Criticizing Art - Chapter 5 - Judging Art

This chapter deals with the judgment of art, and breaks it down into four categories: realism, expressionism, formalism, and instrumentalism.

Realism is strictly representational work; something that describes exactly what the artist has seen, without any deviations. I've often debated whether or not I want my work to be representational. For a long time it seemed very important to me to create pieces that were as realistic as possible, but I was constantly disappointed with said work because I could never get things as "perfect" as I saw them. Over the past several years I have come to the conclusion that while some of my work is representational, other pieces of my work might not be. And I'm ok with that.

Expressionism is realism with artistic license. An artist can be working in a representational way, but can change things as they wish. Such as moving objects in a still life so that the composition is better, or changing the color of an object or space in a painting. Expressionism incorporates the artists interpretation with realism. I'd have to say I work mostly in an expressionistic way. I think it's often more interesting than realism.

Formalism is the idea that art is unrelated to morality, religions, politics, or "any other area of human activity". I disagree with the idea that art is only created for the sake of art. I think that art can sometimes be that way, but for the most part, I like to think that any art piece is the product of a statement or narrative that the artist is making. Any piece that I do on my own time (excluding classroom exercises and homework assignments) has some sort of meaning behind it.

The theory of instrumentalism indicates that art should only be created to create a positive behavioral response, and any work that creates a negative one should be "excluded". The only thing I can think to say about that is well...I'm a fan of freedom of speech...