I had to laugh. An online article concerning how to tell good art from bad began with a series of cliches – beauty is in the eye of the beholder; good art will speak to you; the artwork should invite itself to you; an artist puts a lot of work into their pieces. It then offered the following advice.

Carefully look at each piece and examine strokes and lines. Does this piece of art look rushed, forced or copied? Though it is easy for artists to cover their mistakes, you can still identify whether a mark or line was intentional. If the artist’s work features many strange markings, it is a sign of carelessness and inexperience.

 I don’t know what the background of the writer is but as a piece of advice or a critical evaluation it demonstrates a profound ignorance. ‘Rushed’ assumes that a piece of work taking years to complete is superior to one that didn’t. In fact, the commonest question I’ve been asked is ‘how long did it take to do?’ as if time was a measure of quality. ‘Forced’ – I have no idea what forced art is but any artist can tell you when an idea dried up or the painting was overworked. Those works don’t end up for sale or on exhibit. ‘Copied’ – a meaningless term assuming that every artist is an island free from influence. This is very much an art school syndrome as in ‘you can’t see my work because you might copy it’.

However, the part of the advice that concerned me the most was the idea of ‘mistakes’. No doubt the writer would condemn Mondrian for the millimetre movement of lines, and the evidence of that movement, as he sought a particular balance or a Twombly who routinely painted out sections. Every line or mark is intentional. Every line and mark is part of a process. Identifying how the artist reached a particular point through the evidence of the process is an essential part of understanding not just a methodology but the thinking behind it. To claim that ‘strange markings’ are the result of carelessness assumes that artists are more like designers where everything is worked out beforehand and the final product becomes a version of paint by numbers. This isn’t to denigrate designers but to point out that for artists the visibility of marks and lines is the living history of the work. A logo doesn’t need that evidence to be visible.

As for ‘experience’ – words fail me. Being an artist is a lifetime experience of experiment. If there is a juncture where inexperience and experience meet, the artist is probably dead. A facility for materials handling could denote experience but craft and high craft can be completely devoid of ideas but technically accomplished. What experience as an artist teaches you more than anything is that there will always be another painting or sculpture or print or film. Hopefully, improvement comes in the form of finding better or different ways to express an idea.

The summary provides solid advice for the unwary art buyer. ‘Good art will always make you laugh, make you cry and most importantly, it will make you think.’ I can say without equivocation that the article certainly made me laugh, caused groans of despair and made me wonder why I was reading it in the first place.