More complex math, where not everything is intuitive and obvious, would be even better analogy. How do you prove that integral of x^2 is indeed (x^3)/3 to a person who does not want to listen your explanations, and says math is useless and subjective? Same thing goes for art.

…

“But that’s just my opinion”
The correct e-prime form of this statement should look like this:
To a some degree, I think that, according to my latest observations, this is possibly my subjective personal opinion, maybe.

To elaborate slightly:

“No, Art is Not Purely Subjective. I’m sorry, it isn’t. I know it’s a golden little dream that feels warm and cuddly when we hold onto it, but it simply isn’t true. Now, one’s reaction to art IS purely subjective. But one’s opinion or enjoyment of something does not affect the work itself.”

First off, this strikes me as an entirely subjective opinion from Mr. Rice. I do not believe there to be any empirical data he, or anyone else can provide to support this absolute claim. Second, I feel he falls into the trap of the Buddhist parable here – if art is created and nobody observes it, does it make an impact? One’s reaction to art is what, in my opinion, allows the art to exist.

“There are nearly-universally agreed-upon standards for art and storytelling.”

Again, I feel I have to disagree with Mr. Rice. I don’t believe that years of study by anyone [i]other than the observer[/i] will change that observer’s reaction to the objet d’art in question.

“What we FEEL is important, but objective standards can help you see WHY you feel something. What about art is working and not working.”

That, to me, is more in the realm of psycho-analysis than comic reviews or critiques. And even then, unless the reviewer has MY body of experience and knowledge, it certainly doesn’t seem like he would be able to deepen my understanding of my own feelings.

If this thread is indeed about developing a way to improve the quality of analysis of the chosen medium (comics) and not just an extended rant on why Mr. Burgas is wrong (based on a comment by Mr. Rice two threads below) – then perhaps I can add something I feel could be constructive that I read years ago about how the language we use can help create the misconceptions. It was originally written by Robert Anton Wilson (of [i]The Illuminatus Trilogy[/i] and [i]Cosmic Trigger[/i] fame) based on the theories of Alfred Korzybski:

http://www.est1892.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?s=20cf974e018d5c0b599d826c6bfe8ca0&p=187076&postcount=84

I think I’d be a lot less likely to disagree with Mr. Rice had he written his article in E-Prime as opposed to Standard English. But that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong…

The purpose of all art may be to communicate, but comic book art has a very specific purpose: to tell the story.
Everything else is near-superfluous.

(Yes, I read an Alex Toth interview recently, why do you ask?)

Comic book art succeeds or fails on its ability to develop the setting, characters, and mood of the story. The story may be abstract or concrete, but the art makes it tangible. As I stated above, I can judge comic art’s effectiveness, and point to others as to why a certain artist’s contributions were effective or ineffective.

While I don’t go for the idea that there are total objective standards, the quality I can look at with the most objectivity is storytelling.

As a reader, I put in my own subjective judgements as to whether the artwork succeeds or fails on an aesthetic level. John Romita Jr., for example, is an excellent storyteller. He’s a very skilled comic book artist. I just don’t like how he draws, so he’s not a favorite of mine. Jae Lee doesn’t have JRJR’s storytelling abilities, but I like his artwork on a purely aesthetic level.

I can say a comic is effective/ successful or not, whether or not I found enjoyment in it. David B.’s Epileptic, for example, is an excellent work, and gets the story across effectively… but it bummed me out, man, so I can’t say it’s a favorite.

Which, obviously, doesn’t stimulate much in the way of conversation.

I think maybe “good” is being confused with “better” around here…

Nah, that’s not it. I read in interview with him years ago back when he was doing New X-Men. He said the reason his faces look different from page to page is because he simply can’t render them consistently, much to his own disappointment. He said he wants to do consistent faces, but just can’t get that skill down in the least. So yeah, it’s not deliberate, it’s a definite shortcoming.

Well, let’s talk about the Greek word, virtue. These days we tend to use the word as if it meant a platonic entity, but the Ancient Greeks used it not in the sense of pure “good” but rather in the sense of “good for…”

A virtue was fundamentally a skill — and usually a particular skill (the virtue of being a good pot thrower, for example). So we are back again to technique.

Of course, there’s more to being good than simply demonstrating technique, as listening to a bad prog rock record will show. Steve Jones is no Segovia, but his guitar technique is perfect for Sex Pistols singles (and for not much else, apparently). You wouldn’t want to hear John Lydon take a crack at opera (except for giggles), but his vocals are perfect for what they do. The issue here is quantifying technique as if it were on an absolute scale, rather than being suited to a particular job; and that job is to create a particular experience that evokes specific auditory, emotional and intellectual responses.

I mean, sure, “good” is just a simple term of approval, and we should strive to be more articulate. “Good” can mean the technical skill of the artist, or it can mean being fit for purpose, or it can mean that the skill and personality of the artist interact well with the project at hand, and pluck an emergent synergy out of apparently thin air. Lot of different ways to use the word, but I think we all know what we mean in context.

I’ll always think that red is redder than blue, too. Why? Because it’s true.

You’re making the simple error that think = opine. It doesn’t. Think, in this instance, means “reasoned judgement”.

Mind that’s not to say that prettiness doesn’t have its place. Nobody wants Jackson Pollock for an interior decorator, it would be too intense.

But yes, beauty is better than prettiness because prettiness is simply about sensory or intellectual pleasure of a low level, but beauty is about bringing in a greater and more complete range of thoughts and feelings.

Quitely excels in his often dynamic portrayals of inanimate abjects. His cars, trains, spaceships, bridges, and technology are all well-accomplished, in both technique and in style. His living beings, however, suffer from being on the same page as the aforementioned objects. There is very little consistency in his character designs. His Emma Frost on page 30 will look entirely different from his Emma Frost on page 26. His sense of anatomy also leaves something to be desired. He spaces eyes far too far apart. Sometimes. Other times they’re almost the right distance. His jawlines change as inevitably as the seasons; every character has at least four different jawlines and it seems as though he chooses which one to portray in a given panel by throwing a dart at a dartboard covered with jawlines. And his teeth. Individually, they are phenomenal. He captures the different kinds and states of teeth pretty well. The problem is when he puts these great teeth together in a single mouth… again, anatomy is his undoing. His animals look like work for which we would applaud an eighth grader. They look very good for eighth-grader animal drawings. Very detailed and patiently rendered. And not really all that great. In WE3, Bandit’s visible anatomy is as unstable as Emma Frost’s in X-Men.

Now, and here’s the thing, I have to make a certain presumption to come to the decision that Frank Quitely’s art is not good for these reasons. I think the presumption is well-reasoned and fair, but as it is still a presumption, I could be wrong. My presumption is that I believe Quitely wants to draw people who are drawn in a sort of exaggerated realism – not unlike the work of Jean Giraud (Moebius) and several other ’80s-era European creators. This is based from observation of the painstaking detail he draws into his scenery, into the things with which his characters interact – as well as the detail he puts into his characters. My judgment is based on what he seems to be aiming for. I think he fails to accomplish what I believe he is aiming for.

Still, he may be aiming for something else. But I don’t see evidence in his work that this is the case. It could be that he is a misanthrope and renders his mush people as inconsistently as he does in order to portray his belief that only objects and things are trustworthy. Or maybe he’s not trying to create people that work well with the rest of his art. Maybe he’s just joking around, drawing people as he does just to see how far the joke will go. Maybe. Or maybe there’s another explanation.

But maybe, just maybe, the truth is that he’s bad at drawing people? I believe this to be the case, not because I have something personal against mushpeople, but because I do not think that Quitely is creating the good art that I presume he wants to create.

Tangents, unsupported statements, vauge points, and a misunderstanding of the point the author himself is trying to make.

I beg your pardon if I caused you to misunderstand what I was saying as a defence of Mozart. I actually wasn’t defending him. Hey, I wasn’t even saying that there’s no such thing as “good”, and no such thing as being overrated! But I was saying that Joe’s contention about the “objective goodness” of his sketch has the flavour of some old-fashioned question-begging: “good” and “bad” are the conclusions here, not the premises, and his sketch may start out technically accomplished or not, but it doesn’t start out “good” or “bad” anymore than it starts out overrated. Yes: art isn’t all about subjectivity. But, no: “goodness” is not a natural attribute of any work. It isn’t intrinsic: rather, it’s a judgement that we see our way to through appreciation and criticism.

This is why I (good-humouredly) called Joe a rabble-rouser: “objective goodness” is a paradox, and so sure to draw fire, but he could easily have asserted the same thing with the provocation left out, by simply saying “look, I have no training to compare with Quitely’s, I have fewer tools at my disposal than he does, and I’m less familiar with them…my sketch is probably not very good, unless I’m some sort of savant.” Or, did you not mean “skillfully executed” when you said “good”, Joe?

And yet as you point out, Paul, Mozart’s technical prowess is not enough to save him from your judgement that Beethoven is the superior composer…and this is a real serious point, because conversationally we might lump technical proficiency in with “being good” — we could say “Joe sucks” for example, or “I pity the poor bastard, he just can’t draw” — without ever becoming very confused about what we mean, but even sitting around shooting the breeze informally, saying Beethoven’s “better” needs backing up with some reasonably careful language (such as the stuff you employed), or it’s incomprehensible even as opinion. So if there’s something my old roommate really, really shouldn’t expect to get away with, it’s airily calling these things “goodness”. That’s just plain obfuscatory. If he can’t even say “I’ll always prefer beauty to prettiness” about it all, he might as well have said nothing whatever.

Sorry, bit of a ramble, there. But I hope that clears up my point of view.

Down with “good”! Who needs it?

Far as I can see, I just demonstrated good reasons why someone not only could but should consider Beethoven the superior composer, notwithstanding Mozart’s superior facility.

Other people might consider Ode to Joy proof in and of itself.

“Illustration: I used to have a roommate who thought Mozart was overrated, and that Beethoven was much better. Bosh, naturally: Mozart isn’t “overrated”. And, Beethoven isn’t “better”! These are valueless critical terms too, and they don’t say anything. The differences between Mozart and Beethoven are fascinating, and their unique approaches and contributions deserve our study, but my friend there chose the wrong terms at the start, and so there was nothing to have a conversation with him about”

Yeah, that’s a silly argument.

Unless you’re coming from a romantic or technical point of view. It’s Picasso all over again. Mozart had great technical facility, but little emotional power — and wasn’t really reaching for that, anyway. Beethoven, otoh, struggled for every effect, created new forms, expanded the lexicon, etc. Plus, he got to live longer, so his work is in general more profound because it expresses the emotional range of an entire life.

So we can safely say that Mozart never wrote anything with the depth of either emotion or technique that could come close to Beethoven’s late string quartets. Maybe through lack of opportunity, we’ll never know. But that’s how it is.

So yeah, Mozart is pretty, but Beethoven is beautiful. And I’ll always think beauty is better than prettiness.

Subjective (adj): relating to or being experience or knowledge as conditioned by personal mental characteristics or states. (From the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary. Emphasis mine in both cases.)

(This, by the way, is what I meant when I said art was purely subjective in the dictionary definition of the word. Not the dictionary definition of art, the dictionary definition of subjective.)

As you can see when reading these dictionary definitions, no, art is purely subjective, because it is always conditioned by your personal mental condition, and qualities of “goodness” or “badness” are not perceptible by all observers. This doesn’t mean we have to give equal weight to all subjective opinions, but it does mean we have to acknowledge that they are all subjective opinions. There is no “God’s eye view” of artistic quality.”

With respect, that’s a ridiculous argument, for the self-same reasons I mentioned before. And if you’re going to use that definition of “objective” — which, btw, is a very stupid definition from a less than impressive dictionary — then nothing is objective in the entire world at all ever.

Yes, of course all art has objective qualities. Duh. And all art has no subjective qualities, none at all. That’s less obvious, but it’s true. Only consciousness has subjective qualities.

Any time we argue aesthetics or ethics, we’re arguing about “what is good”; which is to say, we’re arguing about which standards to use. Having done so, we can then apply them in reality and find out which work better (and, of course, for which purpose). But this says nothing about the art in particular. The art remains the same.

As I was saying before, we all have off perceptions of the world, by definition. That’s what we mean by subjective — the difference between the objective world and our necessarily limited perception of it. And what we strive to do is bring our perception into line with the world. We strive to minimize the flaws of our subjectivity.

Of course, that leaves us with the issue of exaggeration (as in a Van Gogh painting). At that point, rather than pursuing a representational approach, he’s directly addressing the way in which the use of line and colour can communicate a feeling about the object, the perception of the object, the active creation of the object through “linguistic” media, and so on. We’re at a higher level of objective investigation here.

It’s my conviction that the only people who believe that art is subjective are consumers. Artists know otherwise.

And I’m sure I’m not alone.

Say, why don’t you join us? After all, you’re the reason we started this movement…don’t worry, the process is painless, and afterwards you feel sooooo freeeeee…

I’m enjoying your comments, by the way.