[MD] The Quality of Art

[Platt Holden]

Hi Ham, 

> I don't attempt to judge the quality of what I don't understand. 

This is where you and I part company about art. I agree with Walter 
Pater:

"For art comes to you proposing frankly
To give you nothing but the highest quality
To your moments as they pass
And simply for those moments sake."

So I don't think one "understands" art any more than one understands 
the song of a bird or the sight of rosebud.

As the art critic Clement Greenberg put it, "Esthetic judgments are 
immediate, intuitive, undeliberate and involuntary and leave no room 
for conscious application of standards, criteria, rules or precepts." 
In other words, direct experience prior to thought -- pure DQ.

For me art has no meaning beyond its presence. One must be present with 
the art for it to have impact. It is meaningless from a rational point 
of view, but highly valuable nevertheless. It's what we live for. 

There are those who have a vested interested in "understanding" art -- 
critics, teachers, curators, etc.  Being authority figures they've 
convinced many that one must study an art form -- under their tutelage 
of course -- in order to appreciate it. Maybe so, but I don't buy it. 
Great art like the ceiling in the  Sistine Chapel impacts the tutored 
and the ignorant alike.

IMO any art that has to be explained or understood is suspect. 

Best regards,
Platt