A question of art; what is the Role of the Art Critic

What the devil artist up to. I wouldn't pay to see it where it says Name go where I'm one tonight. ASK ME artist nowadays are just too lazy to learn how to paint. Them in your comments. Well such observations have led us to try to reduce the confusion surrounding contemporary art as we ask a question of art. I'll let you know of our each week at this time. A question about contemporary art will be discussed by an art critic a scholar a skeptic here is a skeptic producer of the series. Walt Richter do introduce the panelists our central question today is can we distinguish between good and bad art with our usual panel of Dr. Gearhart Magnus professor of fine arts at Lawrence out of the way art critic and writer on our subject. With Dr. Thomas W. Liman an art historian here at Southern Illinois

University. Without further ado Lawrence as you know to give his view can we distinguish between good and bad art. Well I would say that the answer is categorically yes we can. I would like to add immediately that once we have there is no criterion by which we can restore the prominence of a judgment I think there is a clear idea of what is good and what is bad for particular purposes but I don't believe the definitions of good and bad which we attach to ot have an enduring historical and the damage is done. Well what about the case then of Michelangelo and some of the very early artists in the history of Western art whom we revere today and who have been revered for several centuries deserve a chance that will eventually their art will be interpreted as bad art. Yes Tom you agree it's a good case in point because Michelangelo who had the

advantage of initiating a tradition that lasted 300 years nonetheless had his ups and downs but his there were times in the eighteenth century what was what was considered very bad or not bad and interesting. Even though new classical traditions were struggling so there's the bears out Ross's contention that it is a changeable thing that there is no permanence to our judgement of good and bad. And in terms of art and I add that with his Michelangelo not not only have been you know different degrees of interest in him at different periods of his work have been elected as you know that which was good. You know there was a time when there's only a more classic what was regarded highly and a little bit disregarded and then perhaps in the 20th century and the tendency shifted and the later work was modified so even within an artists own

where there isn't any real assurance of a fix. Will you are you in agreement with all that. Yes I him but I keep thinking of Michelangelo as one of the supreme artists of the figure the human figure is is rather prominent in its evolution has been very slow and will continue to be so no doubt some time we have someone that was in fashion this generation of course. But here we are with our biological clocks running down. Here we are wrapped up in a few yards of skin. Our bodies are something that we know. An artist who in the bull's eye this vision that we have of of the human figure I think is going to last a long time. He stands a good chance of of remaining a classic. I simply enter this is a demur though I think my basic position would be very much in agreement with both lines and tongs.

Because the subject matter is central to human interests yes it is inevitably interesting to a human being or as a body of that kind of content. Sure is it some kind of permanent value whether high or low on the scale of relative merit and Jerry was on about ennobling. He would think here this is a criterion that by which we judge the value of the goodness or badness of figure painting or figure drawing. At one time that isn't necessarily so now what. What would be the criteria we would apply today. Yes I have trouble Gerri with your idea if we take them out as like lend it back again. I just was thinking of drawing the quotations to be clingy. Michelangelo asked Han and his work seemed to me not so much. You know monuments of history God of the human

body but rather a kind of celebration of its crippled and pompous aspect would you regard this is also within the county. I think so simply that this is an art concerned with the human condition. Well here we're going to hear with them come through to a message. There are many people who feel that work of art in order valid in order to be considered good has to have some sort of a message over and beyond the fact that it may be an interesting work. Is this is this a Nick sort of a valid criterion today or has it ever really been a valid criterion. You know large white to me what I want is not ma'am as the subject matter of the work. But evidence of the work is man me. It's his human nest egg. Every human being did not whether it depicts

human figure and you know in an acting gesture which I recognise just a connecting with life love life and love and death perhaps and meaning a great deal to me as a person and part of our common human experience. It's the act of making odds which I think confirms of humanistic value upon it not the subject of man it's often me off when you wouldn't then he wouldn't even make a distinction between child or adult. Art I mean a child artist a man made by here by a by your definition was matter of fact I with my tendency as you know to stuff the wide eyed with as many. Items as possible so I don't care if you're adding child I'll carry that with you. Certainly are dealing with a human figure. It's not the only kind of art which reflects the human condition just as our senses have been extended by a

technological and scientific advancements now for several centuries. So our view of human concerns has immensely broadened so that nothing that man can conceive of no human activity is beyond man or unthinkable or one characteristic of man. And of course the subject matter of art has expanded accordingly. So it's hard to draw limits. Well let me come back to the question which we still haven't come to grips with. How do we distinguish today between good art and bad art. TOM Well granting that what Lawrence said about art being humanistic in so far as it's made by human beings it doesn't dumb the question back into our laps How do you differentiate differentiate between one thing which has a human stamp something stamped by a human being very remotely through and separated from his touch by let's say a mechanical process. And he wanted to paint or he s or

I worked it evidences excruciating commitment and painful. Self-analysis here again there is a range that had a range of degrees of personal involvement that at certain times in history has been a criterion for distinguishing between good and bad. That's what this would be the so-called serious artist as opposed to the artist who doesn't really care and is just doing something that will sell. Yes or the old fashioned distinction between art and craft of art and art work which is a personal engagement with a personal problem that has no given solution as opposed to the men who are given a certain skill is able to reproduce or make an object according to a canon. Well here were your words against me shutting out the trial bar which we got morons to include within his definition because of the lack of experience

and lack of thought of intellectualization in the process of putting whatever it is on canvas or into clay or whatever it might be. Lawrence. Well it's true child up does not lie at the definition of time. Any ideas I have about I don't I like it you know and I'm fine. We could be had two suggestions are five. You know a basis for what some troll for good and bad. Tom mentions personal involvement as a as a possible criterion and you might mention the noble human image as another criterion. How about my adding I said That which doesn't have to do with with child of the moment but in a letter that he had thought and that is to say this at any moment in history. There are certain ways of working sometimes a lot of ways sometimes a few other ways I would think that the historic of the

magnitude of the historical problem with which an artist is dealing is a way one could think of good and bad. Taking the lump apart a little and sorting it out and grading it into good and bad are the people who who are taking the problems which will not solve the things which are problematic in painting and pursuing them. Then we would have a kind of thing which would include something to do with subject matter. JERRY That's no involvement of the human being at the Artist time and possibly historical Appa sightless. Let's call it as as another as nothing. Well I have a feeling we should go back and make a distinction between two kinds of good and bad art. It seems to me the term good and bad art it can be divided into either fall into the category of a moral question or into the category of a skilled

question of what good art is art which is good for the artist or the beholder of both and in the moral sense and the good art is that art which satisfy certain standards of excellence craft good taste and so on. I think these are two separate questions which are inevitably confounded. But we I think all tend to adhere to a kind of earth duty in the ocean that good art does have something to do with the moral nature of man and his is a spiritual well-being wherein you buy that. Yes I think I would. I think at least art which has been winnowed by time and which this process of accretion of value has been going on so that it becomes a classic and one sense or another. This is art which has a bearing on this particular question.

But we can't get away from the historical view that what is good in one period may be bad or simply irrelevant in another so that all art has as it has always served the artistic activity has has always served a patron. Somebody pays the bills and so we have the church for instance at the page and dictating certain criteria about what is good art. Well in medieval times in fact even longer or you have Russia under Stalin who dictates a kind of social realism an art which becomes a criterion of good art and we could multiply all kinds of examples. Well do you have. Repeatedly during the program it's been intimated that the day of the patron has passed and that the passing of the patron

has in no way affected our artist and heart. But I wonder if the patron really has passed is it just that we don't have a different kind of patronage now than before and the artist was supported by an individual or an institution. Today the artist is supported by a number of individuals in a number of institutions such as art galleries the artist actually puts his wares on sale and the patron of the patrons sort of are the ones that buy it. It's not right Lawrence. We come to this idea then that the good art has something to do with an artist's integrity and conveying his particular view of his of his own experience as an artist. I think we're working closer to the idea that good art is what the patron needs most. And this is what you were intimating earlier I thought when you were talking about. Well I was trying to get you off the hook here to perhaps a more fruitful line of discussion because.

Well good art is not always associated with the present market value and market value does not really determine what kind of art is being produced to the art itself. Mark you want to. Well I'm going with the eclipse of the patron and the multiplicity of collectors and artists on the left to their own devices. This has I think a fractured still further the number of goods and bads that are available to us in making judgment. I mean it is a fact for example that the and West Russian propaganda and you know I can't pronounce the names of any of them but I've seen one or two but I rather like many I don't. Even with that if you see if you really see a bunch of the stuff you start sorting it out. So it seems to me we're always ranking in terms of good and bad but the good and

bad is not. I will count. Expect the best DS are putting into our house. It's like we're not speaking for the whole culture we just know it's an individual judgement I think. Well let's let's take the case of an individual as an individual who has a fairly plush times he's got a little extra money in his wallet and he decided that he would like to decorate his house with some works of art. He doesn't know a great deal about art. How does he end but he has a feeling that he wants to be sure to have good art on display. How does this fall to go around determining for himself what's good and bad. Well he hasn't had any formal taste he would simply have to be selective in the in this choice of advice. Or would it be why this would be wise for such a person not to buy a piece of art at all until after he's exposed himself to a great many museum trips and

reading and so forth. You can write a critic of The New York Times get a hold Sunday article on the subject or order something from sears and roebuck and actually I just like that I don't think really brings this into PSU was a good time to talk about them. I mean that's like a man in his position. Well here's another thing I want to make something standing your comment about the judgment being an individual I think you see that just as the artist has a painting as an act of the artist's individual. I think collecting it to a much lesser degree is also relies on the individual saying this is my taste in the very taste to the extent that it used to be. So collectors have to take more chances with it. Well I'm biased but let's let's try to summarize again the criteria which so far we have established in terms of judging whether

are as good or bad. First of all going back to the beginning of our program Jerry Magnus indicated that he felt that an opening of the human figure is one sort of US where I began but I didn't hear there is what I recall as where he began and then Lawrence came along to talk about the involvement of the human being and was the one who felt that it had it should show. Well I guess it was Thomas the personal the personal involvement was his criterion of what was yours again. Well armed with historical appropriateness Darko I decided that I decided this historical timeliness. In terms in terms of carrying on and develop and trying to work with you know not as I think as much I think right now it's much harder to do have realistic painting and I just have to back painting you know I mean

history makes you know has a pressure of one direction on another and at the moment with fresh eyes or even know how to paint abstract paintings. That's too bad. And if you're a good abstract hands but nevertheless there's a kind of academic basis there isn't an equivalent basis of knowledge of a realistic painting it's realistic painting which is broken up not abstract what could be said of some categories perhaps but which art can be judged good or bad at a particular moment in history such as a well is good art. What communicates what stirs the imagination arouses admiration in the. Intelligent beholder I'm sophisticated. Possibly yeah. Well Tom I think you've hit on a jury that's true. That which inspires admiration is good. We know that the old term Beautiful which has become associated with art is really a term that one uses when he sees a good basketball player or anything

else that causes admiration but that leads us right where we started with a subjective about a valuation based on the kinds of enthusiasm of the patron. I mean you're making beautiful me and I did yeah right. Well what does this do that anybody uses a criteria which we've established in the fact that also that we agreed at the beginning of the program that what may be considered good art today may not be considered good art tomorrow and may in turn and another generation go full cycle to be considered an excellent work. I want to know what does this do to a man like you whose business it is to try to make some judgments regarding good and bad art of arms. I mean doesn't it. Doesn't this make you want to run sure of yourself. No because the kind of writing I do on the whole is not I'm not and I don't think of myself as a spectator.

This sums up what I see in myself as a witness as a witness and as an attempt to them maybe but not as a judge not as a bet I. Couldn't put it the other way around. Maybe in the past when it had we had a more stable hierarchy of taste you could say with some confidence this was good this was bad. Now a days I think good and bad are attached not to the artist and his wife but to the consumers of odds and tastes. If you say something's good you're just putting our cards on the table. So I know who you are and what you like I was bad lumps of the consume and love the asses. You were with us. Yes I do and I think the quality of good and bad

depends on the quality of the beholder. But that's so sad that supposes some kind of qualitative judgment outside and beyond history looking down and evaluating beholders tastes. Well this goes back to an earlier program in which we I think agreed that in order to make about a judgement of a piece of art we had to have a person who was relatively well educated and sophisticated and aware of what had gone before and what was available today and what sorts of ingredients went into the formation the formulation of the particular work of art that's writing the very best people in history have been against art. So it isn't it doesn't depend on how good they are. How do you mean. I mean if we were to say that the value of the judgment depends on how good the beholder is. Would you say I like when you give an example of somebody who was very good and didn't like Arjun told me see.

Anybody want to help and help out. I'm sorry somebody's got a spot like that I'm not sure that Plato ever said anything about the plastic arts as such and this particular connection he couldn't have. But let's let's consider the case of the Spartans who banished it all together. They obviously didn't consider it necessary to the individual or relevant to their society. Well to me if you if I look at the later paintings I can you know be sour. It's going to be pretty gray. I mean in his native wax he's green he's white and he would used total contrast leaving the blacks in the whites into this gray. Now tell me one of the amazing things is that you know the sorrow at the end of his life he had a long life after all the rainbow hues of Impressionism up his own anywhere I was

able to suddenly. And all around him modern movements were putting up with liberated color. He suddenly started exploring gray and found in it all the colors of the day. Now how I miss you know I like you. What bizarre had done a bad and unless you know what the people around him were doing. How can you find him moving that you know an old man from suddenly discover so much light in gray. You've got to have this in some sense and some knowledge of I think to get that kind. There's not a lot of that was a knowledge of psychology to hear that. We then had to the person who was making a valid judgement ability to distinguish certain psychological phenomenon. This is really a problem of connoisseurship of getting into the spirit of way of a time successfully enough to make value judgements.

In the spirit of the times to rethink the nineteenth century saw the pics are a bit bizarre rows of paintings reaches those senses that it is intended to stimulate. Could we could we list a few artists of today who are pilots consider good artists who who I consider produce generally speaking good art with much in some of the past programs I think we would feel are well and you will hold for one. Oh Francis Bacon. I like Russian bird the other three and less I like artist. Now they're good for different reasons. Rock and Kenny were also name artists whom we would consider are who you consider produce bad art. You have a bet you are I know.

And then another one. I think Lennon Baskin is a rotten writer and yet some people consider him good adoptable I believe the relativity of good and bad times. But is it possible that there are artists who are so bad that they couldn't possibly because he lives good and under any circumstances apparently. So how about some of the illustrators. The magazine cover portrait painters whether they can be judged by standards that is good administrators are biased illustrations illustrative standards can be categorically bed because we know what his name is when we look at his painting and can judge it by not by moral standards. What does it do for me. But by an established criterion it's not really art so we're talking about a different subject here. Well I'm going to come out and say that somebody is bad. I also have to simply say that there

are there are some modern artists who simply don't move me at all. Alexander Calder is one who doesn't say anything to me and yet he's very much admired. But we're working with our criteria but it seems to me that I think keyed to what our panelists have been saying is a lie is in the knowledge ability of the person making the judgments. That before you can decide whether or not a piece of art is good or bad. You've got to have a good deal of personal experience and knowledge. And then from that vantage point you make judgments based upon your own personal tastes and and drives because of any any disagreement with the sample that might stick with. Well that disposes at least for the purposes of this program of our question can we distinguish between good art and bad art. Next week we're going to put Lawrence Alloway right in the middle of the riddle.

As we ask what is the role of the critic and heart. With. A question of art featuring art critic Lawrence Callaway and professor of fine arts Magnus is produced and transcribed by the SEIU Radio Network. This is Steve Betters speaking join us again next week. Another of our.

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