What Makes Art Good?

Art is like pornography.  We can't define it, but we know it when we see it.  Or do we?

There is a variety of viewpoints about whether something is art and whether a specific artistic endeavor can be called "art" or not.  Are there any guidelines to help determine art?  Must it be original?  Provocative? Beautiful? Must it invoke emotion?  Be intellectually challenging? Could different kinds of art do different things to a person?

Is art completely subjective?  Is art entirely in the eye of the beholder?  Or can art be held to any objective standards?  Can a movie be objectively "bad"?  What about a poem or painting?  Or can a four year old's drawing be "good" art to his mother, but to everyone else it is awful?

Can a four year old actually create art or only random scribblings?  What is the difference between Jackson Pollock and Marla Olmstead?

Is art better if it has a compelling story behind it, or is is only more popular?  Is there a difference between popular art and good at, except in the opinion of the individual?  Since everyone has an opinion about art, why should critics be paid for their opinion and others are not?  What makes a critic's opinion better than anyone else?

Who is the Greatest Literary Artist?

A line in Time magazine says that to create lists of literary art is a great obscenity.  Yet, we do make lists of art.  I am constantly listing out my favorite films and books.

But if we are going to consider a great literary artist, we have a lot to consider.  Command of language.  Influence. Breadth of subject. Intricate themes.

There are also many questions: What is literary art?  How is this different from popular literature, or is there any?  Can we call one artist "greatest" or even discuss it?  Do we have the right to determine a personal favorite?  Is it okay to determine that Douglas Adams is the greatest novelist of all time?  Who should we consider?

On this last question, I do not have answers, but I have suggestions.  Here are eight literary artists who continue to influence many and whose literary art is of the highest standard, in my opinion.

William Shakespeare-- Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, and numerous plays and sonnets.

Dante Alighieri-- The Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso), plus lesser works.

Homer-- The Illiad and the Odyssey

The Deuteronomist-- The editor of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, I and II Samuel, I and II Kings.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky-- Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot and other novels.

Leo Tolstoy-- War and Peace, Anna Karenina and numerous novels and essays.

James Joyce-- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, Finnegan's Wake, and other novels and short stories.


Plato-- The Republic, Apologia, Symposium and many other dialogues. 


Who might you include on this list?