“The value of an artwork lies simply in our peculiar aesthetic enjoyment of its form”. Two arguments against this view

A perfect copy of an artwork is never regarded to be as great as the original. In art, the original Mona Lisa is priceless and therefore exhibited in the Louvre museum in Paris, whereas a copy or forgery can be bought on eBay. In music, after the death of Elvis Presley, people copied his act. Perhaps to keep the spirit of Rock ‘n Roll alive, yet it is an imperfect copy of the original. An imitation of the original artwork’s form, in aesthetic value, would be given the same respect as the original. However, an imitation is never valued to the same depth or value.

Leo Tolstoy’s infection theory of art argues that an artist conveys or infects the audience with his emotion and his own experience. Tolstoy believes in the social communication of art, how art is able to connect masses of individuals together, whereas Kant focuses on individualism within art. Therefore, neglecting the aesthetic qualities to an extent to enjoy the expression of an artwork, for example Andre Rieu the violinist uses great emotion to connect with his audience on stage. To capture the hearts of thousands of music fanatics! Formalism tries to state how art should be valued and analysed, however, as humans we are unable to forget an artwork’s emotive and informative qualities therefore, an individual’s view of art will be different to another individual because art is personal. Indian classical Raaga may be amazingly technical and beautiful to one individual, yet another person may say that punk rock is more emotive to them. Therefore, art cannot be enjoyed simply for its aesthetic qualities because we as humans do not completely view art in this manner.