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====== Aesthetic Judgement ======
----
===== Different Art Forms =====

^ art form ^ performance ^ non-performance ^
| literature | poetry reading, theatre | fiction, poetry, drama |
| music | classical, pop, folk | - |
| dance | ballet, modern/contemporary, traditional | - |
| visual | - | painting/drawing, sculpture, fashion design |
| cinema | - | entertainment, art house, documentary |
| architecture | - | modern, traditional, everyday |

===== Content and Form: Representational and Abstract Art =====

in language, we can distinguish between the __content__ of a sentence and its __form__ -- e.g.
  * "John loves Mary",
  * "Mary is loved by John": same content, different form,
  * "John hates Mary": same form, different content;
this distinction can also be applied in the case of works of art, although it may not always be obvious what the content or the form are.

art that has a clear content is called __representational__, other art, which appears not to be //about// anything, is called __abstract__.

^ art form ^ content ^ form ^
| literature | story, plot, setting | division into acts or chapters, rhyme and metre, vocabulary |
| music | lyrics, but also (the form of) emotions (Susanne K. Langer) | structure, e.g. verses, instrumentation, dynamics and speed |
| dance |  |  |
| visual |  |  |
| cinema |  |  |
| architecture |  |  |

===== Genres and Styles =====

===== High Art and Low Art? =====

===== What do We Base Aesthetic Judgements on? =====

it may help to think of art as a form of communication that we can compare with language:
<code>
                                   sound, text
language:  speaker/writer    =======================>  listener/reader
                                    language
                               
                               object, event (= it)           
art:       artist (= he/she) =======================>  audience, spectators, ... (= me)
                                  genre, style         + critics (= they)
</code>
note: a critic is a specialist who helps us understand a (purported) work of art better, and thereby enables us to evaluate it -- so I read critics even after I have attended a concert or finished a novel;\\ a good piece of criticism, including a good literature lesson in school, should enable me to understand, appreciate and hopefully enjoy a work more.

so when judging a (purported) work of art we can use

  * __he/she:__ the artist's intention, ("If I say I have made a work of art, you must accept it as a work of art.") his/her background, period, biography;

  * __me:__ the spectator's or audience's feelings and emotions ("I know what I like!" or: "Everyone likes it, so it is a great song.")

  * __it:__ properties of the work itself, formal aspects like balance, use of colour, intensity, ORIGINALITY;

  * __they:__ the general consensus, especially of informed specialists who have studied the art form, ("It must be a great work because I saw it in the museum.")

for each of these ways, there have been people arguing that it is the only correct one, but in practice we use all of these.