Popular judgements in the visual arts : paintings

Abstract

The study assesses popular judgements and attitudes towards painting in Malta. It consists of two sections, the first of which is theoretical, discussing the nature painting and the judgements to which it is subject. The other section focuses on the empirical part whereby people from different walks of life were interviewed. The latter took place at art exhibitions. The random sample of viewers totaled 151: 111 were males and 40 were females. From the contributions of the viewers, various results are derived on the type of pubic visiting the art exhibitions and its attitudes and criteria behind the judgements. The public reflected mostly subjective based criteria which were biased towards realism in painting and where the particular viewer's tastes played an important part.