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Question of the Month
What Makes A Work Of Art Great?
Each answer below receives a book. Apologies to all the entrants not included.
Great art must score highly on four measures: emotional impact (visual and visceral); technique (masterful and harmonious); concept (relevant or timeless); and originality (of medium, subject, or treatment). There are many ways each of these criteria can be satisfied, both subjectively and objectively, but the media are open-ended. One can build great architecture; paint on canvas or a wall; sculpt wood, rock, or beach; project an image on a building or the Moon; make an installation; stage a happening… The media extend to literature, music, stage, and film. Even engineering is not entirely bound to functionality. A ship, aircraft, or bridge can satisfy all the ‘great art’ criteria, even if stirring emotion was no part of the designer’s intention.
To be art, a work has to be made deliberately by a person (assuming AI art is necessarily derivative), and witnessable in principle by anyone. To have meaning it needs a context wider than its content. An abstract canvas needs a perceptive apparatus. A painting or photograph whose natural subject has been carefully selected owes to the physical setting and human expectations. Does this mean there are boundaries to what anyone should consider art? The way art has developed historically, though decoration, statuary, performance, religious scenes, portraiture and landscapes, to conceptual art – supports this. But boundaries evolve, and then the question is, how far? An entertainment in sixteenth century Paris involved collecting cats in a bag, hoisting them up in a public square, and lighting a fire underneath. Was that art? Emotion stirred ought not be at the expense of anything living. Blowing up a shed can be art; blowing up a building with people in it is not generally considered art. Banksy is the master of street art. His concept is topical comment, his treatment of subjects original, his medium the entire urban environment. He aims to stir an emotion in the viewer. But what of a banana taped to a wall? The concept and technique are original, if deliciously simple. The emotional effect is more comple. Are we to conclude from it that, at base, art is imitating a life that is absurd, pretentious, meaningless, transient? Whatever values one ascribes to them, where great engineering or great philosophy leave a tool, great art leaves an impression.
Nicholas B Taylor, Hove
Works of art can be pleasing, beautiful, life-enhancing, shocking, offensive, and subversive, even dangerous. They may be ephemeral, fleeting, or more lasting, even more or less permanent. They may be carefully crafted or spontaneous, singular (present at only one experience), or endlessly reproducible and repeatable. They may also be variously valued as anything from ‘objectionable’ to ‘great’. The following features, not in any order of importance, may contribute to a work’s greatness:
Impact: Capturing the attention of, and engaging, recipients.
Emotional response: Moving the recipients in some fundamental way – potentially in many different ways: for example, prompting sensations of beauty, love, tragedy, horror, compassion, guilt, transcendence, sublimity, harmony…
Striking a chord: Resonating in some way(s) with the observer’s worldview or feelings.
Depth : Allowing different levels of interpretation and appreciation, of knowledge and understanding, and embodying different (even potentially contradictory) meanings – thus, in a sense, reflecting the complexity of human experience.
Formal structure: Whether or not formal aesthetic devices are used – such as, say, the Golden Mean, Aristotle’s Unities, or conventional symphonic form – the work should have some appreciable structure (even if only apprehended unconsciously by the observer). Formlessness, chaos, or overwhelming discordance, are unlikely to be conducive to greatness in art.
Universality : Attracting, engaging, and being appreciated over time by people of very diverse backgrounds and cultures.
Durability: Although being ephemeral or fleeting don’t preclude the possibility of greatness in a work of art, nonetheless, a work which continues to interest and provide pleasure or satisfaction over time, especially if to people in different contexts and times, may by virtue of that durability be considered great.
Ingredients which qualify for greatness may occur within an otherwise lesser work. Only a few such embedded nuggets may arguably leave a sense of greatness for the whole.
Peter McNaughton, Formby, Merseyside
What constitutes ‘Great Art’? As an expressionist paint artist and gallery volunteer at a world-class art institution (the Detroit Institute of Arts.), I am often intrigued by, and occasionally obsessed with, this question.
First we need to define art. All human behaviors meet some perceived need, at either the conscious or subconscious level. The need to create art represents the need to express the often-powerful states of the inner being. Much like the mind itself, art may be beautiful, ugly, evil, good, ordered, or absurd. Simply put, art – whether paint, clay, words, or music – is energy expelled from the human mind, to be shared with other humans and the world.
But what makes it great? Here there exists a social component, a mere construct. At the gallery where I volunteer, visitors always ask for works by the same ‘great artists’: Monet, Van Gogh, Degas. They seem to never realize that the dusty old work by John or Jane Doe sitting in their attic could be just as wondrous as a self-portrait by Van Gogh. My point is that the fame or cost (often immense) of a work has nothing to do with its greatness. Rather, greatness in a work of art is its correlation with the sublime, meaning it expresses elements of vastness. (It is no coincidence that the Wikipedia essay on the sublime carries a picture of the painting Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich. It is also no coincidence that your magazine carries expressive figurative art on its pages. Thank you). And yes, works by Van Gogh and Degas also portray elements of the sublime – which might be theistic, metaphysical, or mysterious.
Just for the record, the question I’m most asked at the Detroit Institute of Arts is “Where’s the bathroom?”
Tim Strutz, Harrison Township, Michigan
Before identifying great art, I’ll start by dividing artists from artisans. An artisan is a skilled craftsman who can produce items of exceptional quality. A painting by an artisan will be a close replica of a person or a landscape; an artisan writer will accurately describe a situation, or perhaps a philosophical idea. But in both cases there will be no attempt to code any further information within the work. The piece may have artistic merit, but this was not the intention of the creator. In the case of art, an emotion or another aspect of humanity’s condition is encoded deliberately by the artist. A view is expressed on reality and on what it means to be human in this reality. In Van Gogh’s Starry Night paintings we are not seeing a replica of the night sky but an abstract expression that speaks directly to our sense of wonder when we look up on a clear balmy night. In music our spirit can be stirred by either the French horns of Sibelius’s Karelia Suite bringing to mind the vast open snowy wastes of Finland, or an Aboriginal didgeridoo creating images in our mind of Uluru under the soft then blazing red Australian sunrise. In terms of writing, the classic realist novels of the late nineteenth century such as Moby Dick or Middlemarch communicate so much more about the human spirit than their settings of whaling or an English market town might suggest. And the alliteration, metaphors, similes and onomatopoeia of poetry conjure visions, thoughts, and feelings in ways that even the poet cannot imagine.
But what makes great art? Any art that does not create any new ideas (such as AI-generated art), can be immediately classed as bad or mediocre. Admittedly, much art is a reworking of previous ideas; but a good artist will always bring new ideas to the work. This may only contribute a small amount to it, but it creates a new perspective. Moreover, in all good art, the audience is stimulated to bring their own feelings and experiences to the work. So, what distinguishes great art is the combination of the artisan’s technical mastery with the imagination and creativity to create an ever expanding range of intriguing and absorbing ideas, and feelings and thoughts that arise with each new encounter with it.
Philip Brown, Bury St. Edmunds
‘Art’ can be defined as the collection of all possible artworks in any field. A work of art is created by an artist, so it’s also necessary to define what an ‘artist’ is. My definition uses the concept of community, and I distinguish two types: A community of non-expert art lovers who are spontaneously touched by a work of art, and a community of art experts who use technical criteria when judging a work of art. An artist then is a person (or AI) who posits themselves as an artist or is considered as such by at least one of these communities. What, then, makes any work of art great? I consider greatness to be a quantitative variable, and I’ll use our two communities to illustrate this. Members of the community of non-expert art lovers share their thoughts and feelings towards a work of art in the public domain through a multitude of media. The greatness of that work of art is determined here by the amount of shared favourable thoughts and feelings towards that work. The emphasis is on the immediate experience as shared with others, and implies no objective stance towards a work of art. Members of the community of art experts, meanwhile, judge the greatness of an artwork by applying their sets of technical criteria, and make their assessments available in specialist productions in the public domain, such as in art books or art magazines. But the quantification of greatness can also be determined here by the amount of shared favourable judgments. It will be a scientific discipline to work out either quantification. Moreover, as both communities interact in the public domain, they will be able to reinforce or critique each other’s perception of the greatness of a work of art.
Teije Euverman, Rotterdam
The question presumes there are identifiable criteria for greatness. ‘Great’ rather than just ‘good’ also suggests we’re talking about art with symbolic heft and influence, not just aesthetic appeal. Art is so various, from cave paintings to Baroque masterpieces, from sculpture to video, that defining objective, coherent criteria for its greatness would be impossible. Greatness like this is not an abstract universal quality inherent in some artworks but not others. Rather, great art is made, and ultimately mythologised, through the actions of the Art Establishment, which is a sort of ecosystem of opinion-formers in national and private museums and galleries, and includes critics, collectors, curators, academics, and the commercial market. To see how little greatness has to do with the art itself, one only need consider the changing reputations of some artists. Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime. His work was not fashionable, and it certainly wasn’t ‘great’ at first. Turner, Bacon, and Lowry were also dismissed before later being ‘discovered’ and canonised.
The views of the Art Establishment are always selective, and in flux . Linda Nocklin the art historian nailed the politics of greatness in her paper ‘Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?’. One might also ask why is there so few ‘great’ artworks by artists of colour, working class artists, or those working outside the Western European tradition? When it comes to art, greatness is a façade suspended on institutional scaffolding.
This scaffolding is not only ideological, it’s also economic. High auction prices, blockbuster exhibitions, and steep insurance premiums, don’t just reflect an artwork’s importance, they build it. When a painting sells for £80 million, the market isn’t just measuring cultural worth, it’s creating it. Price creates mystique. Cultural symbolism adds another layer – when an artwork is shorthand for something bigger than itself. Being emblematic of Japan, the greatness of Hokusai’s Great Wave grows. But even here greatness is not intrinsic to the artwork, it’s retrofitted. It’s questionable whether we’d be as moved by the Mona Lisa if it were not so famous. So greatness in art is not an inherent quality. It is a contingent consensus. We do not simply experience greatness, we manufacture it.
Mike Nicholson, London
There’s a deeply subjective answer to this question, and a somewhat objective (or more precisely, quantifiable) answer.
Subjectively, I’d say art needs to inspire the mind or, poetically speaking, the heart. A painting may be utterly perfect from the standpoint of its technique, but also ‘cold’, awakening no emotions within a viewer. Another painting may be technically inferior, but still elicit deep feelings. I might add that technique can really only be compared for analogous works: say, two 1970s abstract paintings, or two Renaissance altar pieces. Moreover, an altarpiece might generate deep religious feelings or leave the viewer indifferent, or an abstract work may be viewed simply as an ensemble of geometric lines, or inspire a sense of wonder. And one must also recall that the criteria for a ‘proper’ technique, as defined by art schools or critics, varies, apparently nearly on a daily basis. I’ll add a personal note. I own two recordings of Mozart’s Requiem, both performed by world-renowned orchestras (the Berliner and Wiener Philharmonikers), and both directed by world-renowned conductors (Herbert von Karajan and Riccardo Muti). Given the calibre of the performers, both are technically perfect – but one is somewhat aseptic, while the other definitely conveys the greatness of the mystery of death (I’ll let the reader guess which is which, so as not to attract the ire of either camp!). Returning to the issue of technique, classical music is widely viewed as being of a higher technical standard than pop or rock, and usually is much more complex. However, there’s some pretty interesting heavy metal or folk music (for instance) whose elaborateness might be on par with classical counterparts. Perhaps then complexity could be a complementary benchmark for greatness?
As for the objective or quantifiable criterion for greatness: will a specific artwork ‘say something’ to viewers or listeners across the ages? In my humble opinion, if a Renaissance altarpiece touches the hearts of both fifteenth century Flemish worshippers and today’s contemporary secular museum-goers, then, perhaps, it may be considered to be a great work of art.
Dr Fabio Noviello, Cardiff
The best way to approach this question is to start with how art works in any medium. We tend to think of it as reflecting the world, but as Deleuze and Guatarri argue in A Thousand Plateaus (1980) concerning books, artworks don’t reflect the world so much as they form a rhizome with it. Their rhizomatic approach imagines a complex matrix of roots that comes from all directions and has no center – as compared to an arborescent approach (based on tree-like structures), in which there is a first cause or base – something like a trunk from which the branches and foliage break away. As an example, think about Alice in Wonderland. You may tend to imagine it in a Tim Burton kind of way: a lush, colorful landscape, like the art of Henri Rousseau. But when you read the books, the prose is actually threadbare and only gives you the minimal information needed – a room, a table, a cake, Alice growing bigger and smaller with each bite – as well as a lot of absurd dialogue. All the detail was added as it made its way through history, spreading out with cultural filaments into new ideas and takes. But it remains significant within the matrix it works in. That same dynamic is at work in every other work we consider great. This is why the term ‘greatness’, like the term ‘genius’, is best left to historians. If something an artist creates is designated ‘great’, it means it blew people away in that given moment. That would be flattering in itself; but that effect can pass. If historians are still talking about it a hundred years later, it’s only if it remains a significant node within the rhizomatic network. In short: artistic greatness is what maintains its position in the general discourse.
D E Tarkington, Bellevue, Nebraska
One could argue that great art endures over time and continues to speak to future generations, but that’s too simplistic. When we try to define what the concept of ‘greatness’ entails in art, we come to various qualities such as originality (though not for its own sake, as Roger Scruton aptly noted, but that which emerges from the creator’s meaningful engagement with tradition); technical mastery; the power to make us see the world – and ourselves – differently; the ability to evoke a cathartic experience; and, of course, beauty. Yet beauty, as E.H. Gombrich pointed out, is not a fixed category – what moves one generation aesthetically may seem merely sentimental to another. Moreover, in the twentieth century beauty lost its privileged status in Western art to values such as imperfection and asymmetry. We arguably now live in a post-beauty era, where traditional harmony has given way to fragmentation and experimentation.
The issue grows more complex when we consider the concept of taste. According to Immanuel Kant, aesthetic judgements are subjective yet they claim universality. This raises the question: must we cultivate taste to recognize greatness? History shows critics often praised works that faded while overlooking others that since entered the canon. As John Berger famously proposed, the way we see art is always conditioned by cultural and ideological frameworks.
Does this mean that greatness is merely a cultural construct? Is ‘aesthetic relativism’ our only conclusion? And yet our intuition resists this. We return, again and again, to particular works: the epics of Homer, the ink-wash landscapes of Sesshu Toyo, the music of Bach, and the ancient guqin melodies of China. These works seem to move us meaningfully towards a deeper understanding of what it means to be a human being.
Perhaps, then, philosophicalness is what makes a work of art truly great. Art moves us for various reasons: its beauty, craftsmanship, or even its capacity to shock. However, some art enacts a kind of philosophy by inviting us to dwell in life’s mysteries, or by helping us to cope with its tragedies, such as the proximity of death. Thus, I can’t help but conclude that great art endures not because we declare it so, but because it perpetually returns us to the timeless question of what it means to be human.
Milda Varnienė, Vilnius, Lithuania
This question is difficult partly because people react differently to the same work of art. One person may look at the work of an artist such as Picasso and step back in awe, another recoil with horror. So I incline towards Benedetto Croce’s concept of ‘intuition’: we seem to have an instinctual reaction to what we feel is great art, focusing upon how we personally identify with it, and what we believe it expresses. Furthermore, we may emphasise different criteria in a work of art as what makes it great: regarding a certain painting, some may emphasis the composition, others the use of colour. Although this may imply the platitude that ‘all art is subjective’ – that whether a work of art is great or terrible is a matter of personal taste – I don’t think it necessarily does. There is often consensus on great art that transcends national and cultural boundaries. The work of Shakespeare is globally widely considered amongst the greatest theatre ever created, and it has been adapted many times in forms far removed from the original. The films of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, Throne of Blood and Ran, based upon Macbeth and King Lear respectively, are considered amongst the greatest-ever versions of these plays.
Furthermore, art is often complex and multifaceted, so our reaction is not likely to be as one-dimensional as outright love or hate. Even if someone (like me) is not a great fan of Wagner, they may admit that his Ring Cycle deals with great themes (including hubris, greed, faithfulness) and should be appreciated for this: they just don’t like the music. This might suggest that universal human themes within the artwork are what makes a work of art great. As Aristotle says, the study of history is less important than that of art, as the first is concerned with the specific, the second, the universal. Many people who have looked at a Byzantine mosaic, listened to a medieval madrigal. or watched a performance of an ancient Greek tragedy, and felt deeply, and intuitively, that they have experienced great art, are liable to concur with Aristotle’s sentiment.
Jonathan Tipton, Penwortham, Lancashire
Art’s private or public commissioning and curating in historical, economic, social, and cultural contexts significantly affects its reception, that is, its perceived significance and value. But what makes an artwork great can be explained using Aristotle’s four causes: the material, efficient, formal and final causes. These causes suggest an approach that covers a range of significant factors bearing on a work of art being great. Since artworks comprise a considerable range of features, this is desirable.
Artworks typically have material properties sourced from the physical world, comprising animal, vegetable and mineral elements treated and combined to provide the medium. The hard- and software of digital technologies have supplemented material resources, too. Then, through the consummate application of craft and technical skill, artists and their collaborators can engage with their medium in creatively unprecedented ways, These creative features are Aristotelian efficient causes, meaning, they’re concerned with how the artwork comes about through time.
The formal cause has to do with the nature of the work considered in the abstract. The manifestations that an artwork can take are first conceived by anticipating the particular structure and design that will instantiate the artwork. The form also characteristically relates to different overall configurations of the arts, including movements, schools, and styles – as encompassed, say, by Realism, Romanticism, Classicism, and Modernism. Great art can also result in the formation of unprecedented forms. The final cause – the purpose of a work of art – is realised in diverse ways – which have been explored in the many contributions that have sought to address what constitutes great art, including cultural history, sociology, aesthetics, criticism, and curation.
Opinions range from those supportive or celebratory of represented cultural values and beliefs (e.g. Ken Clark in Civilisation), and those which are critical of them, such as John Berger. The protagonists of such apparently opposing positions then dialogue within an ‘aesthetic dimension’ (Marcuse) to establish what contingently comes to be regarded as ‘great art’.
Colin Brookes, Loughborough
Defining an objective measure of greatness seems a forlorn task. Not only do people not agree on which characteristics are criteria of value, even when they do they can disagree on whether a particular work meets those criteria.
Some have argued that the value of a work depends on its organic unity, by which they mean the way it combines diverse elements into a coherent whole. However, adopting this view does not settle disagreements as to whether or not unity has been achieved. It also seems to preclude miniatures (in any medium) from being great.
Although no work receives universal approval from all those who experience it, there are common responses to works that people describe as great: it can cause a visceral reaction, such as tears or whoops of joy (though some might say that sentimentalism can do this, so it’s not evidence of greatness); it inspires a drive to re-experience the work; each experience of the work feels new and reveals new detail, although it may initially be hard to appreciate; it seems (close to) unimprovable; and it is experienced as uplifting in some way. If a work of art induces the ‘this is great’ response in a significant number of people – enough for it to find an enduring audience – then maybe this indicates that it has a kind of objective greatness. I don’t much care for the symphonies of Mahler, for example, but many people sincerely regard them as great, so maybe I should accept that they are.
Paul Western, Bath
No art can be considered great
Except that which moves the heart to ache:
The slip of paint, the canvas wet
That forest or face we can’t forget.
No art should be considered great
Unless it stirs the mind to wake:
Great art conveys the verb ‘to be’
In personal philosophy,
Shows the opened eyes new ways to see
Beyond commercialism monetary.
Greatness of art is judged by you and me:
Form and figure, expression, line,
Shades that shape the sweet sublime,
For art reflects who we are
In image, beauty, mask and mirror.
Let no expert henceforth decree
What art should mean to you and me:
Nothing usurps subjectivity
In the meaning-making of creativity.
For as the great philosophers knew,
The act of making gives life value.
Readers, therefore, make no mistake
Be bold, be free, in joy create,
Art with passion and purpose defines what’s great.
Bianca Laleh, Totnes, Devon
Next Question of the Month
The next question is: What Are Proper Limits Of Free Speech? Please give and justify your answer in less than 400 words. The prize is a semi-random book from our book mountain. Email the Editor. Subject lines should be marked ‘Question of the Month’, and must be received by 13th October 2025. If you want a chance of getting a book, please include your address.