Sunday, October 17, 2010

Is Good Art Subjective?

Many people think that the qualities of good art are subjective, which would explain why two different individuals can see the same creative piece as a disaster and a masterpiece. While I do believe that subjectivity does play a part in determining good art, I believe there is also an objective factor. For example, let's look at chocolate cake. Personally, I don't like chocolate cake. Yet, the fact that a cake is chocolate does not, in my opinion, make it a bad cake. Rather, when I eat the obligatory slice at a party, I judge the cake compared to pre-existing standards for texture  and flavor, compared to other chocolate cake. I think we do the same thing with art. Even if we do not like a piece of art, we can still recognize it as good art based on objective qualities which the piece shares with other good art. The question is, what are those qualities upon which we form our standard of art?

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