Standards for ArtGrok Entries
Defining and describing the character of the artworks that can be exhibited.
www.ArtGrok.org exists to connect viewers with artworks that are the best that artists have made through history. ArtGrok is a guide to artworks that provide emotional strength and spiritual fuel that we need to make real our ideals in life, or at least to give pleasure in the many forms that artworks offer.
In Section I, the guidelines for Thematic Artworks on this site are described. In Section II, the guidelines for Decorative, Experiential, and Product-Design artworks are detailed. (See ArtGrok Intro I and II, and How Art is Organized on ArtGrok, for descriptions of the four categories of Art on this site and the reason for that organization of art.)
SECTION I
Thematic Artworks
There are three rules for thematic artworks admitted to ArtGrok.
Theme:
Only artworks that actually have an identifiable significant theme are admitted. This is why they are called thematic artworks. This theme must be expressed in a perceptual way in the medium of the artwork. In other words, merely making a didactic painting, or moralistic novel that has some ideological point in it, does not make it a genuine thematic artwork. The work has to express the theme (the underlying idea) emotionally, in its medium -- whether it is paint or words or a building or musical notes. The theme can be found in either of two basic features of any good artwork: in the subject (the content, the “what”) of the artwork, or in the style (the method, the “how”) of the artwork -- or even better, in both. See the Chart in ArtGrok Help, called "Themes as a Combination of Style and Content" for added description of how content and style contribute to theme in a thematic artwork.
A theme is a short statement (usually no more than a single thought expressed in a sentence) of the abstract value meaning of an Artwork. For example,
- the theme of Shakespeare’s Hamlet is “Can a man be confident of his judgment about crucially important decisions in his life”, or
- the theme of Michelangelo’s David is “a man is capable of facing up to a daunting life-and-death task”, or
- the theme of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is “life is full of difficulty and tragedy, but joy is possible to humans”, or
- the theme of Hudson/Welland’s film Chariots of Fire is “perseverance in life is heroic, and the key to joy in life”, or
- the theme of Wright’s Johnson Wax Building is “a workplace can be a world of rich beauty”.
If an artwork has no clear theme in either content or style, but is still esthetically pleasing to the senses, then the artwork belongs in one of the other art-type categories: Experiential, Decorative, Product-design. See Section II below, and ArtGrok Intro I and II for descriptions of these categories of art.
The concept of being “esthetically pleasing” normally is used both for thematic (fine) arts, and much farther to encompass all artforms. We consider certain vases or chairs or cars as esthetically pleasing, without needing to include them in the realm of the thematic arts – because they do not exhibit metaphysical values about human life. Such non-thematic arts are not showing a concrete expression of the travails of life as in a Greek play, or the richness of human character as in a great Velasquez portrait, or the destructiveness of jealousy and envy as in Rigoletto by Verdi, or the triumph of the individual great soul over conformity in the unthinking human collective, as in The Fountainhead.
Quality:
Only works that are excellent examples of their respective art form are admitted. This means a clear example of very-good-to-great skills in the medium. Such judgments of excellence of skill are usually easy to perform objectively. If a painting is so visually unclear one cannot make out the subject, or a symphony is so un-melodic and discordant that one cannot hold the musical train of thought, or if the language in a novel is not comprehensible, or stilted -- then the work fails to achieve any excellence that admits it into the class of thematic artwork (or probably any other kind of artwork). There are legitimate differences in judgment about the skills of a work. Consider, for example, that some people reject El Greco's paintings because they frequently violate perspective and accurate human anatomy. Yet many of his works would be enthusiastically accepted at ArtGrok because they fundamentally comply with the standard that their painterly skill successfully communicates a theme and a worldview. In other words, being realistic is not the sole criterion of representational works; more important is whether the artwork expresses a strong theme.
Beautiful, Positive Content vs. Ugly, Offensive Content:
There may be cases of artworks that can meet the first and second standards above – but still are not admitted. If the content is strongly offensive or horror-filled it may be too ugly for the character of this site. This site is committed to thematic artworks that have the potential to inspire or positively affect those who behold them. Works that seek to disgust or create a dominant sense of horror tend to fall outside the goal of this site to provide esthetic experiences that enhance an art viewer's life.
However there are great artworks in history that are horrific and disgusting, and for art historical reasons, would be accepted here. For example:
- Dostoevsky’s The Possessed, or
- Dante’s Inferno, or
- Sophocles Oedipus, or
- the Greco-Roman statue Lacoön, or
- Coppola's The Godfather
would all be acceptable, despite their dark themes and aspects of horror. For Counterexample:
- Lucian Freud's Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, (a painting of a grotesquely overweight woman nude on a couch). While it clearly has a subject and a style that makes it eligible as a thematic artwork, it is such a pile of ugliness that it would not be a beneficial example of great art on ArtGrok.
- (Counter-counterexample: Freud's Girl with a White Dog, while unpleasant in some ways, is something that could be accepted on ArtGrok if a clear theme can be stated about the work.)
There will be borderline cases as well -- those works that either stir up strong conflicts of analysis from different contributors, or those works that push the limits of offensiveness. Ultimately, the site moderators intend to be classically liberal in giving the benefit of a doubt towards showing a work, if it might be reasonably included. But the decisions are ultimately those of the moderators of each art-category.
The artworks chosen for ArtGrok are intended to provide emotional support for a happy life, even if such artworks are sometimes tragic or painful or upsetting. Aristotle made this point in Chapter 6 of his Poetics -- that works can make you feel fear and trembling and anxiety, but it must be for a good end – to clarify your mind and your emotions, and help you see your way to living a good life.
SECTION II
Decorative Arts
Product Design Arts
Experiential Arts (non-thematic fine arts and popular arts)
There are three rules for these three categories of Artworks admitted to ArtGrok.
These three art categories (Decorative, Product-Design and Experiential Arts) use a different first standard. All three categories are distinct from the thematic arts because none of them employ emotional thematic effects. They do not have any significant themes expressing ideas about the nature of the world and human life. Instead they focus on classical esthetic pleasurable perceptual effects.
Originality and Ingenuity:
Works that display a strong concept that combines exceptional composition, textures, colors, materials, or have an excellent integration of form and function, or is ingenious in some respect in the history of the artform. These will be admitted to ArtGrok.
If they are non-representational works (decorative, product design, and some experiential works) then ingenious or original abstract design or forms can add strongly to the value of the artwork, to provide a unique visual or aural, etc. experience. See for example:- System of Architectural Ornament by Louis Sullivan in Experiential>Visual Arts>Drawing, or
- Green Fabric by Fortuny in Decorative Arts>Textiles, or
- Composition with Red Yellow Blue Black by Mondrian in Decorative Arts>Objet d'arte>2D panels. If evaluating representational artworks, then ingenious or original content can add strongly to the value of the artwork. See for example:
- Staircase Group by Peale in Experiential>Illustrations-paintings, or
- Diana by Saint-Gaudens in Experiential>Sculptural, or
- Octopus by Schaefer in Decorative Arts>Glass>ArtGlass.
Quality:
In the same way as the thematic arts, only works that are excellent examples of their respective art form are admitted. This means a clear example of very-good-to-great skills in the medium. Such judgments of excellence of skill are generally easy to perform objectively. If a painting is so visually unclear one cannot make out the subject, or a symphony is so un-melodic and discordant that one cannot hold the musical train of thought, or if the language in a novel is not comprehensible or stilted, or the execution of the object is full of flaws or crude indications of poor craft skills, then it fails to achieve any excellence that admits it into the one of these artwork categories in ArtGrok.
Beautiful, Positive Content vs. Ugly, Offensive Content:
There may be cases of artworks that can meet the first and second standards above – but still are not admitted. If the content is strongly offensive or horror-filled it may be too ugly for the character of this site. This site is committed to thematic artworks that have the potential to inspire or positively affect those who behold them. Works that seek to disgust or create a dominant sense of horror tend to fall outside the goal of this site to provide esthetic experiences that enhance an art viewer's life. Even more so than in the Thematic arts, the decorative, experiential and product-design arts must have a character that makes people feel pleased or come away with delight from such works -- rather than a sense of horror or disgust. Unlike the thematic arts, there is even less purpose to have deliberate ugliness and disgusting design in decorative works, product design works, and popular art forms. Since these artforms primarily exist to provide sensuous, perceptual pleasure in one form or another, chaotic design aspects and resulting ugliness perceptually doesn’t suit the conception of these artforms on ArtGrok.
Good Examples: See the works already shown on ArtGrok under these three Art categories, and cited above in rule 2.
Counterexamples: Dejeuner sur l'Herbe by Picasso is a three-dimensional work that would not be acceptable in the Experiential section of ArtGrok (and certainly not in the thematic arts section), since its vaguely human male form is so stick-figure and crude in its outlines, that it exhibits none of the skills of great artistry. Similarly, Composition VII by Kandinsky would not be acceptable in the Decorative or Experiential sections (and it has no possibility of being in the Thematic painting section of the site) since it exhibits such a incoherent mess of shapes and colors that not only mean nothing, but which are destructive of a pleasing sensuous human experience. (There are early Kandinsky works that could be admitted to either Thematic or Experiential categories, because they are visually coherent works that have strong stylistic themes, such as Der Blaue Reiter.)
Borderline Cases: There will be works in the various Experiential arts and Decorative Arts that are open to debate whether they are at a high enough level to be included in ArtGrok. These issue will be settled in the normal give and take debate upon submission of a work for inclusion, and by the Discussion tab for each artwork, where contributors can show their perspectives about the work in question.