Posted by
Rob Stevenson on Friday, September 21, 2007 1:29:32 AM
I have often overheard a person look at a piece of modern art and say, "Oh my word, how beautiful." Likewise, I have heard many people say, "that's hideous." Even more popular is the query in disbelief, "Can you believe the city paid for THAT?"
All of these responses imply an opinion about the work; a judgment of how good (or bad) the piece is. But how do people make such judgments?
Aristotle posited that the virtue of a thing was that property which made a thing most able to fulfill it's function. For instance, a knife is a virtuous (good) if it cuts things well. A chair is virtuous if it is good for sitting. A human being is virtuous if they fulfill the function of a human being, which Aristotle believed to be the pursuit of happiness; but that's another conversation. My question is, what is the proper function of a work of art?
Knowing the role of the Arts is the only way to assess the virtue of a specific work. It occurs to me that most people are quick to judge art, while they are slow to ponder why we have art at all. This habit ought to be reversed.
Some good resources for intelligent artistic thought is
Fred Sanders, a professor at the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University, The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis, and
Renee Jorgenson at Dismantled Thoughts. (Miss Jorgenson's site is also a great place for freshly updated new works of art.)