A Historical Theory of Art CriticismAuthor(s): James D. CarneySource: Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Spring, 1994), pp. 13-29Published by: University of Illinois PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3333153Accessed: 02/06/2009 19:20

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=illinois.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with thescholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform thatpromotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

University of Illinois Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal ofAesthetic Education.

http://www.jstor.org

A Historical Theory of Art Criticism

JAMES D. CARNEY

Conceptions of Art Criticism

Edmund Burke Feldman writes in his Varieties of Visual Experience, a widely used text in art education, that "whatever else it is, criticism is something we do. It is a practical activity (with theoretical underpinnings) in which it is

possible to gain proficiency."' For those who share this intuition-and I count myself among them-the theoretical question that arises is, What ex-

actly is this activity, and what reasons are there to think that it has any spe- cial art-critical status? Feldman's answer to the first question is that art criti- cism is an orderly and sequential process that is divided into four stages: description, formal analysis, interpretation, and judgment, where "judging a work of art means giving it rank in relation to other works of its type."2 What grounds are there for believing that art criticism that follows the model has any special status?

In this article I present a model for type-relative criticism, somewhat

along the general lines suggested by Feldman. And I offer my reasons for

thinking that criticism of this sort has a special theoretical status. Following Feldman, I will focus on visual art, in particular paintings. In art criticism

judgments are made about the value of artworks. Artworks have many kinds of values, including historical, functional, and aesthetic.3 I will under- stand art criticism to be directed to the aesthetic value or values of art- works. An artwork has aesthetic value only insofar as the experience of it is valuable in some way. Following Jerrold Levinson, pleasure is not itself an

entirely adequate account of aesthetic value since the latter includes an en- richment of human experience along various dimensions that include not

only pleasure, but also cognitive, emotional, and visionary elements.4 Almost everyone at some time or other engages in art criticism. And

there is a plurality of critical games.5 An examination of the diverse

James D. Carney is a professor in the Department of Philosophy of Arizona State Uni- versity, Tempe. He has most recently published in the British Journal of Aesthetics, Phi- losophy and Phenomenological Research, the Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, and the Jour- nal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.

Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 28, No. 1, Spring 1994 ?1994 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

14 James D. Carney

practices of art critics fails to reveal any established structure or method, much less any type-relative criticism tied to some analytical sequence of the kind Feldman suggests. But to conclude, simply from an empirical exami- nation of practices, that no single approach to art criticism is any better than

any other ignores the suggestion that there may be standards or norms for

doing art criticism well-norms generally shared implicitly by practitioners even though, in practice, art criticism takes various forms.6 I suggest that there are such norms and that art criticism, when it is type-relative criticism linked to a sequence similar to the kind Feldman suggests, fulfills the normative principles for art criticism in a relatively replete way.

If there are normative principles that mark the field of art criticism, what are they? First, critical evaluations, if they are to merit respect and recogni- tion, should be backed up by reasons. And if a critical judgment of an art- work is supported by reasons, those reasons must have some plausibility for any reasonable person. Recognition of the merit of critical judgments needs to be safeguarded as much as possible from the influence of subjec- tive and divergent tastes. Second, a relatively replete critical evaluation of an artwork should increase our understanding of the artwork. Third, the value features given in support of critical judgments should be features conducive to the enrichment of human experience along various dimen- sions.

I turn first to an influential model for critical evaluation which, to a de-

gree, satisfies these or some of the normative principles just enumerated. As it stands, I believe the model misfires. If I am right, its failures may be a

guide to what is a more defensible model.

A Model of Aesthetic Evaluation

An influential model for art criticism has been generated by the work of Frank Sibley.7 According to this model, evaluating art is not an entirely sub-

jective matter but involves reasons. The model divides most remarks about artworks in the context of art criticism into three basic groups: First (a) there are nonaesthetic judgments such as, There is a biomorphic shape in the bot- tom left corner. Such judgments are about descriptive or structural features of an artwork. Second (b) there are aesthetic judgments such as, The colors are vibrant or, The lines are dynamic. These judgments are about what are

customarily taken to be aestheticfeatures-graceful, ossified, balanced, uni-

fied, garish, flamboyant, harmonious, rhythmic-where some kind of par- tial enumeration is used to characterize such features. Third (c) there is the overall verdict such as, This is a first-rate painting. Typically a-features are

given as reasons for ascribing b-features, for example, This picture is bal- anced because of the position of the area of red. Aesthetic terms such as

graceful and vibrant always apply because of the presence of features that, like curving or angular lines, color contrasts, placing of masses, are visible

Theory of Art Criticism 15

on a fundamental level of observation. Reasons given for c-judgments ap- peal to b-judgments, for example, This painting is a good (bad) painting be- cause it is unified (shallow and lethargic). These reasons are limited sorts of

justification, since they are prima facie grounds for merit. If a work has unity, then it has a certain prima facie merit.

Crucial to this model is the account that is given for the relationship be- tween aesthetic and structural features. There seem to be three ways on the model to understand the relation: (i) reductionism, (ii) positive condition

governing (or the criteriological view), and (iii) negative condition govern- ing.8 For both (i) and (ii) there are semantic rules for the application of aes- thetic terms. For (i), "graceful" just means "has such-and-such structural features." For (ii), structural descriptions are sometimes enough logically to insure the applicability of an aesthetic term (although they are never neces-

sary)-the description of an aesthetic feature is true (conceptually) of the artwork if certain structural features are present. For (iii), reasons given for

ascribing an aesthetic feature do not reflect a conceptual connection but re- veal the cause for the judgments. So "reasons" from (a) to (b) are explana- tions that reveal the source of the aesthetic feature, and such judgments, not

being conceptually governed, cannot be made without the exercise of taste.

Any nonaesthetic feature or features cited in such reasons can, in other art-

works, fail to be supportive of the aesthetic feature. However, there are some judgments that do not require the exercise of taste because they are

conceptually governed by negative conditions. There is a meaning connec- tion that logically precludes certain aesthetic features, given certain struc- tural features. For example, as a matter of semantics, it is impossible for a line that is thick, short, broken, and rough to be graceful. Sibley defends

(iii). This model for critical judgments has much to recommend it. It stresses

the perceptual nature of aesthetic features. Critical evaluations, c-judg- ments, are backed up by reasons directed to b-features; and for any reason- able person such reasons, if true, plausibly support c-judgments. The ac- count explains why any reasonable person, so long as that person has the

requisite language skills, taste, and contextual knowledge, can come to see that the artwork has aesthetic features. On this model, critical evaluation in- creases to some extent our understanding of the artwork. And the value of art is plausibly connected to the pleasure attending aesthetic features.

But I believe the model has serious failings. I will focus on two. First, there are shortcomings to the accounts given for the relationship between aesthetic and structural features. For (i), there is the challenge of producing any definition for aesthetic terms that is extensionally adequate. Contra (ii), structural features cannot guarantee gracefulness or any other aesthetic fea- ture unless they reflect analytic conditional statements. Lacking appeal to a

conceptual grounding, (iii), relies on the judgment of the optimal perceiver

16 James D. Carney

for the correct ascription of an aesthetic feature to an artwork. If the ascrip- tion of an aesthetic feature appeals merely to the structural features of an artwork in, or not in, some historical context, then it is difficult to see how such judgments can be immunized from subjectivity and the exercise of taste.9

Second, formalism seems to be the underpinning of the popular model.10 The model supposes that the sole or primary justification for the worth of an artwork is the experience engendered by attention to formal features. Artistic value includes the pleasure that comes from reflecting on features such as unity and balance, but it is doubtful that it depends exclusively on such experiences. The value of artworks lies as much in cognitive, vision-

ary, and social aspects as it does in the pleasurability of reflecting on formal features. Finally, any orientation toward formalism has trouble explaining the relation between interpreting an artwork and evaluating an artwork.

I next turn to a type-relative model for art criticism. I hope I can make a

plausible case that it is better directed to the normative principles of art criticism than is the model just reviewed, its principal rival. Before present- ing the model, I will discuss some of the ideas that underpin it, although I will not make any sustained attempt to argue for them.

Art Style To understand an artwork and find it valuable is to experience something that is in some way found to be worthwhile. In other places I have argued that considerations governing the individuality of artworks are best looked at as historical.1 Historical contextual factors such as style, category, pe- riod, and the like, affect both the status of something as art and the aesthetic features of an artwork in ways to be explained in this essay. I am in com-

plete agreement with Monroe Beardsley when he wrote, "The first thing re-

quired to make criticism possible is an object to be criticized-something for the critic to interpret and to judge, with its own properties against which

interpretations and judgments can be checked."12 Artworks exist as indi- viduals and can be distinguished from interpretations of them and judg- ments about them in a historical manner that makes use of art style.

On Sibley's model, aesthetic features are identified with value features such as tranquility, strength, or muted melancholy. There are, however, fea- tures of artworks that are neither aesthetic features in the value sense nor

descriptive or structural features. I will call them primary aesthetic features. What I have in mind are the representational, expressive, or exemplified features that a visual artwork can have. These features of a visual artwork are what the perceiver with a proper background-one who is aware of the

appropriate style-can see in the structured object by the exercise of under-

standing. Primary aesthetic features of an artwork depend on when it was made and the style to which it belongs as well as the visual color-shape

Theory of Art Criticism 17

structure made by the artist. Primary aesthetic features of an artwork are

supervenient on its intrinsic features viewed relative to the appropriate sty- listic category. For example, the ostensible structural features of a Brice Marden painting such as Summer Table (1972)-three rectangular panels, each with a different single color-cause it to look superficially very much like some painting by Ellsworth Kelly-for example, his Hard-edge Four Panels (1964), consisting of four identically shaped single-colored surfaces.

Why do we perceive the former as having expressive features, but not the latter? Because Marsden was heir to the Expressionists, especially Bamett Newman and Mark Rothko. His paintings are not to be understood in terms of technical aspects or simply as collections of flat, unmodulated colors and

shapes but in terms of something to which the spectator will react subjec- tively. Kelly, on the other hand, is working in a Hard-edge style where abstractions are stripped of all perspective, narrative, association, and,

especially, emotional content. In the next section I present a model for type-relative art criticism for vi-

sual artworks that makes use of the notion of art style. I believe type is best understood as style. 'Type,' like 'category,' is used to cover such things as art forms (paintings, music, literature, and so on), genre within an art form

(for paintings, for example, landscapes, portraits, still life, and so on), and media (oils, watercolors, pastels, and so on). I have trouble with the notion of ranking a particular painting relative to all other paintings, or a land-

scape or still life relative to all other landscapes or still lifes, for reasons that will become clear. A Minimalist painting meets standards such as signifi- cant form, which are deeply connected with "art for art's sake" but do not

apply to Conceptual artworks which are oriented around art as idea.

Equally, and for similar reasons, I have trouble with the notion of ranking a

particular painting relative to all other oils or all other portraits. There are individual styles (e.g., Matisse's Fauvism), art styles of particu-

lar historical periods (e.g., Fauvism or Photorealism), art styles of large or small regions (e.g., German Expressionism or the Barbizon style). I do not take genre-landscape, portrait, still life-as style, nor do I take media-

watercolors, oils, pastels-as style. I take the style of an artwork to consist of those features of the form and content of the work that are characteristic of artist, period, place, or school. Such characteristic style features cut across the form/content distinction. A style feature of Fauvism is the use of bright, primary colors for expressive purposes. A style feature of Suprematism is the use of colored geometric forms for representing gravitation-free objects in absolute space. A style feature of trompe l'oeil art is the production of a

picture that affords a visual experience similar to the experience of seeing what is depicted. A style feature of Minimalist art is the use of colored geo- metric forms to achieve well-developed formal structure. Style features of the portraits of J. A. D. Ingres include superlative draughtsmanship, clarity,

18 James D. Carney

and immediacy. Almost all artworks exhibit an individual style, and most artworks exhibit one or more general styles. Style accounts, both individual and general, are hypothetical posits, that is, best explanations by informed art historians. The art historian to a large extent discovers stylistic features

by looking to such things as the artist's aims and goals, what the artist puts in the work (its ostensive descriptive features), the relation of the work to

past and even future styles, and the relation of the work to its culture.

The Style-relative Model of Art Criticism

In setting out the model for art criticism I will make use of an actual ex-

ample: W. I. Homer and L. Goodrich's critical account of Albert Pinkham

Ryder's 1885 painting Jonah (figure 1).13 The model is for evaluating a par- ticular visual artwork relative to an individual style. Evaluation often oc- curs for groups of artworks. For example, the judgment is made that Andre Derain produced Fauvist works of breathtaking originality and virtuosity that exceeded those of other Fauvists. As long as such cases can be under- stood as evaluations relative to some style or other, they can be accommo- dated by extending the model in obvious ways. The model is set out as a

sequential process made up of seven differentiated steps, though to some extent the steps overlap at several points, and sometimes a different order can be followed.

Fig. 1. Jonah (ca. 1885), by Albert Pinkham Ryder (American, 1847-1917). Oil on can- vas, 27 1/4 x 34 3/8". National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Gift of John Gellatly.

Theory of Art Criticism 19

An Art-Critical Model

Step One: Locate the Style To locate the individual style exhibited by an artwork is to distill from the art-historical context characteristic features upon which art content de-

pends. Ryder presents a case similar to that of William Blake, where though one can trace various influences that former schools and movements had on him, his eccentric isolation seems to preclude classifying his output into any general style category. Nevertheless, Ryder had an individual style that it- self came to be seen as revolutionary, a forerunner of Expressionism and Surrealism. Homer and Goodrich provide a relatively full account of

Ryder's style, which includes a reduction of all the elements to an almost abstract simplicity; legendary and mythological motifs; a dark, lustrous

glow of the paintings; often yellow lighting, producing an effect of haunt-

ing intensity. Here is a summary section where the emphasis is on charac- teristic formal elements:

To summarize, Ryder's paintings represent an integrated unity of for- mal elements, an integration, however, that is found on several levels. For him, formal balance in a two-dimensional sense, involving the unifying of figure and ground, was combined with tonal control and harmony which was complementary of his design. The unity of Ryder's works was further enhanced by his choice of an essentially simple vocabulary, a minimum number of shapes and tones which he related to each other in a comprehensible way. In addition to these elements, Ryder's color, like that of the Old Masters, essentially embellished and enriched an underlying tonal framework.14

Step Two: Descriptive Features and Structures

Make an inventory of the ostensibly descriptive features and structures. For

Jonah, there are the actual colors, shapes, arrangements, textures, and so on.15 Descriptive features include the character of brush strokes (short and

rapid in Ryder's case), the thickness of the paint, whether portions of the canvas are left unpainted, and so on. A close scrutiny of the descriptive fea- tures of Jonah will reveal such things as a low-keyed tonality; few high- lights; glazes and thick layering; crude draftsmanship; confident, not hesi-

tant, brush strokes; a minimum number of shapes; and bold, highly simplified forms. Which descriptive features or structures are salient for

Jonah is largely determined by knowledge of Ryder's style.

Step Three: Primary Aesthetic Features

Make an inventory of the primary aesthetic features. As indicated earlier, I take primary aesthetic features to be the non-value features that supervene on a base made up of a structured object plus extrinsic relational style prop- erties. They can be conveniently sorted as representational, expressive, and

exemplified features.16 The primary aesthetic features of Jonah are features

20 James D. Carney

that anyone or almost anyone acquainted with the style can see or be aware of in looking at Jonah. Seeing these features does not require the exercise of

taste, but it does require the exercise of knowledge. A knowledgeable viewer of Jonah is likely to produce an inventory of primary aesthetic fea- tures that includes the following: highly simplified forms; representation of storm-tossed boat on a choppy sea, shrouded in shadows and lit only by the

moonlight; Jonah flailing about in the water while a menacing whale ap- proaches with bulging eyes, staring fiercely at the helpless mortal; expres- sion of helplessness and terror in an intensely subjective and mystical way.

Step Four: Value Features

Inventory the value features, the normative aesthetic features. Value fea- tures supervene on a base made up centrally, though not exhaustively, of

primary aesthetic features. I am suggesting that there are multiple levels of

supervenience, and value features make up the second level. Examples of value features of Jonah are indicated in such comments by Homer and Goodrich as "a harmony of design and glow of inner radiance" achieved

through the relation of the central figures to both background and fore-

ground; "representation of stormed-tossed boat on a choppy sea... con-

veys the artist's feelings about the Old Testament story in a compelling visual form"; "strange, yellowish lighting, producing an effect of haunting intensity."

Value features encompass aspects of both form and content. In the

Ryder, included with unified and harmonious design, inner glow of radi-

ance, and compelling visual form are also features such as "testifying to God's omnipotence in human affairs" and "speaking eloquently of this mo- mentous episode that terrifies Jonah." Value features extend far beyond for- mal features because pleasure is not itself an adequate account of aesthetic value. The experience of an artwork can be valuable in a variety of ways, for

example, the pleasure taken in one's perception of compositional structure

(Rubens's Deposition); the experience of the horrors of war (Picasso's Guernica); the experience of sadness and extreme loneliness (Van Gogh's Wheat Field with Crows); and understanding the treatment of women as

objects (Manet's Olympia). How do the primary aesthetic features constitute conditions for such

things as unified and harmonious design, speaking eloquently of God's om-

nipotence, inner glow of radiance, compelling visual form, and haunting in-

tensity? In general terms I am in agreement with the view of Kendall Walton and others that value features present in an artwork are to be per- ceived in it when it is perceived correctly.17 What this account does not suf-

ficiently emphasize is how taste and subjectivity in the ascription of value features are reduced to a minimum because of the role that style plays.

First, the style exhibited in a work of art generates what are to be taken

Theory of Art Criticism 21

as the appropriate kinds of value features (interpretation yields the particu- lar value features). Value features ineliminably involve the style appropri- ate for the artwork. Style and the goals of a style both generate and limit the set of appropriate kinds of value features, and for some value features, such as unity, they provide standards.18 In the case of Jonah, the ideals of the

style are fulfilled by value features such as harmonious design, inner glow of radiance, compelling visual forms, and haunting intensity. There are con- ditions for successfully realizing a style, and when this happens, value fea- tures are commonly the result. Not all paintings in a style are successful re- alizations of the ideals of the style; like most artists, Ryder from time to time

painted pictures with little in the way of value features.

Second, styles generate different sets of value features. For example, ap- propriate value features for Max Beckmann's artworks include almost none of those appropriate for Ryder; rather, among others, features relating to the effective expression of the ideas, longings, fears, and ecstasies of the cul- tivated social consciousness in prewar Germany make the list. Grandness of

design is appropriate for the grand historical paintings of John Trumbull, but not for the works of Ryder. Gracefulness is also not appropriate for

Ryder. Energy is appropriate for Ryder but not for most American genre painters popular in the mid-1880s. None of the value features associated with the style of Ingres-immaculate line, clarity and immediacy, and subtle nuances of color and light-is appropriate for Ryder's style.

Third, tastes play an irreducible but hardly a dominant role in recogniz- ing or judging when an artwork has a value feature. The central condition for an artwork's having a value feature is whether or not the artwork real- izes the aims and goals of the style. And it is not uncommon for the tastes of

perceivers who have knowledge of the specific historical context of the art- work in question to be shaped and influenced by the style of the art object. Someone with knowledge of the historical context of Ryder's artworks has little trouble distinguishing which of Ryder's paintings have and which do not have features like harmonious design; in the same way such an expert generally has no trouble detecting forgeries. For a time in the 1920s and

1930s, Ryder connoisseurship was in a primitive state, and his works were

heavily forged. Ryder may be the most faked American artist, with an esti- mated five times as many forgeries as genuine works. So many went unde- tected that forgers copied each other. Today, after a reasonably short study of Ryder, a normally perceptive person can detect imitations of Ryder's style, imitations that show little understanding of his ways of working out a

design and achieving a visionary narration.

Fourth, tastes are minimized since how value features are achieved is

ineliminably intertwined with style payoff. Homer and Goodrich, in the

passage below, exercise properly backgrounded judgment and provide some information on how certain value features, such as having life, con-

22 James D. Carney

taining flowing rhythms, having beautifully interlocked shapes and colors and harmonious composition, are achieved in Jonah.

Ryder's sweeping curvilinear design and sharp contrasts of light and shade bring the entire surface of the canvas to life. These moving, swelling rhythms, rising and building upon each other, are further ar- ticulated by Ryder's active brushwork, which corresponds to the flowing rhythms of the sea. Because these strokes are heavily built up on the surface of the painting, they become a tactile equivalent of the waves themselves. Yet all of this turmoil is brought under formal con- trol, for patterns of light and shade are beautifully interlocked to form a harmonious composition that works effectively in two dimensions, with only a suggestion of space offered by the overlapping forms, stacked vertically from top to bottom.19

Step Five: Low-level Interpretation Give the low-level interpretation for the artwork. The meaning or content of the artwork that is little more than an account of visible subject matter based on the earlier steps is what I am calling a low-level interpretation. Low-level interpretations are about the primary aesthetic features. What the

properly backgrounded perceiver sees in Jonah is expressed in a low-level

interpretation. On this level a plurality of elements may get selected, but there is nothing to debate about. Homer and Goodrich provide a low-level

interpretation of Jonah along these lines: Fierce storm in which a wildly tilted and bent boat contains some wide-eyed, terrorized inhabitants. Just below the boat, Jonah flails about in the water. A menacing whale ap- proaches from the right, staring at the helpless Jonah. In the upper part of the painting, surrounded by radiant golden clouds, God is shown as a bearded old man offering a gesture of benediction but unconcerned with the dramatic turmoil He has initiated below.

Step Six: High-level Interpretation Give a high-level interpretation of the artwork. A low-level interpretation of Jonah is the one that almost everyone acquainted with the style would

agree to. Typically, however, the aim or goal of interpretation is to bring to bear current values in such a way as to generate a reading that goes beyond what properly backgrounded perceivers would agree to and that suggests some significant art content. Such interpretations I call high-level readings. The aim and goal of high-level interpretations is to bring together what is

reportable in low-level interpretations-along with such things as the artist's oeuvre, declarations made by the artist, and the function of the art- work in the historical context-in such a manner as to maximize the aes- thetic value of the artwork for the contemporary audience.20 For many art historians today, artworks are value as agents in social, political, and ideo-

logical change, with the result that the function of the artwork in the culture

Theory of Art Criticism 23

of the time is given paramount importance in interpretations. The ideal of

high-level interpretations explains why, once such an interpretation has been provided, the business of evaluation-making a verdict-seems

superfluous. Homer and Goodrich offer this high-level interpretation of Jonah, consis-

tent with the current emphasis by art historians on the social and ideologi- cal importance of an artwork:

Ryder's Jonah testifies to God's omnipotence in human affairs, reaf-

firming his active presence in the nineteenth century, an age increas-

ingly threatened by materialism and a host of secular concerns. Jonah bears witness less to a particular theological creed than to the general value of spirituality; this is expressed not only in the specific narra- tive subject from the Bible, but also in the cosmic, otherworldly visual

language that Ryder chose as a medium for his ideas. Seen in a larger context, Jonah belongs to the international resurgence of interest in

things spiritual and immaterial that reached its apex in the 1890s. It is hard to say just how conscious of this development Ryder may have

been, but nevertheless in Jonah he belonged to his time.21

A high-level interpretation such as this one expresses the aesthetic value of the artwork. Jonah is valuable because of the cognitive or visionary expan- sion it affords.

Step Seven: Critical Judgment

Having carried out the preliminary tasks, make a critical judgment of the artwork that is supported by value features expressed in the high-level in-

terpretation. One can judge that an artwork has (or lacks) aesthetic value to some degree, or that one artwork has more (or less) value than another, when reasons are directed to the value features found in the interpretation. Judging a work on this model implicitly involves giving it a rank relative to other works in a style, in that the particular work is judged to have merit if it is an effective instance of the value features of the style.

Homer and Goodrich make the judgment that Jonah is Ryder's "greatest masterpiece." This concurs with the judgment of art historian Abraham

Davidson, whom they cite and who writes that there is "nothing in nine-

teenth-century American painting that can be called visionary, in the mysti- cal dreamlike sense, that contains at the same time as much awesome gran- deur."22 In step seven the critical judgment of Jonah is about not its historical or functional value, but its aesthetic value, with value features such as "visionary, in the mystical dreamlike sense, that contains at the same time as much awesome grandeur" being supportive of the judgment.

24 James D. Carney

Some Final Comments

First, the model is for evaluating a particular visual artwork relative to an individual style. Evaluation often occurs for groups of artworks. The oeuvre of an artist often gets ranked relative to some general style. Sometimes the works of different artists working in different styles are ranked. In these cases we can distinguish ranking across overlapping styles or styles sub- sumed by an overarching style, from ranking across nonoverlapping styles. The former can be accommodated by a compound version of the model, but the latter raises the problems discussed briefly below.

Second, ranking an artwork highly in relation to style does not insure the artwork's aesthetic value, if the style itself falls short of producing value features that can stand comparison with humanly enriching styles. An art- work can rank at the top in relation to a style, and yet that style itself may be one that repeatedly results in monotonous and crudely sentimental art- works that are incapable of producing human enrichment and may even be

counterproductive of such an end. Consequently, the presence of the value features of a style-the ideals of the style-does not ineluctably signal aes- thetic value in an artwork. The paintings of the early Cubist Braque are not

aesthetically valuable paintings, even though his L'Estaque paintings are

historically valuable since they encapsulate characteristic features of early Analytic Cubism.23 Louis Icart's depictions of fashionable young women in

languid, erotic poses attended by borzois and poodles are exemplars of Art

Deco, yet they are usually regarded negatively even by those familiar with his style and with Art Deco because their sentimentality and commercial- ism bordering on kitsch. An artwork can be a powerful, innovative, harmo- nious realization of the aims and goals of a style, be replete with value fea- tures relative to some style, and yet the style itself can be wanting as a

provider of human enrichment. Art critics and art historians often take for granted that an entrenched

style is aesthetically valuable. But this practice does not preclude the rea-

sonability of raising the question of the aesthetic value of styles such as

Ryder's or general styles such as early Analytic Cubism, Art Deco, and Pop relative to other selected historical styles.24 Individual artworks, groups of

artworks, and styles, genres, art forms, and any of the elements in art are valued aesthetically in terms of enriching human experience. Art, as endur-

ing and universal practice, is ultimately explainable in the same way. Most art styles are aesthetically valuable for a variety of reasons. Consider Hudson River art and ideal images of what the American West should look

like; Fauvism and how the artists felt toward their subject matter;

Suprematism and the fascination of figuring it out; and trompe l'oeil art and the joy of imitation. Consider also Academic art and its potential to bring historical episodes to life for the spectator. For example, Gerome's Thumbs Down is a meticulously researched painting in French Academic style that

Theory of Art Criticism 25

allows a viewer with some knowledge of Roman times to experience a

sports event in the Coliseum in "the theater of the mind." Ryder-styled paintings are valued because of the artist's skill in conveying dreamlike nar- rations of literature, music, and religion in visual form. German Expression- ism is valued for effectively expressing an intentional state, the content of which is life's suffering and despair.

Third, the historical context of many artworks-for example, religious paintings in the Middle Ages and artworks in other cultures-made it clear that they were to be experienced in functional and not in aesthetic ways. How can contemporary spectators be properly prepared to find aesthetic value in such works? An artwork does not have to be intended by its artist to have aesthetic value, nor need its immediate audience find it to possess aesthetic value, in order for spectators over time to discover it to have aes- thetic appeal. Spectators are able to experience aesthetic value in artworks that were meant to be understood differently. What is minimally required is that the pleasure or enrichment derived from the artwork be bound to the work's individuality. The individuality of an artwork is best considered his-

torically. Spectators do not experience the object randomly but as an artist- created structure relative to its historical context. Insofar as the magnitude of the experience had with an artwork is to be a measure of the work's

value, it is only required that the experience be of the artwork.

Fourth, there is the common intuition that there are some basic value features that cut across styles and that we may use to judge artworks. For

example, from a formalist perspective Beardsley claims that there are three

general and basic value features in art-unity, complexity, and intensity- that are always supportive of a positive verdict.25 If it is plausible that there are some general value features, such as possessing unity or having coher-

ence, this does not imply that what makes for unity in a specific category or art form is what makes for unity in any artwork.26 However, the claim that

unity is a general feature of value relative to only a particular category or art form faces the following objection: If the application of some general value feature F is relative only to some art category or art form, then we are left with a concept of F so anemic and shallow that it ceases to be interesting or useful as a general value-conferring feature. For example, if what makes for unity is relative to shifting art forms, then it is not clear that 'unity,' used

generally, has any use other than simply expressing approval of something. There are reasons to doubt that any value feature can be a useful general

criterion. Consider unity, the feature most often suggested for this role.

First, almost anything can have unity, so until we know what aesthetic

unity is, it is unclear that unity always supports a positive verdict. Second, artworks can in fact have a unity that is not meritorious. For example, a

painting may be unified in that it promotes National Socialist ideas of de- cent and good art. Third, the lack of unity can, in some cases, be productive

26 James D. Carney

of aesthetic value. Art history offers many counterexamples to the theory that unity, understood in some robust way, is a value feature in all or most artworks. Consider Picasso's Demoiselles. Critics and artists alike at first re- acted negatively to the painting, typically for the reason that the obvious inconsistencies of style made it an unsatisfactory painting. In the sixties Clement Greenberg said of the painting that "superb as it is it lacks cohe- sive unity."27 Here it seems that unity is tagged to inconsistency of style. Critics today-for example, Leo Steinberg-claim that the discontinuity of the picture, its "chaos" (and that of many later works of Picasso), is respon- sible for its "breath of life" and "power and inventive genius."28 Here the picture's disunity is a reason for a favorable verdict. Finally, unity is like resemblance in being a context-sensitive notion. There is of course a some- what pale general concept of unity as the state of being a whole, but it is too weak to be of interest or use as a general value-conferring feature that is valid across styles. The various standards for unity depend on context. In visual art at least, unity is frequently achieved simply through consistency of style. Relative to a standard such as consistency of style, unity is some- times a plus, but sometimes it is a minus, as in much of Art Deco, most American Regionalism, almost all National Socialist Realism, or in the indi- vidual style of the English Academic artist James Tiscot. To repeat an earlier claim, an artwork can be a powerful, unified, innovative, intense, complex realization of a style, be replete with aesthetic features, and yet exhibit a style that is not conducive to enriching human experience.

Fifth, it is the practice of critics to rank artworks across styles. For ex-

ample, Feldman, whose general approach to art criticism bears some simi- larities to my model, describes and endorses an account of critical theory where "judging an individual artwork means giving it a rank in relation to other works of its type" and where judgments are preceded by stages that include description and interpretation. For Feldman "works of its type" is understood as relating the work in question to "the widest possible range of comparable works" and "comparison with the best works of the past."29 Feldman allows for judging the comparative merit of a portrait with all the best portraits of the past. Thus in judging Max Beckmann's Self-Portrait in a Tuxedo (1927), he compares it with Agnolo Bronzino's Portrait of a Young Man (1535). "The harshly manipulated planes in the Beckmann become a vehicle of aesthetic expressiveness much like the flawless surface of the Bronzino. Which means that the Beckmann is as good as the Bronzino."30 Feldman here does not look to any of the value features tethered to Beckmann's individual or general style. Rather, implicit appeal is made to a general function: aesthetic expressiveness. I do not wish to deny that critics often rank artworks across non-overlapping styles. Nevertheless, I find this practice falling short of normative principles of art criticism, unless it is an oblique way of ranking styles. Feldman in his book considers the following

Theory of Art Criticism 27

six oil paintings, each one of a woman or two women: Chuck Close's Susan

(1971), where, in imitating the camera, Close even put the ears and neck out of focus; Willem de Kooning's Two Women (1952), with multicolored torsos that destroy the women's personalities; Philip Pearlstein's Two Seated Models

(1968), an almost photographic rendering of anonymous, soulless flesh; Chaim Soutine's The Madwomen (1920), where twisted contours and convul- sive brushwork enlist our sympathy for the subjects; Richard Linder's Hello

(1966), a space-age rendering of a fearful Amazonian creature; and Max Beckmann's Columbine (1950), an antifeminine fertility image of a so-called "shameless" woman. Since I claim that general styles are in theory rankable on the criterion of aesthetic value as human enrichment, a critic's ranking one of these paintings as more valuable could be understood as an oblique claim for the comparative merit of a style and thus of the particular picture or any picture that meets the standards implied by the style. It seems that critics hardly ever make such claims. Each of these paintings meets stan- dards implied by its style that do not apply to other styles. If one chooses to rank individual artworks in different general styles, as Feldman does with the Beckmann and Bronzino portraits-e.g., Linder's painting is better or worse than Close's-then a more straightforward way of making the claim would be an appeal to a general (vague, perhaps descriptively shallow or

empty) feature with all the hazards such a practice entails.

NOTES

1. Edmund Burke Feldman, Varieties of Visual Experience, 3d ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1987), p. 471.

2. Ibid., p. 487. 3. Historical value includes simple historical interest (the artwork as a frame of its

time) and art-historical interest (anticipation, originality, and influence). Func- tional value includes the various religious and political functions art has served. The serious question of objectivity derives from art criticism directed to the aesthetic value, not the historical or functional value of an artwork.

4. See Jerrold Levinson, "Pleasure and the Value of Works of Art," British Journal of Aesthetics 32, no. 4 (October 1992): 295-306. Various ways have been suggested for justifying claims about aesthetic value. I take my claim to be a generalization of what people find valuable in looking at an artwork and not constitutive of the concept of art.

5. Richard Schusterman argues for a plurality of critical practices in "Evaluative Reasoning in Criticism," Ratio 23, no. 2 (1981): 141-57. He seemingly supposes that no mode of criticism has any claim to being superior to other modes of criti- cism. In contrast, my primary aim is to argue that in style-relativized criticism, art criticism best achieves the goal of objectivity.

6. John A. Stinespring draws this very conclusion in "Discipline-Based Art Educa- tion and Art Criticism," Journal of Aesthetic Education 26, no. 3 (Fall 1992): 106-12.

7. See Frank Sibley, "Aesthetic Concepts," Philosophical Review 68, no. 4 (1959): 421- 50, "Aesthetic and Nonaesthetic," Philosophical Review 74, no. 2 (1965): 135-59, and "General Criteria in Aesthetics," in Essays on Aesthetics, ed. John Fisher (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983).

28 James D. Carney 8. Jerrold Levinson sheds considerable light on these four accounts of the relation

in his "Aesthetic Supervenience," in his Music, Art, & Metaphysics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Comell University Press, 1990), pp. 134-78.

9. As Alan Goldman has stressed, there can be irreconcilable differences in ascrib- ing aesthetic features, where the only explanation is differences in subjective re- actions. "Irreconcilable differences in taste imply that ascriptions of aesthetic properties such as gracefulness or garishness will differ in regard to the same artworks, therefore, when objective properties remain constant." Review of Levinson's Music, Art, & Metaphysics, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 50, no. 4 (Fall 1992): 328. Also see his "Aesthetic Qualities and Aesthetic Value," Journal of Philosophy 87, no. 1 (1990): 23-37. Goldman recently, in "Art-Historical Value" (The British Journal of Aesthetics 33, no. 1 Uanuary 1993]: 17-28) endorsed a view similar to that of this article. Critical judgments to a large extent can be immu- nized from differences in tastes by relativizing aesthetic features to particular styles.

10. The formalism implicit in the popular account of aesthetic features shows up in the features that get inductively enumerated in explaining aesthetic features; for example, this list from Sibley's "Aesthetic Concepts," p. 124: unified, balanced, integrated, lifeless, serene, somber, dynamic, powerful, vivid, delicate, moving, trite, sentimental, tragic.

11. James D. Carey, "Style Theory of Art," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 27, no. 4 (1991): 272-89, and "Defining Art Externally," British Journal of Aesthetics (forth- coming).

12. Monroe C. Beardsley, The Possibility of Criticism (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1970), p. 16.

13. W. I. Homer and L. Goodrich, Albert Pinkham Ryder: Painter of Dreams (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989).

14. Ibid., pp. 131-32. 15. For any artwork there are limitless descriptive features and structures. The

artwork's style provides guides as to which features or structures are salient. This is not meant to imply that knowledge of one is a precondition for knowl- edge of the other. Like so many things, they lean on each other.

16. Often ascription of primary aesthetic features is mixed with ascription of nor- mative aesthetic features such as immaculate line, subtle nuances of color and light, rich texture, fresh representation, spontaneity of expression, and precise vision. This does not exclude distinguishing them in terms of the different bases they supervene on.

17. "The aesthetic properties it [an artwork] actually possesses are those that are to be found in it when it is perceived correctly." Kendall Walton, "Categories of Art," Philosophical Review 79, no. 3 (1970): 360.

18. Stephen Davies, Noel Carroll, and, recently, Alan Goldman have each expressed ideas along this line. Davies in "Replies to Arguments Suggesting that Critic's Strong Evaluations Could Not Be Soundly Deduced" (Grazer Philosophische Studien 38 [1990]: 174), suggests that if an artwork can be correctly classified with respect to its type, then "criteria for aesthetic value which apply generally to works of that type might allow for the valid deduction of critical evaluations of such works." Noel Carroll also has alluded to this possibility in his "Clive Bell's Aesthetic Hypothesis" in Aesthetics: A Critical Anthology, 2d ed., ed. George Dickie, Richard Sclafani, and Ronald Roblin (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989), pp. 84-95.

19. Homer and Goodrich, Albert Pinkham Ryder, p. 156. 20. Recent defenders of the view that the legitimate aim of interpretations is some

sort of value maximization are Alan H. Goldman, "Interpreting Art and Litera- ture," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 48, no. 3 (1990): 223-30; and Stephen Davies, Definitions of Art (Ithaca, N.Y.: Comell University Press, 1991). Davies, contra Goldman, correctly stresses that the preliminary task of high-level inter- pretations is to make them reflect the historical context-what Michael

Theory of Art Criticism 29

Baxandall calls "patterns of intentions," where intentions are not the actual in- tentions of the artist but a posit of the relationship between a picture and its his- torical circumstances. Patterns of Intentions (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).

21. Homer and Goodrich, Albert Pinkham Ryder, p. 157. 22. Ibid. 23. Some historians now see Braque's paintings during this period as in fact initiat-

ing Analytic Cubism. See William Rubin, "Cezannisme and the Beginning of Cubism," in Cezanne, The Late Work, ed. Rubin (New York: Museum of Modem Art, 1977), pp. 151-202.

24. I have in mind here the question of the relative merit of a style as a style where this question is not itself a style-relative question. For example, raising the ques- tion of merit of Information art, Performance art, Anti-form art relative to Con- ceptual art is a style-relative issue.

25. Monroe C. Beardsley, "The Generality of Critical Reasons," in The Aesthetic Point of View, ed. Michael J. Wreen and Donald M. Callen (Ithaca, N.Y.: Corell Uni- versity Press, 1982), pp. 208-18.

26. Davies, in "Replies to Arguments," stresses this point. 27. Quoted in Leo Steinberg's "The Polemical Part," Art in America (March/April

1979): 123. 28. Ibid., p. 124. 29. Feldman, Varieties, pp. 488-89. 30. Ibid., p. 490.