Art critics help viewers perceive, interpret, and judge artworks.
Art critics do play a very important role in influencing how the viewers perceive the work, however they do not necessary will influence the viewers on how they are to interpret and judge the piece of work.
As a professional art critic, he or she is to put away all his/her personal biases and prejudices and only evaluate the work and not the artist. By having the art critics to give an overall comment of the artwork first, it will then help the public to perceive the artwork in a clearer light.
In the modern society, art has taken into different form, be it sculpture, paintings or installations. Throughout the history, art has also changed and transformed drastically. From the early 19 century, where art mainly belonged to the romanticism and neo-classicism to the modern abstract style of art. Such diverse forms and ways of expressing art, it will then need an art critic to decide which style of art the artwork belongs too. By knowing the art movement or art style of a particular piece of art, the public will then have an easier time understanding and feeling for the work. This is because by knowing the background of the work and the kind of lives the artists lived in, the viewers can then sense the kind of message the artists are trying to convey through their artworks. The purpose of creating that piece of artwork can then be understood by the viewers by referring to the basic knowledge of the artist provided by the art critics.By understanding the context of the artwork, people can better perceive the art work.
However, the art critics not only give the background information for that particular work, they judge and evaluate it too. Good art critics do so from a professional point of view. The art critics evaluate and judge the artwork from the field of art, by judging the skills used and many other areas. They weigh and decide where the piece of work stand in the field of art. Although the art critics do give their views for the artwork, it will most probably not influence on how they judge the work. As artworks are not things that can only be seen from one perspective, they can be interpreted from various different ways. Everyone has a different understanding to art and artworks, hence it is up to the viewers themselves to decide how they are going to interpret and judge the work.
The main aim of artworks is to convey a message or to reach out to the audience. So if an artwork did not reach out or touch the art critics, it does not mean that it will then not touch the hearts of the public. Once, the art has stirred emotions in some people, no matter how many of them, the artwork then will be counted as a success. Everyone do have their own interpretations of work, art critics are judging the work from a professional point of view, however when viewers judge the work from a normal viewer's point of view, different judgements and interpretations may appear.
For example, for artworks from the realism art movement that appeared in the 19 century. The first few works of the realism art movement, for example "The meeting" done by Gustave Courbet in 1854, were criticized and portrayed in a negative light by the art critics at that period of time. Art critics do give the subject and the background to the artworks and art movement, where the realism artists are trying to portray people from the daily lives. Yes, after reading these journeys or papers of the art critics, the viewers will then obtain a basic understanding that it is a revolutionary art movement and many other background knowledge, these do help the viewers to perceive the artworks. Art critics, however, do not influence viewers' interpretations and judgement of the works. Even though the art critics may consider the art works not following the traditional style of painting and criticized it, the viewers may think that these artworks may be many creative and refreshing. In fact, the viewers may like the artworks and disagree with the art critics' judgement of the works.
Overall, art critics do help the viewers perceive and understand artworks by providing background knowledge to the artist, artwork and also the art movement the work has adopted. However, they can not help or influence the viewers from judging and interpreting the works as everyone has he/she own point of view and many a times, the viewers may disagree with the judgements of the art critics. As people are objected to their own likings and views to the artworks, art critics do not necessarily influence the way people judge the work.
