BrainBoxLtd said:
Ugh, he said: "Quantitative art" must never be taken beyond its numeric side: it is a measure of scope, of popularity, of awareness, but not of any trait which indicates quality. |
I know. I was being sarcastic. While I can see its interest in certain areas, I don't buy into 'qualitative art' as a useful criteria other than measuring the 'reach' something has gained. Without any other factors the assuption that something has achieved great reach translates to impact is erroneous IMHO. Starbucks & MacDonalds have great reach, certain popular films, books, etc have great 'reach'... but in pretty much every case I think of this simply translates to populist, not any useful measure of their true worth.
Perhaps I'm simply elitist but to take cinema as an example Titanic's reach, the fact everyone knows Celine's song, or remembers the shot of Jack and Rose at the bow of the ship doesn't change the fact it is actually a pretty average film as Art, that its screenplay is okay to weak to poor from scene to scene, that it lurches between the 'serious' story and genre staples like the bad guy (David Warner in this case) getting a suitable comeuppance, and so on. Titanic quatatively would seem to have reached a lot of people, yet artistically is lags miles behind many other films. Interestingly despite the approach of looking at it quatitatively, in polls I've seen of memorable images, films, etc. it scores much lower than most, less seen but more artistic films.
If you're trying to judge Art, and remembering its both subjective and often it takes time for a work to find its place, then simply looking at it quatitatively is the weakest approach IMHO.
Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...
