2 Answers

  1. This question has three components: there is the concept of subjectivity in philosophy, there is the idea of subjectivity in the history of art, and there is a consideration of it in the social sciences.

    1. Aesthetics.

    The first and most important thing is that “we don't know”. The question of subjectivity and objectivity of art lies in the field of aesthetic philosophy, and rests on the reality of universals. The problem of universals is not solved, and apparently will not be.�

    Are the numbers real? We don't know. What about an equilateral triangle? We know that it exists mathematically, and that the physical models built on it work. But does it exist in the same sense that the Eiffel Tower does? Drawings of the Eiffel Tower? The image of the Eiffel Tower in folk folklore?

    If these questions seem to some people idle and sucked out of their fingers, then I am afraid that they lie at the root of all Western philosophy, go back to the Pythagoreans, Plato, Christian theology and Cartesian dualism. They are not celebrated at least because they relate in a chain to whether, for example, justice, mercy, or free will exist. And if not, what is the basis of the Constitution, legislation, and the judiciary, if ideally we expect justice, mercy, and respect for free will from them?

    The same is true of beauty. Perhaps universal beauty does not exist, and it exists only in the eyes of the beholder. It may exist ontologically, but it is unattainable. Perhaps it manifests itself only in practical implementation, as power manifests itself at the time of the execution of power. There are a lot of concepts of beauty, a unified theory of aesthetics does not exist today and is not expected.

    Of course, the average viewer judges this issue without going into theory, but these judgments are not always unambiguous.

    For example, do you think that there are periods of rebirth and decline in art? People often refer to the European 19th century as the pinnacle of Western (if not world) art, but this implies a position of aesthetic realism, implying the existence of an ideal Platonic beauty, so that art, if it sets itself the task of embodying and achieving this beauty, is again objective. Objectivity is an unavoidable requirement of any justification for progress.�

    Aesthetic realism also inevitably implies that no one cares about individual perception. The pictures will be better or worse depending on the proximity to the ideal.

    The truth is, we don't know. In fact, this could be the end of it, but the position of ignorance often makes people uncomfortable, so let's move on to the story.

    2. History.

    The great irony is that the idea of subjectivity of art belongs to artists, and it was first voiced in the first half of the 20th century.

    Think about it: 10 thousand years of history, and the subjectivity of art appears only a hundred years ago. Even if it occurred to someone, no one took it seriously enough to write it down somewhere. The average viewer readily admits that yes, of course, his personal perception is of paramount importance in this matter-not knowing what he eats from the table of the early avant-gardists, about whom he also said on occasion that his niece would draw better.

    There is nothing unique about subjectivity: the idea that artists create something new was first expressed at the end of the 17th century. The idea that there are no rules in art was first expressed by Goya at the end of the 18th century, and after that, romantics rediscovered it independently of Goya. The idea of creativity as self-expression was already in force under Ruskin, that is, in the second half of the 19th century, and even then neither Turner, nor Ruskin, nor Constable, nor anyone else considered art subjective. In front of: “We see nothing truly until we understand it”. The ability to see rested on being in the environment, natural science observations, including geology, urban planning, livestock behavior, etc.

    In other words, almost all modern concepts about art, which you, the username, consider eternal and obvious, are no more than two hundred years old. They were all made up by someone, and subjectivity, too.

    The reason why this idea of subjectivity appeared at this very moment and in this particular form is due, among other things, to the fact that artists themselves began to make art designed for subjective perception. The apogee of this principle was realized by the abstract expressionists-Rothko, Pollock, Mitchell, and others-although even they used a great many purely contextual things that, if not necessary, are at least worth knowing when studying their works.

    With all the others, this will not work at all. Neither the Impressionists, nor the Romantics, nor Da Vinci and Michelangelo, nor medieval graphic artists, nor ancient sculptors mentioned perception as something valuable in itself, and even more so as of paramount importance.

    Art was all about form all the way. It's still about form — by the 1970s, minimalists had already sent viewers ' perceptions back to hell.

    Another thing is that formalistic analysis does not imply aesthetic realism. It deals with the search for patterns, relationships with tradition, and allusions to already existing historical concepts of beauty. None of this needs to be tied to Platonic beauty; it gets better or worse within the great dialogue. The hierarchy of existence in this scenario is decided by art historians, critics, museum curators and the artists themselves, who have the greatest influence on the process. Van Gogh did not get to the museum for the great love of the public — he got there through the efforts of colleagues.�

    So, from the point of view of philosophy, subjectivity rests on the problem of universals; from the point of view of historical art criticism, it turns out to be nothing more than one of many ideas. The choice is limited — but fortunately, we are just approaching the social sciences.

    3. Social Sciences

    So, in the 1960s, an interesting thing happened: a great many sciences began to engage the masses. History and archeology have shifted from studying great personalities to studying the everyday life of ordinary Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, Chinese, etc. Anthropology has developed a method of cultural subjectivism in the study of unfamiliar cultures (“it is not important what it means for us, it is important what it means for them”). Even behavioral economics was booming around this time.

    Similarly, art criticism has shifted its focus from the author's idea to the audience's reception (Reader-response criticism). That is, not personal, not individual-but on the perception of certain images in a certain cultural cross-section. Not because these perceptions are of equal value, or because they are paramount. Just because they exist. This is where postcolonial, feminist, queer theory, etc. come from, but a white person and a black person will read “Robinson Crusoe” very differently.

    In other words, the subjectivity of art emphasizes one very banal thing: the artist does not control the audience's perception. He can put the main semantic part in the very center and in the most easily accessible way, and the viewer can even see it, but he can still interpret everything in his own way. It's neither good nor bad, it's just a mechanic.

    This does not change the objective properties of the work: the time of writing, the historical context, the authorship and everything that the artist managed to say about it during his lifetime. This also does not change the purely formalistic approach, which tries to get as close to aesthetic realism as possible. This doesn't cancel anything at all, it just pushes the scope of the criteria.

    But you also need to understand that this approach does not remove, for example, the ethical side of the matter. Neo-Nazis, as a social group, are considered in it on the same rights as concentration camp survivors. “Jedem das Seine” will be perceived by some as one of the symbols of the millennial Reich, by others-as a hymn to the industrial destruction of the innocent. These perceptions cannot be changed or rewritten, while objectively “Jedem das Seine” is just a Bach cantata.

    4.TLDR

    Like I said, “we don't know.” But it doesn't matter. It is important to understand exactly what subjectivity means in general.

    It doesn't mean, “All opinions are equal, lol.”

    It means:“Art is complicated. It has many theories and many approaches, and only I am responsible for how well I understand the picture, and how I feel about it.”

    Just like that.

  2. Good question. I will write purely my opinion.�
    I still believe that art is objective, as is the perception of tastes and colors, etc.�

    I call art everything that is man-made and that you want to look at without taking your eyes off, and yes, this is not a Malevich square or a banana with scotch tape. I'm talking about serious art, it can be painting, realism and the like. It can be pictures of different battles, pictures that are worth thinking about, and different pictures where you can see that it took a lot of time and it will be almost impossible to repeat, because this is a unique art.

    Now I see some kind of degenerate art. It simply destroys the very concept of art in every possible way and trivializes it, due to the fact that people spend little time on it and it looks correspondingly superficial and uninteresting.�

    Art is objective!�

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