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Can you name an attribute such that all the paintings which have this attribute are good paintings?
Accepted:
July 17, 2014

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Jonathan Westphal
July 24, 2014 (changed July 24, 2014) Permalink

You might think that translucency is a good thing in a watercolor, but not in gouache. Versimilitude might be good in a portrait, but not in an expressionist landscape. And so on. On the other hand there is a logical (or with a stretch a "metaphysical") attribute that all good paintings have. They meet the criteria for excellence in paintings of that type. Helen Knight on the use of "good" in aesthetic connections is brilliant on this subject.

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