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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Merlion" data-source="post: 3131941" data-attributes="member: 10397">My answer to this is, it depends on purpose and intention.Now when you say they intend to paint a picture of a dog, your probably saying they intend to depict a dog as realistically and accurately as they can. In this case yes, the one that looks more like a dog is objectively better, because it fullfilled the purpose more fully than the other one. However as an aside, someone could still find the other one to be subjectively better, and their opinion would not be wrong, it would just be their opinion.The issue of purpose is an important one that no one has brought up much directly. I believe that the first or primary, though not neccesarily only, purposes of most art and creative works is to 1) act as a realse of the creative impulse for the creator and 2) bring enjoyment to the creator, and others. Now when I say enjoyment, it can take many different forms depending on intention, from joy to anger to fear, and so I guess you could add a seperate 3) to invoke a specific emotion or feeling in the creator and others. Now of course much art, and especially much of literature, may also be meant to make a statement, convey a message and the like. These to me are the most common purposes behind most creative works, and i feel further that any work that succeeds in its purpose is a work with merit and value. Now when i say suceeds in its purpose, I dont neccesarily mean that it succeeds in working its purpose on everyone who sees it, but say its purpose is to bring joy, if even some of the people that see it are given joy by it, it has succeeded. Now many of you want to seperate enjoyment from quality or value, I'm not going to get into that one too deeply right now.  Some of you also want to make a distinction as to wether a work is an "objectively good example of its craft", and wether it succeeds at its intended purpose. I dont personally see a difference...the craft has no inherent purpose other than what each crafter assigns to his own works. Now, a person could set out to say paint the best crafted painting of a rose that he can possibly paint, certainly. Although he'd have to decide which set of criteria for "best crafted" to use.But in the end, the purpose of the work, and wether it succeeds or fails in that purpose is I think the big issue as far as that grouping of issues go.</blockquote>

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