What Constitutes a Masterpiece?

I would imagine even in a literary culture, determining the value of a masterpiece or any work of art could be as controversial as the 2010 presidential election. And those who are hoping to bring home the ‘masterpiece title’ would expectedly want to know the objective criteria and its various degree of importance. As a creative writing student, I also wonder how work of art can be quantified. Is it base on the time and effort of the craftsman spent creating his piece? Is it the amount of skill or technique he used, the rarity of material or the subject matter, the stage of development or his experience as the master of his own art? How about the art’s universal appeal, the recognition it acquires from respected guild, the art’s longevity?
What really makes an art masterpiece? Oxford Dictionary’s meaning of masterpiece is an “exceptionally good piece of creative work by a particular craftsman.” I am thinking Michaelangelo’s Pieta and the painting on the ceiling of Sistine Chapel, Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night, Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and James Joyce’s The Dead.. These and other masterpieces in various field of study, whether in architecture, painting or the written art, continue to impress me as it resonate up to the present time.

I was on my way to meet a client while baffling over this single question, what constitutes a masterpiece? And I had kept a mental picture of an ad of a stunningly beautiful woman with a set of flattering eyes, its color distinctly contrast her glossy jet black hair and smiling red lips. Her skin unbelievably flawless, whether naturally gifted or photoshopped. Her eyebrows were archly shaven and cheekbone protruded as she smiled, displaying a perfectly even set of teeth. The ad was hanging at the left, right and the whole stretch of EDSA, infuriatingly calling the attention of people passing by including myself. I was also mentally calculating, but almost one hundred percent certain that it undergone superior technical photo enhancement – cropping, polishing, slanting or tilting, editing, polishing again– before it became ready for public consumption. I admired it because it pretends to have been effortless, inviting me to linger and look closely as I began to get curious about the critical process it went through before an ad agency bought it and publicly posted it to every street pole available, announcing the whole archipelago about the latest technology in dandruff treatment or the cutting-edge in liposuction. I am hoping to lead my point to the same process of creating a piece of art, say a novel. French author, Andre Gide said, “Art begins with resistance - at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor”. Michaelangelo spent four years painting the ceiling of Sistine Chapel which also impaired his eyesight. John Gardner, author of On Becoming a Novelist, labored with ferocious concentration on a single scene, polishing, revising and tearing out; rewriting, polishing and revising again. Even an old-timer writer like him experienced having to throw away two hundred pages like cutting off his own legs. But I guess he had learned to take the pains over time.

A master is a visionary capable of materializing his own vision while currently expanding our own. Artists learn their craft from their predecessor to a great extent, which Aristotle called “imitation”. They begin by conceiving of the possibilities open to them in terms of the achievements they are acquainted with. The true work of art adds to the tradition, opening new possibilities to their successors. It is through this master’s art that the great traditions of the novel came down to us. A masterpiece transcends its subject matter, expanding the viewer's concept of art, becoming a marker, a buoy, a reference point for the future masters of the art.