What makes a masterpiece?

Instead of my usual music review, this month I thought I would try something a little different. The reason being is that I picked Pink Floyd's Darkside of the Moon to review and honestly I don't think there is anything I can say that hasn't been said one hundred times before. This album is so critically acclaimed and so popular that there is, if anything too much ink spent extolling its virtues. But that leads to an interesting observation - Darkside of the Moon is both a critical and popular success. It is one of those works of art that truly deserves the title "masterpiece." But why is that? What makes the album so special that everyone one (in a general sense, I'm sure there are some who hate it) is attracted to it.

Art is made up of a few general basic aspects: There is the technical side, the skill and dexterity of the artists hand's. There is what I call the philosophical side - the worldview of the artist or the truth (in a non hard scientific sense) that the art means to reveal to the world. I also identify a third "grab bag" category for all aspects of the art which are more or less subjective. Now for there to be such a thing as a "masterpiece" their implicitly has to be a method or way to rank different works of art as better or worse compared to each other. The existence of the idea of a masterpiece rejects the idea that art can be neither good or bad or is entirely subjective. However because art itself is so complex the idea that we could set up some sort of system to rank art is impossible almost to the point of being absurd, there is no simple system. Because artists are endlessly inventive there are always ways of combining skills and talents into a myriad of different ways. Is it really possible to compare Darkside of the Moon to Beethoven's 9th Symphony so completely as to be able to definitively rank one as better then the other, I'm not sure there is. How could the specific structure of the 40 minute album with it's own (natural) criteria of what is good and not be able to compare to a symphony what has a very different set of criteria that makes it good art.

As such the discernment of a masterpiece can really only be done on a case by case basis or perhaps more generally in a very specific categorical basis (symphonies by Beethoven, albums by Pink Floyd, statues by Michelangelo). Now within art their are both subjective and objective criteria and both must be looked at when discerning a masterpiece. Both technical and philosophical sides have objective and subjective criteria. The lines between what is subjective and what is objective of may be blurry, especially on the philosophical side sense (to my knowledge) mankind has not yet discovered a philosophy that all agree is true in the same way whereas technical skill is relatively uncontroversial in what constitutes being better then others
Art however is one of those funny creations of mankind where the audience has almost as much influence on the outcome of the creation as the creator. Roger Waters (the lyricist for Darkside of the Moon) has a worldview that is very different from my own, but his observations about time, money and airports in Darkside of the Moon are presented in such a way that my own philosophy about each can take what is presented in the lyrics or music and make sense of it.

A masterpiece in a sense is a work of art that has been created in such a way that a great many people can experience it and walk away with a sense that they understand what is being said and yet at the same time feel there is more to learn by revisiting the experience. Certainly simple works can be pleasing and understandable but they are not masterpieces because what they can teach us about ourselves and our world (reality perhaps being the operative word here) is limited. Works that our so complex that they leave the vast majority of people (I realize I haven't defined the scope of people I am talking about - is it global, national, cultural? I don't know if it actually matters too much right now - it certainly must be large enough to include a variety of different experiences) confused or unable to grasp the meaning the art is trying to convey also fall short of masterpieces. There is a great deal more to consider when trying to figure out what makes a masterpiece (for example the thorny problem of popularity which I appear to be leading to even in this definition here.) and I will come back to adjust and add on to this definition as time goes by (as this is a blog post I don't want to make it too long) but for now this seems sufficient.

Omahensis