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What is Quality in Art?: A Meditation Based on European Paintings from the 15th to the 18th Centuries
128 pages, Hardcover
Published July 17, 2024
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 18, 2026
2-3/5 stars.
Decent, light read. Says some fairly obvious things about art re: subjectivity/objectivity, the reality of technical skill, diversity of taste(s), etc.
The writing is lucid and more or less engaging but one wonders the overall point. I like the affirmation of "quality" in art but what Vergara-Sharp briefly (and I mean briefly - the book is only 120 pages long) essays here is quite uncontroversial, since no one in their right mind would argue that to be a good painter in Europe circa the 15-18th centuries didn't take years of training, as well as a certain ideological bias for Antiquity and the standards it created.
Definitely in need of a more comprehensive detailing.
Decent, light read. Says some fairly obvious things about art re: subjectivity/objectivity, the reality of technical skill, diversity of taste(s), etc.
The writing is lucid and more or less engaging but one wonders the overall point. I like the affirmation of "quality" in art but what Vergara-Sharp briefly (and I mean briefly - the book is only 120 pages long) essays here is quite uncontroversial, since no one in their right mind would argue that to be a good painter in Europe circa the 15-18th centuries didn't take years of training, as well as a certain ideological bias for Antiquity and the standards it created.
Definitely in need of a more comprehensive detailing.
Displaying 1 of 1 review