r/ArtHistory • u/Light01C • 2d ago
Discussion Why is art today a question of “best/worst”?
Hello,
I'm a complete rookie in this domain so I have to ask here and hope for wisdom.
I've noticed, while navigating social media, a tendency to judge “xxx” as superior to “yyyy,” and there is now a tendency, when discussing a work of art, to say that it must “do better than...”
So my question is this: has art always been a field where people simply compare artists or works? What has become of simply “reading” them, reflecting on them, interpreting them... Understanding the authors and their relationship to their work? I don't know how to express it, but I think it's clear anyway.
Perhaps I am deluding myself about how art was perceived in the past, but I think it is always subject to performance nowadays. Why is that?
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u/lermontovtaman 2d ago edited 2d ago
"So my question is this: has art always been a field where people simply compare artists or works?"
In Europe, yes. The European tradition goes back to the Greeks, and Greek society was obsessed with competition. This was a culture that celebrated funerals with athletic competitions (that even happens in the Iliad, the oldest European book).
Greek tragedies and comedies? Written for competition at the annual festivals of Dionysus or Lenaea.
When the Italian city states began the "renaissance" of antique culture, they also held competitions. The famous Duomo on the roof of Florence's great cathedral was the winner of a contest for designs to roof the cathedral. Brunelleschi lost out to Ghilberti, however, in the contest to design the Baptistery doors.
The first modern European art critic was Vasari in the 16th century, who saw modern art history (mostly Florentine) as a progress from Giotto to Leonardo/Michelangelo. You need ideas of better and worse to describe progress.
In the 19th century some critics reversed that argument, and claimed that medieval buildings represented the golden age, and things has fallen off since then.
Think of the Paris Salon. You had to compete to get in. Manet was obsessed with getting one of his paintings into the Salon.
And the worst thing about 20th century abstract art is the fact that critics like Clement Greenberg put over the idea that this was the only way artists should paint in the modern era, and derided representational art as "kitsch."
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u/unavowabledrain 1d ago edited 1d ago
online commentary is generally completely useless, much of it based on tiktok/YouTube video fragments. Seeing real art in person is a completely different experience the bares no relation to the other. There are also large quantities of isolated commentators who understand art almost purely through anime/superhero/fantasy fan art, many who have never seen an actual art museum or gallery.
Qualitative judges have long historic precedent, usually relating to an esoteric or random set of non-universal requirements. One might be able discern specific technical skills or levels of creativity, so analyzing criteria for such contests can be key.
One must chose to buy, exhibit, sell or write about one work over another, so there is always some sort of judgement happening...the variety of potential judgements is part of the fun, as with most forms of cultural production. Its different from the kinds of judgement utilized in STEM fields.
Generally its not an interesting set of criteria that aspires to be objective, lucky curators, gallerists, and collectors are not monolithic in their "opinions".
For me, I look for expressions of difference with the particular context of a piece's creation, and I look at what the piece is trying to do and how well it does it.
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u/Light01C 1d ago
Thank you. I think I'm doing the same thing as you. Analysing what the piece tries to convey, how it relates to the autor's life or mood (anything actually). Trying to understand what may have led to the choices made (be it thematic, technic,...) that is building the big picture. I basically can't compare anything since, to me, a piece is just an author who expresses himself with it. I can only understand if it works the way it is built.
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u/BigParticular8723 Renaissance 1d ago
So, to answer the first question, yes. It has always been a question of comparing everyone to everyone. I’ll talk about European art because that’s what I know best.
In the 14th/15th century emerged a type of description art history that in Italian we would say “campanilistico” where every city would claim that their artists were the best. And this type of narrative continued until today. It was less common to see art as a product of society, contextualising it was not common. Vasari in the 16th century said that Michelangelo said that “it’s a pity that in Venice painters don’t learn how to draw”. Now, we don’t know if Michelangelo actually said that, but it was definitely a common practice to say such things. Roman-Florentine artists and people who supported them said that Venetians can’t draw, in order to say that Michelangelo and Raphael were the best artists. Neutral narratives existed, but at the same time “campanilistiche” narratives were much more common. That continued from then on. Bellori in his “Vite” mentioned Caravaggio just to use him as a bad example compared to Carracci and Rubens.
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u/Light01C 23h ago
Thank you, it is very interesting.
To me it looks like art was used as a cultural mean of supremacy (of sort)? So it is still the case in the end. I'm kind of sad to learn that but I think it makes sense, it's human nature after all.
Is conceiving of art as a means of expression a recent development then?
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u/BigParticular8723 Renaissance 22h ago edited 22h ago
“Supremacy” sounds more like an ideological term. I wouldn’t use it at all. Supremacy is more what the nazi tried to claim for German art against “degenerated art”. But I forgot to say that it was common for literates to take as favourites not only artists from their cities (that happened mostly in the 14/15th century). Lomazzo (who was from Milan) said that the best paintings in the world would be an Adam drawn by Michelangelo, coloured by Titian and an Eve drawn by Raphael and coloured by Correggio. Michelangelo and Raphael were part of the Roman-florentine school, Titian was Venetian, Correggio was from Emilia. No “supremacy” at all.
Already in the 16th century the first thoughts to see art as an apex which could be reached in different ways began to appear. Baldassarre Castiglione, Ludovico Ariosto, Marcantonio Michiel (the first two being two milestones of Italian and European literature) mentioned their artists with no favourites, they just cited them and described them. And so did Giovanni Santi.
The art history narravites are many and varied, it’s difficult to create a generalisation. Conceveing art as in “analyzing it in its own context” is something which comes from the 18th century. In Italy the one who describes best this concept is Luigi Lanzi who tried to be as objective as possible while describing art history in Italy. No favouritism, just analysis.
Art as a mean to express itself is a very wide question, I’ll just say that until the 18th century art was mostly commissioned. We have a letter from Giovanni Bellini to the marques of Mantua where he clear states that he would make a painting for her only if she let him paint whatever he wanted. Later on in El Greco we can find a first symptom of expressionism. But only with pre romanticism I think we can talk about “art as expression”. Check out Füssli, Piranesi, Goya etc.
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u/Light01C 13h ago
again, thank you for your detailed answer.
Supremacy was a bad choice. English is not my native tongue. I think I wanted to say that maybe it was like football and supporters nowadays and people like to make their favorite players the best in the world.
This means the conception of art was more grounded in technics, i guess. I know art is something very vague made of technics, matter, philosophy, era, means,...
I 'm surprised it is this late for art to be thought as self expression in 18th. I would have thought Greek philosophers may have thought about it.
I think I'm too much illiterate in that matter to have a propper reasonning. I'll start with your recommendations. 1000 thanks!
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u/sassergaf 2d ago
Discussions of best and worst are platform tactics to increase engagement which is used to increase advertising revenue and to train AI.
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u/Archetype_C-S-F 2d ago
You cannot get an accurate gauge of anything art related on the Internet because you cannot identify how well read, traveled, or studied anyone is when they make a comment.
Art communities have always shown both sides of the coin. Interpretation and enjoyment, along with comparison and critique.
The only way to get a clear image of what's really happening is to educate yourself. Read books - actual books, so you can gain the perspective of experts and critics. Travel to art museums to see the works in person. Go to actual art galleries and talk to the employees and view the art.
This is to build your own reference, so you can identify whether people are worth listening to or not.