Art has always proved a difficult subject to wrap one’s head around and write about meaningfully. In her recent article for Vue, Agniezska Matejko takes “A Backwards Glance” at art, flatly rejecting even the idea of “such a thing as good art.” By way of reasoning, Matejko offers an example of a woman unmoved by a Picasso, but brought to tears by a postcard picture of puppies because, darn it all, she just loves dogs. But does this really show the impossibility of speaking of “good” and “bad,” that all things are equal? “Who are we to say?” Matejko writes. “There is no formula for art.”

But if we follow her line of reasoning, where does it lead? The next moment, the hypothetical woman realizes she has something on her shoe, and rubs a creamy brown smear on the grey gallery carpet. Oh, those naughty little puppies! Despite the smell, she is entranced by the dynamic juxtaposition of colour and texture, and forgets all about her cheap postcard. Realizing she’s feeling hungry, she drifts into the gallery’s four-star café where they are serving a free buffet of international dishes. But the woman just can’t get the idea of adorable, cuddly puppies out of her head, so she pulls a Ziploc bag of dog food out of her purse and greedily begins to feast. After turning the bag inside out and licking it clean, it was time for a movie. Two films were showing: one, a black-and-white film about a dead newspaper tycoon and his sled: the other, a story about a basketball-playing dog. Do you want to guess which one the woman preferred?

From this example, instead of drawing the counterintuitive conclusion, as Matejko does, that Air Bud might be better than Citizen Kane, dog food may beat filet mignon, and a shit smear is as good as a Picasso, don’t you think we might want to consider the likelihood that this hypothetical woman is nuts ot, at the very least, if she expects her opinion (however dearly she cherishes it, and as entitled to it as she may be) to mean anything to anyone other than herself, she needs to try to forget about her fucking puppy fetish for a second?

True, some decisions cannot be made in the same manner as 2+2=4; however, intuitively and involuntarily, humans make these decisions nonetheless, and, over time, generally agree on the conclusions. In this way, aesthetics is like morality: as Matejko writes, “It is not a science, not an objective fact.” What she misses though, is that despite the lack of a “formula” and despite the difficulty writers have in finding words for the how and why of it all, in aesthetics and morality, judgment inevitably, inescapably remains at the heart of the matter. Instead of doing away with the necessity of judgment, all Matejko has succeeded in doing is replacing one set of criteria for another.

Critical thinking is at the core of every ambitious endeavour, including making meaningful art as well as writing meaningfully about art. No doubt Ms. Matejko has heard of the American art critic Clement Greenberg. I would encourage her to read his essays on aesthetics and art criticism. They are without question among the best writing on the topic and, if she reads carefully and with an open mind, they could do a great service by helping her think, and write, more clearly about art in the future.

Ryan McCourt, Edmonton