ARTISTIC STANDARDS AND OUR JUDGEMENT
Although there is no statute that compels everyone to like the same things, and many of us may have a distaste for some style of the past or for some contemporary phenomenon in the arts, these forms have a right to exist as much as our own preferred styles. One may even speak of a moral obligation to let these non-favoured types of expression be heard, however much we dislike them. In this process also, the critic and the historian have a valuable function to fulfil, giving us the benefit of their knowledge and experience.
There is a school of thought that maintains that it is impossible to set up objective standards by which works of art may be judged. This reflects an honest belief that the virtues possessed by the object of art reside within the eye of the observer, that since there are so many possible reactions, these may be as readily caused by the viewer himself as by the object viewed. With this belief there necessarily goes a refusal to state or even hazard any value or quality judgements.
In opposition, we maintain that since works of art are products of a given period with its attendant historical and other circumstances, our knowledge of these historical, cultural and artistic circumstances helps us to judge a work in terms of its own environment and execution. Balancing the aims of the period as a whole and the aims of the individual artist within this framework, we begin to arrive - not always completely or successfully, it is true - at a standard of value, a fairly rough rule of thumb. … After we examine enough of the material in a particular type of creation, it appears almost inevitable that certain individuals in that group are better able to transmit to the spectator the particular things for which the group stands: its striving for monumentality or colour richness, its two-dimensional decorativeness, or other qualities.
Most people will agree that there is such a thing as a skilfully drawn line, a sensitively applied texture, a dynamically balanced composition, or a rich and moving combination of colours. They agree because they themselves are stirred by such demonstrations of skill and sensitivity in certain artists; and they remain unaffected by works of others of the same school. Here we are speaking of our own reaction rather than that of the period itself. It will be evident that there can be conflicts between the standards of an age like ours, increasingly dominated by the idea of non-representational art, and a period primarily devoted to narrative and representational art. What is important is that although we may or may not like the art of a given period, or reaction by no means disqualifies it for serious consideration.
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