What makes art valuable, good, or beautiful? Is it based on the message it portrays or based on a set of standards that society put in place that says if art is good or bad? The reading states that in the nineteenth century, “aspiring artists…learned what standards were acceptable from newly-established national academies and collections in national museums…Professional critics who wrote for newspapers and newly-established magazines of art contributed to the new milieu” (Dissanayake, 3). By this time, how good artwork was became whether or not the piece contained certain techniques and standards that were put into place by these national art academies. I feel that a lot of people would agree with me that not everyone would agree with this. Many people would say that how “good” artwork is depends on an individual’s tastes, likes and dislikes. A piece of artwork can be very valuable because it has all of the proper techniques that the art institute requires, but it may not necessarily be considered good by a lot of people because “never in question was the ‘high’ art assumption that works of art – no matter how strange they looked or unskilled they seemed to be – were conduits of transcendent meaning” (Dissanayake, 4). Although the value of art may depend on a person’s taste, it is important for everyone to appreciate artwork. The reading says that, “’disinterest’ implied that viewers could appreciate any art, even the artwork of eras or cultures far removed from their own, whether or not they understood the meaning the works had for the people who made and used them. In this sense, art was ‘univeral’ (Dissanayake, 4). I do agree that it is important to appreciate artwork, but looking at it with disinterest may not be the right approach because in order to appreciate artwork one would need to understand the context, eras, cultures, and meaning that the artist was trying to portray.
July 25, 2014 at 10:30 pm
Briana,
You mention a lot of good arguments in your post about art. When you talk about aspiring artist and how they learned which standards were acceptable. (Dissanayake 3) I feel like this is the norm for everything not just art. For example for a student that wants to have an A in a class, they will have different standards than those that’s just willing to receive a C average. For art, there shouldn’t be no standard. Everyone will have their own definition of art. This is all based on taste and preference of each individual but also how they express it. So should there be a standard for art? If so how can you decide what fits the standard and what does not.
On page 4, Dissanayake talks about the term disinterest. I would have to disagree with the definition. Going back to what I mentioned about taste and preference, what if there are people who don’t like art. Dissanayake definition of disinterest is that viewers could appreciate any form of art. But what if the art is offensive to some? I know I wouldn’t appreciate the art if it was offensive
July 25, 2014 at 11:59 pm
I agree with you that looking at artwork with disinterest may not be the right approach because in order to appreciate artwork one would need to understand the context, eras, cultures, and meaning that the artist was trying to portray. However, in my opinion, art can be many things in our life, and also there are many different way to show. That can be very simple things to show personal emotion and others. For example, we can draw a long road, and call that is art. Art also can be abstract that is very difficult to understand and interpret to naked eye. Like you say, “We need to understand the context, eras, cultures, and meaning that the artist was trying to portray.” However, we are not scholars, and we can use our way to understand the art. Art can be any beauty things that come from our life, and that interpret our life.
July 29, 2014 at 11:16 am
I think your post does a good job of pointing out the separation between aesthetic appreciation and social acceptance in the reception of art. As Dissanayake says, once aesthetics became the concern and standard against which artworks were judged, art became “not simply paintings or statues but examples of (fine) ‘art’” (3). This signals a shift in which art becomes a category that can be judged on a universal level as good or bad. You perspective that “’good’ artwork [depends] on an individual’s tastes, likes and dislikes” seems to resonate with the post-modernist approach that art is individually interpretive and subjective depending on each person’s opinion. Therefore, there could be no ‘high’ art and there could be no standard or ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
I’m curious though about your opinion of how collective opinions about artwork get formed, because they certainly still do even when most people today are aware that art is subjective to personal tastes. Do you subscribe to a post-modern approach that there is no objective standard, or do you think that there are certain artistic traits that tend to be generally appealing to a variety of peoples? And in response to your last comment, do you think that art can ever be truly appreciated outside of the context within which it was created? This ties into the idea of subjectivity, since it asks whether or not the subjectivity of the viewer can understand the art’s meaning outside of the contextual intention of the artist. Does the artist or the viewer have the most authority here?