Personally, I judge art purely on the final result by principle and refuse to consider the artist itself, his stated intent, or the process by which he made it, as well as the source material whereupon it might be based: — it must stand on it's own merit.
In this particular case I find the cracks to not be terribly unæsthetic but not spectacular either, and consider it largely an inferior form of Wabi-Sabi design.
I do not like how much the art world is about the artist rather than the art itself, and how a story must accommodate it such as the novel production technique of shipping it as such.
It is essentially a world of hero worship where one's name is more important than one's productions.
In fairness, removing the context from art removes a lot its value. This would be akin to reading Animal Farm and ignoring its allegory about Communism and judging it purely on its merit as a story about some animals staging a revolution. This is also like reading Shakespeare in high school without one of those copies that explain a lot of the jokes and references that aren't obvious to the reading 500 years later.
Context is what gives art a lot of its power, the downside is that you need this context to understand it. I'm not a huge art person so I view most art superficially, but always enjoy when I get an opportunity to learn more.
> In fairness, removing the context from art removes a lot its value.
It removes the value for the unobjective man who cannot free himself of such biases and judge matters on their own merit.
> This would be akin to reading Animal Farm and ignoring its allegory about Communism and judging it purely on its merit as a story about some animals staging a revolution.
No, it would be akin to reading animal farm without knowing anything about the auctor, or the conditions and process by which it was written.
Art providing a commentary on an external event, and being judged upon how well it does so is an entirely different matter.
Of course, the artist can also be considered if what the art attempt to do is to provide some kind of commentary on it's own artist.
The argument you raise here is tantamount to that refusing to consider the auctor of a physics paper as well as how the research came to be in judging it's merit, is tantamount to not considering how well the physical results in it model the physical realities they attempt to describe.
> This is also like reading Shakespeare in high school without one of those copies that explain a lot of the jokes and references that aren't obvious to the reading 500 years later.
And this is exactly why I believe judging Shakespeare by modern readers is prætentious.
A modern reader can never truly have Sprachgefühl for 1500s English. He may be able to read it, but it's hard for him to truly be capable of assessing whether language truly sounds beautiful.
> Context is what gives art a lot of its power, the downside is that you need this context to understand it. I'm not a huge art person so I view most art superficially, but always enjoy when I get an opportunity to learn more.
It is what gives art power to the unobjective, biased man who cannot compartimentalize and judge matters on their own merit.
This does not limit itself to art. You will find that the same same man who judges art by the artist, will also easily be convinced that the exact same dish tastes better, if he be told it was more expensive.
> This does not limit itself to art. You will find that the same same man who judges art by the artist, will also easily be convinced that the exact same dish tastes better, if he be told it was more expensive.
If someone perceives the exact same dish as tasting better because it was more expensive (and/or in a fancier setting, with fancy table linens and silverware, a live quartet playing classical music, etc) then to that person it IS better. Perceiving something as being better is literally all that matters.
To look at it another way, removing one's sense of smell will make the same dish taste worse. Smell is a factor in one's perception of taste, as are other environmental factors.
> If someone perceives the exact same dish as tasting better because it was more expensive (and/or in a fancier setting, with fancy table linens and silverware, a live quartet playing classical music, etc) then to that person it IS better. Perceiving something as being better is literally all that matters.
Perhaps it does, but it also makes him a poor food critic, which was the relevant issue here.
In this particular case I find the cracks to not be terribly unæsthetic but not spectacular either, and consider it largely an inferior form of Wabi-Sabi design.
I do not like how much the art world is about the artist rather than the art itself, and how a story must accommodate it such as the novel production technique of shipping it as such.
It is essentially a world of hero worship where one's name is more important than one's productions.