What is Fine Art?

Fine art is about visual imagery created primarily for an aesthetic purpose

What is Good Fine Art?

For me, Julian Barnes writing in his book ‘Keeping an Eye Open’, best captures how to assess art. He asks does a work of art Interest the eye, excite the brain, cause the mind to reflect and move the heart. My own take on this is that the response to these factors is very personal and that a work of art may be strong in one or more and still be good and a very good piece of art will be strong in all. However, a work that doesn’t stir any of these responses will not be very good. Finally, a piece that is considered strong in all categories by the majority of viewers (not just critics and commentators) is an extraordinarily good piece of art.

How do you categorise and understand Art?

You can try and understand the world of fine art by virtue of the myriad of Movements, Periods and Ism’s usually created after the event by historians, critics and commentators. Albeit this is interesting it is also incomplete, piecemeal and confusing. Add to this the infinite subject matter and endless processes, techniques, tools and materials, you find yourself immersed in a mind-boggling entity. This applies to creators and viewers.

My own approach to understanding all art is to initially ignore Movements and subject matter and techniques and focus on what can be understood about two things; what Stimulated a painting and then what Form does it take. This takes two facets of the psychology of human behaviour (and making art is a behaviour), namely Stimulation and Response. This allows all art to be categorised and compared whether it was made last week or 20,000 years ago anywhere in the world.