Critical Judgment: A Development Study

Abstract

Considerable attention has been paid by aestheticians to the criteria by which works of art can (and should) be judged.2 Descriptions of the ideal critic or judge differ markedly from one authority to another; yet it is generally agreed that, at the very least, the competent judge must take into account a variety of dimensions, make a judicious weighing among these, and arrive at an overall evaluation in a clear and logical fashion. Integral to this achievement is the capacity to differentiate among the various standards which can be applied to a work of art: for instance, no competent critic will confuse his personal preferences with overall judgments of technical competence. The normal development of these critical abilities, and the extent to which they might be trained, are important issues for art educators. It has been widely noted that young children fail to make a sufficient number of discriminations, confuse criteria with one another, and exhibit difficulty in verbalizing their impressions of works of art.3 Yet just how children become capable of making appropriate discriminations among rival criteria has rarely been the subject of empirical investigation. Nonetheless, a few lines of research do speak to this set of questions. Drawing upon a developmental framework, a number of researchers have indicated general characteristics of children's talk about and conceptions of' the arts.4 The reasons given by children in justifying