heyheysg asked:
Eg, Surrealist paintings, abstract art. Some art critics can go on and on about art theory, how do normal people tell if they are making sense or just bluffing?
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Eg, Surrealist paintings, abstract art. Some art critics can go on and on about art theory, how do normal people tell if they are making sense or just bluffing?
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its all just pseudo-intellectual babble… theyre makin it all up
I find that critics are as prone to bias as anyone else. The only difference is they use big words to argue their taste. Sometimes they cite art theory as a point to take your art down a few notches for their own ego. If you’re lucky they’ll praise it. It is just bullshitting but it has some validity. Even the harshest critics contributes something to improve your skills.
First of all there is a difference between art theory and criticism. Art Theory is the general or abstract ideas about what art is, how it works, what it means to society etc. Criticism, on the other hand, is the application of art theory to a particular work or group of works. Now within those ideas is found the issue of quality of work. Many theorists and critics don’t necessarily address the quality of work. For example, an art historian might say that Romantic poetry or painting was an expression of people’s increasing interest in the inner-workings of the mind, then they might give examples like Coleridge’s Kubla Khan. But they may never actually claim that one poem or painting is better than another.
As to the particulars of you question I would say this. I would say when it comes to art theory you have to make your own determination whether the theory makes sense or not. As to Critics it is really a problem of ‘usefulness.’ A good critic makes explicit his or her assumptions about what the art should be doing and then determines whether it fulfills that goal. If you don’t agree with the assumptions your probably won’t agree with the conclusions. A good movie critic for example will say that a film they are reviewing is supposed to be an action movie and then say that it succeeds or fails on that basis. It would make no sense for someone to be a movie critic if they thought all action movies were bad and only enjoyed European ‘art-house’ cinema. An art critic should do the same.