Grading art should not be a thing.
I guess in school one could try to grade effort? But that’s teaching the wrong thing too, isn’t it?
For the effort investing in a piece of art – and the quality of that piece of art – have nothing to do with each other.
In fact, I have no sense of what “quality” means in regard to art anyway.
“Quality” is entirely in the eye of the public, the individual.
No doubt Van Gogh thought many of his paintings were great. And no doubt Picasso made many pieces that he adored and others didn’t care about.
Heck. I feel this same way about many of my blog posts.
I can’t believe how few like these posts that I love.
And many posts that get tons of traffic make me wonder: “That old thing?!”
Certainly let’s not discourage our children with all this – the life of an artist can often be discouraging enough.
I think of awards as a form of grading and I have never thought grading has much to do with art. Susan Sontag once claimed that grading actually held her back; she made such good grades that she went into adulthood believing that she was better than, in her estimation, she actually was.