Today, many people want their reviews to be objective, and to provide an overall rating of a product, devoid of any personal feelings that the author may have in regards to the pieces, subject matter or artistic message. This idea ignores the fact that reviews are criticism, and criticism is art.

The idea of the art of criticism began with the writings of Plato, Vitruvius and St. Augustine, who all used criticism of art in their writings. Even later during the Renaissance, the art of criticism was often watched as someone explained the positive and negative elements of a particular piece.

This continued to grow well into the 18th Century when critic Jonathan Richardson wrote “An Essay on the Whole Art of Criticism.” In it, Richardson laid out the criteria that a piece of art could be rated on, in an attempt to allow for art to be ranked. This led to a desire to objectively rank art through the use of criticism.

And that brings us to the ideas of reviews today, where people will demand a reviewer have a great in-depth knowledge of what they are reviewing and not allow any personal feelings invade their criticism of a certain piece of art.

For example, I know some things about poetry, but I don’t have anything near an in-depth knowledge of poetry. However, that shouldn’t stop me from commenting on how good or bad a poem is. If someone with an in-depth knowledge of poetry has a different opinion on the poem in question, that is fine, people have different opinions.

When we attempt to take opinions out of criticism and establish an objective criteria for reviewing a piece of art, we create a cultural elite. Demanding a knowledge in film, music, television, theater, paintings or anything else closes off valuable opinions that should be heard.

When I read a review by someone who clearly doesn’t know anything about the thing  they are reviewing, I don’t get mad about it, because that is what most people will know about the subject. Most people have no idea about the history of theater, and they are unlikely to care about how this relates to the early works of the Greek playwrights.

We need to acknowledge the fact a lot of people don’t possess or even care about the history of the art forms, or any of the technical or detailed aspects. And that is perfectly okay. We all can have an opinion on art.

Alex Bertsch is the opinion editor for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected].