This text differs from the previous ones. Its subject is the most controversial and intangible category — the quality of art. Most art historians will tell you that “artistic quality” is purely a commercial invention. There are no objective criteria that separate “good” from “bad.” Evaluation happens only in the moment of encounter between the viewer and the work.
Formally, they are right. Yet every two years millions of professionals — artists, curators, critics, collectors — come to the Venice Biennale, and their assessments coincide by about 90%. This means there is a shared, even if not always articulated, understanding of quality among professionals.
For a beginner collector asking “How do I tell what is good and what is bad?”, I offer some practical “supports.” Important disclaimer: everything I say here is true in roughly 80% of cases. Any professional can criticize these points — and will be right. Still, these guidelines have helped me and many others.
Why the Criteria Collapsed
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the number of professional artists reached millions, while the entire apparatus for evaluating art was destroyed.
Modernism was not just rapid change — each new movement actively negated the previous one. The symbol of this was Rauschenberg erasing de Kooning’s drawing. Gradually, novelty pushed all other criteria aside. When it became clear that radical novelty was no longer possible, the art world was left without a compass.
Today, culture is not a linear library where you finish the 18th century and start the 19th. It is a single landscape where everything exists simultaneously. The concept of “derivative” or “secondary” art, which was a major insult thirty years ago, has almost disappeared.
The artist is now not only the creator of the work, but the builder of their own concept of art. The central question has shifted from “What?” and “How?” to “Why?” (intent, concept, manifesto).
How to Evaluate Quality Today
Without fixed criteria, art has become contextual. You don’t study it — you immerse yourself in it. If you want to understand quality, go to biennales, major fairs, and important museum exhibitions rather than libraries.
All previous criteria still exist. They have moved to the background and now form our cultural memory. Today’s understanding of quality is built from them.
“In the absence of criteria, art has become contextual. If you want to understand art, go to a Biennale, not a library.”
Historical Criteria of Quality (in rough chronological order):
The Birth of Criticism
The French Revolution opened the Louvre to the public and created the divide between “design/decor” and “art for art’s sake.” The Academy and Salon put artists in the position of judging other artists. New criteria emerged: lightness, freshness of sketch, openness of technique, deliberate incompleteness (leaving room for the viewer’s imagination).
From the 20th century onward, criticism replaced rigid criteria with discourses:
The Bottom Line
“Artistic quality” only makes sense when there is a real artistic statement. If there is no statement, we are dealing with either pure commerce or apprenticeship — neither deserves serious attention.
Practical Advice from Anatoly Osmolovsky (very useful for beginners):
Do not buy “wet” art — works that were created very recently. Quality needs at least some time to be tested.
P.S. There are always exceptions — strong artists who consciously work with “dangerous” territories: kitsch, salon art, gloss, literariness (for example, Ivan Gorshkov). But this is already a high level.
