Is art subjective?

[Dystopia]

God has no evidence to support the claim. In the case of beauty it's not a matter of proof, but of appreciation. People believe in god because they feel like there is one or because they have been told so. People consider standard beauty X to be gorgeous because they are biological programmed to answer that way. I can give you evidence that a model is beautiful, just think about all guys who masturbate looking at her pictures...

Meh I'm tired of this argue, I won't responde anymore to your replies on this concrete subject, stick with your definition and I'll stick to mine.

[Baqal]

God has no evidence to support the claim. In the case of beauty it's not a matter of proof, but of appreciation. People believe in god because they feel like there is one or because they have been told so. People consider standard beauty X to be gorgeous because they are biological programmed to answer that way. I can give you evidence that a model is beautiful, just think about all guys who masturbate looking at her pictures...

Environmental influence also takes in account. The nature has not programmed men to recognize beauty - the society has. If you give me pictures of guys who are masturbating to this model, that is evidence enough for me that there are guys who are sexually attracted to this model. Not that the model is objectively beautiful.

Meh I'm tired of this argue, I won't responde anymore to your replies on this concrete subject, stick with your definition and I'll stick to mine.

Alright then. This was kind of fun. We should argue more often!

[stonedape]

As an artist I can say art has the objective the artist sets out for. Taste is subjective. Art is subject to the artist's taste. In essence the objective is subjective, but the subjective is objective. Sorry if I'm confusing everybody.

[Whateverist]

What interests me about this is that while it is certainly true that what pleases one person may not please another, there is a fact-of-the-matter for each person which is not an arbitrary decision. A person can realize later he was wrong, or come to see more value in a piece of art after hearing what the artist's process or interest had been. Another person may not be moved in the slightest by some forms of artistic expression but be transported by others. Of course if you asked a lot of people to explain what makes an object a piece of art, you are likely to get a wide variety of answers. Many may seem apt but others might seem to entirely miss the point. Also, how much any art -however it may be defined- interests a person at all can also vary widely.

For those of us interested in the nature of subjective experience it sure can provide new insights sometimes.

[bennyboy]

Yes, you could become a model with those traits, if you were in a culture where those traits were considered beautiful.

The fact beauty varies within culture does not make it subjective, it's still objective to a certain culture. You're confusing absolute beauty with objective beauty. If 99% of people in society A consider beauty B to be beautiful, then it's an objective beauty standard for society A, and 1% of disagreement won't erase the general rule

You are defining beauty as "That which is called 'beautiful' by the majority of a given population." And USING THAT DEFINITION, you may be said to be right that some views of beauty are objective. As I said earlier, there can be objective measures of beauty-- but the choice of an objective system is still arbitrary. In this thread, I've used a different definition: "That which elicits emotions for which no combination of words is a sufficient description." I think this definition more accurately represents the subjective and artistic essence of the word.

Now, show me any non-subjective beauty using this definition, or explain why the definition you implied is more valid.