The Value of Art

Consider this: How is the value of an artistic work derived?

Art is unlike science in that it can never be accurately and adequately deconstructed and quantified. You can't say, oh, this painting is composed of 136 brushstrokes, 60% of which are good strong strokes while the remaining are mediocre strokes, but since the colours used blend in with each other, plus it is recognizable to both the young and the old, it is a work of art.

So where exactly does art appreciation begin, or end?

How does one know whether a dance piece, a painting, a song, is good, bad or excellent? Wouldn't a person's taste vary greatly from one individual to another, one society to another? Does an art critic, definitely schooled in the expression of his thoughts but not necessarily as cultured in his taste, automatically deserve more air time and respect than the man in the street?

I wanted to say once in secondary school, when my Lit teacher was unceremoniously savaging my critique of Shakespeare's work, 'Mam, do you know what you're talking about? You're not him. How would you dare to go far as to assume he meant to say all these things? What if you're completely off the mark, and in reality when Shakespeare was writing he was also high on drugs?"

I mean, doesn't it then occur to anyone that while it might be true that man's genius is often most reflected in the artisitic works he births, art critics are the ones who inflate or deflate an art piece's true value? Yet a paradox exists, for if we ever want an objective, quantifiable way of deriving the value of an art piece, beyond the mere swaying 'gut feeling' of the art critics, we will have to apply Science to value Art, and that is both unimaginable and impossible.

Rather, the question is, how many art critics does it take to make a piece of art, a work of art?