Is it valid to make distinctions between ‘high’ and’ low’ or ‘popular art? Essay

What purposes do these categories serve? At one time most people would have understood , when looking at apiece of art, whether to fit it into the category of high or low art. You looked at such things as the quality of the brushwork, the exactness of the representation. Then paint in tubes was invented the mid 19th century and the Impressionists were in the vanguard of almost instant art. They were rejected at first of course, but now seem to be highly acceptable when one considers the prices that might be paid for works by Renoir or Degas – however blurry the outlines. Is abstract art high art? It is a newer form of course and many are still making up their minds about such artists as Jackson Pollack. And where do you fit the works of modern artists such as Tracy Emin. Few would consider graffiti as art, but cities such as Philadelphia are legitimising the work of graffiti artists by spending public money to promote it. Emin’s unmade bed won the Turner prize. Whatever else it did it certainly did what the artist intended – it shocked. Contemporary art such as this draws huge crowds Perhaps the distinction should rather be between good and bad art, good being art that clearly displays whatever it was the artist intended and the bad that which does not. This division would not depend upon techniques used or the insurance value of a piece, but whether it achieves what it was meant to achieve i. e. whether or no the viewer sees what they were intended to see. Art will always provoke reaction. To judge it on grounds of being either ’high’ or low’ smacks somewhat of elitism – an attitude of ‘What we like is better than what you like’. Meanwhile many would just say ‘I know what I like ’ whether that be Gainsborough or Andy Warhol. Electronic Sources Art and the power to shock, Northern Echo, 25th February 2004 http://archive. thisisthenortheast. co. uk/2004/2/25/60621. html retrieved 28th October 2007 Philadelphia Mural Arts Program found at http://www. muralarts. org/about/ retrieved 28th October 2007/.