What makes good art?

We started our discussion with one simple question “What makes good art?” Controversial, yes. Subjective, yes.  But as we have traveled from The Louvre to the Musee d’Orsay, the Musee de Rodin to the Jardin de Luxemburg, I have come up with some simple signs.

1.     It needs to make you think. Good art is complex in a sense. There are subtle details that create a story inside a frame. We had to do an assignment to consider good art. The assignment: look at a painting for 30 minutes. That’s right. One painting, thirty minutes. And if you could find a story, feel the artist, pick up on more and more of the subtle details within that time, then you would have a good clue that you were looking at good art. Luckily, I was able to find “Le Lecture” and “Jeunes Filles au Piano.” Both Renoir, and both, in my opinion, excellent examples of good work. The brushstrokes come to life as the girls’ hair looks as soft as silk and their cheeks rosy with color. The pastel colors naturally make you happy, as they follow one of Renoir’s strictest values that “there are enough disagreeable things in life for us not to make any more of them.” Indeed, these paintings are magical as they show the two sisters working together.
2. There needs to be some sort of message behind the paintings- specifically by illustrating a social injustice that calls upon the public to act.
3. It encapsulates a historical moment that will be preserved for the public to learn about and learn from.