerical, yet non-random measure guided by the jurys taste on who is the best. I do appreciate you have the patience to continue this dialogue! |
> Within the group, the extent of your knowledge will help you distinguish from others.
> the way this taste (but also the artist's skill) is acquired is highly correlated with social belonging: your appreciation of a specific piece of work is informed by your past experience within your social environment.
The setting you describe is a perfect example of this: a group with agreed upon acquired taste, which uses knowledge of that taste as criteria to rank art pieces. In that setting, the judgement is bidirectional: not only do people judge art pieces' worth, but they are judged for their good taste by their ability to separate the pieces according to the group's criteria.
> Our daughter likes to draw a lot in her own style. Now she is revisiting her old drawings and redrawing them few years later. While her earlier work has some naive charm, she tends to prefer her later pieces, and indeed I do find her current work "better" in the sense that the characters are "more" there - they are more skilfully renderered and have "more character".
I don't want to judge your daughter's art, but it is perhaps unsurprising that she uses her latest opinion to judge her own work. As she acquires a sense of aesthetics, her new artwork will tend to confirm to that new taste.