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When the word “masterpiece” is used to
describe something, there are a few assumptions

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I make about whatever it is, whether it’s
painting, sculpture, photography, architecture,

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performance, opera, dance, literature, film,
a video game, a meal, or what have you.

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Like, I’m probably going to think it demonstrates
some serious skill on the part of whomever

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made it, that it’s exceptional in some way,
and that it’s widely acclaimed.

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But what do we really mean when we call something
a masterpiece?

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Who gets to decide what becomes one?

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Who makes them?

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And is it still a constructive label to dole
out when we talk about art?

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What Makes a Masterpiece?

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In its original use, a masterpiece was a thing
you made to demonstrate mastery.

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Starting in late 13th Century France, artisans
in a variety of fields would create a “chef

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d’oeuvre,” or a work that proved their
competence in the eyes of a guild and allowed

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them to take on apprentices.

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Like a silk weaver, usually early in his career
(this was only for men), created a weaving

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that showed he could do all the things a master
silk weaver should be able to do.

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It didn’t need to be amazing, though.

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That idea seemed to come along at some point
in the 1500s in Europe, during the Italian

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Renaissance, when guilds started placing more
emphasis on virtuosity.

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A masterpiece now needed to show not just
quality, but extraordinary quality.

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The term was often applied to architecture,
but it served a number of fields.

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In England, guilds referred to some works
as “proof-pieces”, and reserved “masterpiece”

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mostly for painting and sculpture.

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In some Christian cultures, the concept of
a masterpiece became entwined with the divine.

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Like if God’s masterpiece was the creation
of man, by depicting humans as the beautiful

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phenomena they are, artists have, in their
way, served and honored God.

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But “masterpiece” also evolved to mean
the top moment of one’s career, or the best

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thing you ever made.

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“Magnum opus,” Latin for “great work”,
entered English usage in the late 1700s, and

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meant this exactly.

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A thing you made might not be a masterpiece
when you compare it to, let’s say Rembrant’s

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The Night Watch, but it might be your masterpiece
(when compared to all the other stuff you’ve

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made).

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It’s when we think about the relativity
of masterpieces, though, that the topic gets

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interesting.

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Because who decides this stuff?

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Well, at first it was the guilds that made
the call about what work was good enough.

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But then we really have the field of art history
to blame.

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The person often considered art history’s
founder was Giorgio Vasari, who wrote the

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1550 book The Lives of the Most Excellent
Painters, Sculptors and Architects, which

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as you might guess is a compilation of biographies
of the Italian artists and architects whom

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Vasari considered the most important.

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Vasari’s intention was, in a translation
of his words: “to distinguish the better

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from the good, and the best from the better.”

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And that book was hugely influential, creating
a blueprint for how art and artists would

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be talked about for some time.

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Vasari was an artist and writer steeped in
the Italian art world of the time, employed

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by the powerful Medici family, who did his
research, and happily we have him to learn

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from and trust.

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Right?

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Yes and no.

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Vasari made errors and loved to embellish
stories.

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He described the years between Ancient Greece
and Rome and his day, the Italian Renaissance,

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as The Dark Ages when very little happened
of note artistically, which we know just isn’t

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true.

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He also had favorites among the artists, as
anybody would, that colored his view.

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Vasari’s book formed what’s been called
a “canon” of artists of his time.

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That is, a best-of or greatest-hits list of
the artists and artworks and movements that

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have been vetted by experts and, according
to those experts, deserve to be preserved

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in history.

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The idea of a “canon” in art history or
in literature or in many fields has been heavily

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critiqued, and for good reason.

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Canons leave people out, they’re biased,
they’re created by those with the power

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to publish and distribute and influence.

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The word “canon” comes from Latin and
means “standard” or “measuring rod.”

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The Ancient Greek sculptor Polykleitos made
a figure of a spear-bearer considered so perfectly

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proportioned that it earned the alternate
title “canon,” because it was standard

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against which all other sculptures were to
be compared.

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A lot of artists tried to live up to Polykleitos’s
legacy, including the Italian Renaissance

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artists that Vasari venerated.

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And then a lot of artists tried to live up
to the legacies of those artists, and so on

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and so forth.

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Which brings up a peculiar aspect of the masterpiece.

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It represents the best of a given something,
but it also has to set itself apart in some

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way.

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Some social psychologists recently observed
that:

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“Masterpieces represent what standard products
are not: unique and exceptional relative to

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everything else.

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Their nature is paradoxical: standing for
the best of a genre or an oeuvre, they are

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celebrated for their uniqueness.”

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So if you take, for example, the Mona Lisa,
you have a work that is a pretty basic portrait

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of a woman for the time.

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Yes, it was made by the very gifted Leonardo
da Vinci, but objectively it conforms to expectations

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within its own category.

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If you look at the painting that conservators
say was made side by side with the original,

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by one of Leonardo’s main assistants, there
does seem to be something about the “real”

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Mona Lisa that defies expectation.

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That deviates enough from the norm to be innovative,
special.

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That has a kind of mystery or magic that the
copies do not?

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Or does it?

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How much is what we’ve been trained to recognize
as “masterpiece,” and how much is our

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objective assessment?

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Which brings us to another feature of the
“masterpiece”: its assumed universality.

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Baked into the idea is that it doesn’t matter
who’s looking at it, the masterpiece transcends

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geographic and cultural boundaries, and should
be recognizable as being of superb quality

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by pretty much any human being.

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Calling something a masterpiece is a way of
validating it.

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Saying that it’s not a matter of opinion.

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It’s good, case closed, we can all accept
this and move on.

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r
And that’s part of what we love about art,

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right?

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It brings us together, allows us to like something
as a group of people who may disagree about

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a lot of other things.

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Just as people from around the world, of different
religions and belief systems, can get together

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to admire, say, Liverpool Football Club, an
artwork that we can mutually accept as a “masterpiece”

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is something in this fractured world that
we can share.

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But tastes change!

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A masterpiece has an air of timelessness about
it, but there are indeed works that have been

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celebrated in their day but then fade from
glory.

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A crucifix at a French Cathedral was singled
out as a masterpiece in 1595, but today no

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longer even exists.

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Rosa Bonheur’s 1853 painting The Horse Fair
drew enormous praise and was heralded as a

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masterpiece, but it, ah… doesn’t really
do anything for me.

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As tastes change, can something that was a
masterpiece cease to be one?

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Likewise, can a work that might have once
been viewed as rudimentary or primitive, become

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a masterpiece from the perspective of it’s
onlookers from the future?

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How do we begin to differentiate popularity
from true quality?

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To be a masterpiece, it seems an artwork needs
to receive both popular as well as critical

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attention.

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But how long do each or either of those need
to be sustained?

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It needs to be written about and agreed upon
for a long time, but what about when its influence

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fades, when people stop recognizing it or
writing about it.

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Or when artists stop making work inspired
by it.

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It’s worth thinking about how a work of
art becomes a masterpiece.

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Is it so from the moment of its creation,
when the final daub of paint is applied to

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just the right location?

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Or is it dependent on its reception, an honor
bestowed when other people, or the right people,

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recognize its greatness?

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Some of the works generally understood as
masterpieces were indeed conceived to be such.

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Ambitious in scale and content and technique,
pushing a medium or genre in new directions.

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But other times it’s not something the artist
sets out to do.

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It’s just a painting of your bedroom, not
dissimilar from a lot of other paintings you’ve

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made, that falls into the right hands after
you die, that takes hold in the public imagination.

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To a large extent, what becomes a masterpiece
is unpredictable, and so is how long a masterpiece

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remains one.

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If you spend any time on youtube, you know
people are contrary!

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These days, as soon as anything is proposed
to be a masterpiece, there are naysayers.

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It’s in our nature.

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The cycle of acceptance and rejection may
happen faster today, but the impulse to question

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old norms and propose new ones has been around
for a long time.

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The moniker of “masterpiece” may help
protect against our fickle human nature.

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We cannot be relied upon to consistently care
for our cultural heritage, and museums and

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organizations play a critical role by sanctifying
a work, acting as its advocate, and keeping

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it safe.

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UNESCO does this important work too, not just
for monumental world heritage sites, but also

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for their exquisitely named “Proclamation
of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible

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Heritage.”

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Less visible works of cultural expression
like folklore and rituals and language need

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attention and advocacy, too.

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The idea of a “masterpiece” may be a construct,
but it can be a helpful one.

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When you walk into an enormous museum, it’s
really useful to be told what to see.

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You don’t have time to be an expert in every
field, so looking to those with credentials

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and experience makes a lot of sense.

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Especially if you walk into a gallery self-conscious
about what you know or don’t know, it’s

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a relief to have someone distinguish for you
“the better from the good, and the best

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from the better,” to quote our old friend
Vasari.

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But where does that self-consciousness come
from?

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Like, maybe it stems from the belief that
there are objective factors that determine

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whether something is good or not.

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Or that there are standards and rules for
art that are possible to know.

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While that was arguably once the case, when
guilds and academies created and enforced

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the rules, over the course of the last century
those rules have been largely thrown out.

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Today, art historians and museums have a say
in whose work is collected and displayed,

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and so does the art market.

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But what works now enter the pantheon of greatness
really can’t be determined by any set of

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rules.

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That’s what infuriates some people about
art today, but it’s also what makes it exciting

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and fun!

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A masterpiece was originally meant to demonstrate
skill and competence on the part of its maker.

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Its root word, “master,” is a gendered
term, historically describing a man who has

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people working for him, including sometimes
slaves.

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In its current usage, “master” as a noun
or adjective or verb, still involves an exhibition

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of control or domination.

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You can earn a Master of Arts or Sciences
or Quantitative Finance.

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You can “master” a given technology.

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But what does mastery really mean for the
artists of today?

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It’s not just about the way you handle a
given medium or hew to a set of rules.

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There are other skills that bring great works
into being.

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There’s conceptual skill, engaging with
the ideas and systems currently shaping our

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world.

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There’s also the skill of restraint, using
less as opposed to more.

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There are still artists who make astounding
and accomplished paintings, but more and more

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artists work between media, selecting their
materials and approaches depending on the

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particular aims of a project.

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There are also increasing numbers of artists
whose work is collaborative, process-based,

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and ephemeral.

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We are constantly redefining what mastery
means.

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And when we evaluate the work we experience
today, it’s worth considering what standards

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we’re weighing the work against.

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What do you want to value in your summation
of this work?

00:11:40.980 --> 00:11:44.590
Does it innovate, but in a language you still
recognize?

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Does it push you, either subtly or forcefully
in a new direction?

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How important to you is a given tradition?

00:11:52.040 --> 00:11:54.300
How important is novelty?

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Do you want art that unsettles you or challenges
you?

00:11:57.700 --> 00:12:00.339
Or art that comforts or reaffirms?

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Perhaps you like the flexibility of art to
do all of those things.

00:12:04.010 --> 00:12:08.870
You can't define mastery without addressing
those questions, or without considering who's

00:12:08.870 --> 00:12:13.730
doing the mastering and what--or who--is being
mastered.

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Because when we talk about masterpieces, we're
talking about what we want the future to know

00:12:17.850 --> 00:12:19.870
about the present.

00:12:19.870 --> 00:12:24.170
We're advocating for the voices we want to
elevate and preserve.

00:12:24.170 --> 00:12:28.640
On the one hand, it’s just a word, but on
the other, it’s history making!

00:12:28.640 --> 00:12:34.400
It’s consequences are too great to leave
unconsidered.

00:12:34.400 --> 00:12:36.400
What’s the point of beer foam?

00:12:36.400 --> 00:12:38.720
What makes dark chocolate so bitter?

00:12:38.720 --> 00:12:43.720
Serving Up Science—hosted by history buff,
science writer and foodie Sheril Kirshenbaum—is

00:12:43.720 --> 00:12:49.240
BACK and ready to give you science-backed
answers to all of your biggest food questions.

00:12:49.240 --> 00:12:54.480
Head on over to PBS Zest to catch new episodes
of Serving Up Science!

00:12:54.480 --> 00:12:58.240
Thanks to all of our patrons for supporting
The Art Assignment, especially our grandmasters

00:12:58.240 --> 00:13:04.840
of the arts Tyler Calvert-Thompson, Divideby
Zero Collection, David Golden, and Ernest Wolfe.