Disclosing Personal Taste
Whether the critic explicitly distinguishes between what is personal taste preference and what is judgment grounded in a general, defensible artistic standard
The five levels
Each anchor describes what separates one level from the next — not a general description of quality. This is the text the evaluator itself reads.
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Level 1 Below Standard
Purely personal preferences presented as absolute, objective artistic judgments with no acknowledgment of their subjectivity
Example "Light colors are always better than dark ones" stated as an absolute general rule
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Level 2 Approaching
One passing acknowledgment of subjectivity without a clear distinction between taste and standard elsewhere in the text
Example "This is just my opinion" mentioned once, then the text continues with absolute judgments
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Level 3 At Standard
A clear distinction through most of the text between "I prefer" (taste) and "it structurally works/doesn't" (standard)
Example "Personally I prefer open endings (taste), but this ending leaves a narrative thread genuinely dangling with no function (standard)"
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Level 4 Above Standard
The distinction holds throughout, and the critic justifies their general artistic standard rather than merely stating it
Example Explains why consistency counts as an acceptable general standard, not merely a personal preference
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Level 5 Exemplary
Uses the disclosure of their own taste to enrich the argument, showing how a critic with a different standard might reach a different judgment on the same work
Example "Someone who values linguistic economy would see this as a weakness; by the standard of rhythm, I see it as a deliberate choice"
Where does your own work sit on these levels?
Submit one work to be read against this criterion alone: your position across the five levels, why you are not higher and why not lower, three literal quotes from your own work, and one exercise with its success check. Your first card is free.
Price: 7 SAR · Included in Pro & Artist Plus · First one free — Pricing details
Read my work by this criterionOther criteria in the same art
Whether every evaluative judgment is paired with a specific pointer to an actual location or detail in the work that grounds it
The five levels →How clearly the critique distinguishes "what is in the work" (description) from "my opinion of it" (judgment), rather than blurring them in one undifferentiated sentence
The five levels →How closely the work's details the critic describes (color, shape, composition, word, rhythm) match what is actually present in the work
The five levels →Whether the critique goes past the first impression to uncover relationships or causes not obvious on the surface, rather than stopping at surface-level description
The five levels →The critic's distinction between "what is seen in the work" and "what it is presumed to mean or symbolize", and whether the move from the first to the second is signalled
The five levels →Whether the critic's judgments hold together across the text, rather than contradicting themself evaluating the same element or equivalent elements
The five levels →Whether evidentiary grounding is sustained throughout the text, rather than concentrated in one paragraph while the rest of the critique is unmoored judgment
The five levels →The critic's use of the discipline's own terms (composition, rhythm, contrast, plot, maqam...) with their precise conventional meaning in that art, rather than as loose metaphor
The five levels →