What Is Good Art? Meditations On Power In Art

What is Good Art ? Thankfully we can’t ever define good and bad art. Actually, we personally can certainly know, or believe we know, what is good [to us]. But on a larger level, there is no criterion for good or bad. Few people even have the confidence to declare what they personally think is good or bad in art. Or have a basis for explaining their opinion. What I’d like to see is more people having the nerve to say what they think is good. And bad. It doesn’t matter what their choice is. Kincade as supreme master of goodness is fine with me. Or Warhol. Or Hirst. Whomever.

So I’m going to give you my criteria for good (visual) art. This absolutely includes my own paintings, about which I’m a tough judge.

First and foremost, good means it has to penetrate. Does it wiggle through the layers of my mundane outer consciousness and needle me? Maybe a picture (I’m thinking of paintings or 2D art here) is clever, funny, beautifully painted. But you always gotta ask yourself: does it penetrate? Once I saw in an antique store an old, splintered wood carving of a lizard by some tribe in New Guinea – it was simple, but you absolutely couldn’t take your eyes off it. It had an astonishing, visceral power. The price was very high for that old ratty thing – the owner understood its power. He didn’t really want to sell it. No, I didn’t buy it. It was beyond my means. I would have, though, if I could have afforded it.

Let’s say I walk in a gallery: my eyes do a fast scan around the walls. If I find nothing to hold my eye I quickly leave. The vibe field just isn’t there. Maybe I’ll see one or two things I want to check out. Sometimes more, if I’m lucky. I investigate. At this point, maybe I’m feeling a vibe. I offer the picture the chance to grab me, to penetrate.

It’s not about composition, or color or skill or anything that obvious. It’s about whether the picture has power. Does it exert that strange compelling pull that sucks me into it? Does it penetrate my outer brain; does it have psychic tentacles that I can feel worming through the various levels of my mind, seeking to find and resonate with some inner music? If it has that something, I’ll commune with it. Often for a long time. I’ll stand close, absorb the interior rhythms. I’ll back off, see how it holds together. Yeah, baby!

The second point, related to the first: How strong is the vibe, and does it wear off? The easiest way to tell is to leave and come back another day. Is the vibe still there – maybe stronger? Did the vibe stay with you after you left, like a clever software virus, rattling around your head? Does the picture have a hold on you now? Ah-ha!

If you’re not sensitized to this power, you can easily be sucked in by something wonderfully executed, finely composed and topically interesting. Such a picture can grab you. But the pull is ephemeral. It quickly wears off, and all too often is replaced by irritation because you crave some power coming off the picture, but, “sorry dude, it just ain’t there.” The painter’s skill seduces, but the picture is ultimately vapid.

Talent or Skill? Just for a moment, let’s distinguish between the value-loaded words talent and skill. For example, there are a lot of astonishingly skilled painters whose pictures can be very impressive, often large and dramatic. Sorry, but most are stone dead on arrival. Skill means that a painter is really good at the paint-slapping part of painting.

Talent is unrelated to skill, vastly transcending it. Skill and talent can, of course, go together. I used to go to Carmel and go in at least a few of the many galleries. I was always struck by the tremendous skill level displayed by the painters in high-end galleries. I rarely saw much talent, as I personally define it. In the hands of a skilled painter, a painting of a boat on water might look very boat-like, show some motion, have a lovely sky or cloud background. All well and good. A talented painter may or may not give you the boat and water and sky, but there will be some tension, something MORE. The boat and sky and water may just be a suggestion. The painting could be crude, even ugly. But it will convey something that penetrates. It gives you something from the artist’s spirit, not his or her brain. There are a thousand ways to define talent- you have to develop your own perception of it. Take yourself far beyond skill and hunt for talent. In a hundred years, skill will be in the trash and talent will stay on the wall (if we’re lucky).

So even if the question “what is good?” is not easy to answer, this is my advice to the art-buying (or appreciating) public:

• Avoid reading about art. You’ll just get confused by artspeak nonsense and chase someone else’s opinion down a bunch of ratholes. Go experience art for yourself. Your confidence in your ability to distinguish what is good will grow and grow.
• Ignore art trends. Just go out and see lots of art, feel it, breathe it in, open yourself to what you think is good, and what you like (they may be different). Then buy some art you like.
• Start cheap. Your tastes will probably change and you may find that what you bought at first you later won’t really like. That’s okay, it’s part of the process.
• Turn on your BS meter for art hype. Tune it out.
• Ignore (completely!) the artist’s career and any speculation about his or her future. Ignore anything about future value. Today is today and that’s all there is.
• Don’t be a (upper case) “Collector.” You might be a kind of (lower case) collector, in that you want to have more than one of somebody’s work; but the (upper case) Collector is mainly interested in accumulating value, like in the stock market, and derives most pleasure from the discovery of an artist (and getting good stuff cheap) and the subsequent appreciation in acclaim and monetary value. This is meaningless ego. Only buy what you really like.
• For wall art, invest in some good lighting. Get full value from your artwork by lighting it well. It will look really different, and better.