Quality in the arts

[Belacqua]

For me personally, some of the beauty of art (in any form) lies in not having to work with rigid definitions and labels, and everything being open to interpretation. There are as many stories in a piece of art as there are people trying to find a story in it.

Yes, very much. 

In fact, I think that what you write here may constitute a kind of criterion by which we can describe the quality of a work. For example, a story which rigidly adheres to the rules of its genre, to the point where there are no surprises, might well deserve less attention. A work which prompts many strong and suggestive interpretations is likely a wonderful work. 

In my opinion, the Book of Job is this way, among many others. Its "real meaning" is ambiguous, if there even is a real meaning. But the text plus all the interpretations we have down the years forms a wonderful thing to spend time on. 

A book in which the author's meaning is rigidly clear, which we must only interpret in one way, might well be too simple. 

Trying to decide superiority in art will be based on everyone's personal interpretation of that art. If we're trying to decide whether Dan Brown or Proust has better work, we'd be mentally rating it based on several parameters. But the 'score' each work of art would receive on each parameter would depend on how we interpret that aspect of the art. 

Again, a strong yes from me. 

I don't mean to indicate that there will be an eternal and universal hierarchy of qualities which will lead us to indisputable numerical judgments. There are any number of qualities we look for and wonderful works may have different combinations of these. I can argue that a 19th century novel shows me how real people in those days thought about their lives. And I can argue that Flaubert's Temptation of St. Anthony is wonderful even though none of the characters is the least bit realistic. 

Still, there are articulable reasons as to why these works are worth our time. It is far more than just "I like what I like and you like what you like and it's all equal." 

For string made of two different materials, however, if superiority were to be decided by, say, tensile strength (the higher the better), one material would clearly and inarguably come out on top. That's not true for art.

I'd say it is true for art, with the obvious difference that tensile strength can be measured and quantified. In a novel, if superiority is to be judged on only one criterion, then judgments would be simpler. But you are right that we don't judge them by only one criterion, because there are other qualities we value. Thank goodness, good artworks are more complicated than that.

There are varying criteria for string too, though, right? If you're wrapping a birthday present, you use string that's pretty. If you're tying up your girlfriend for special playtime, you use jute string that's too rough to slip and tighten up the knots uncomfortably -- tensile strength wouldn't be so important, unless you're doing the whole ceiling suspension thing. And that's kind of advanced.

---

There would have to be universally agreed-upon standards for every genre / form in the arts. 
Never gonna happen. 

Is ABBA's "Fernando" better than or of less quality Mozart's "Requiem" ? 

LOL

I have already said that I don't believe objective judgments demand universal criteria. If you have an argument to demonstrate that they do, I'll read it.