Art is Not Subjective

What separates art from science. Is it that it's subjective? By the title of this post, you've probably realized that I'm going to say that it's not. A dictionary might define art as "a subjective artifact meant to be appreciated for its beauty or to cause emotions". Science is objective. If you try to calculate force as something other than mass times acceleration you likely won't get the right answer. But when it comes to art, it could have one effect on me and a totally different one on you. Isn't that subjectivity? So I guess art is subjective after all. Um... guess I was wrong.

By now you've most likely realized that there's more to it. You see, the reason science is objective is that we can predict a result of an event before they happen. Going back to the original example, if we drop an ball on the ground and we know its mass and the acceleration at which it's going to fall, thanks to Isaac Newton, we can calculate the force at which it's going to fall. Then, if we drop the ball and measure the force, we should get the same result. Simple enough. What if I told you that we can do the same thing in art?

Let's imagine someone named Ana. When she was a baby, Ana's parents made her listen to upbeat happy music. As she was older, she started to go to Broadway plays regularly. In school, her friends would always tell jokes. She spent her free time watching romantic movies on Netflix. So if I made Ana watch Mama Mia, dear little Ana is virtually guaranteed to like it. It's a Broadway play with upbeat music, romance, and jokes. Furthermore, there are genetic traits that help predict what kind of art each of us is into. Women tend to prefer romance and music, whereas, men would rather see action and violence. So you can predict results in art just like in science.

Now, you're probably thinking "but just because you know someone might like an art work doesn't make it objective. I hate Broadway musical comedies, therefore, it must be subjective". Well dear commenter, you're right. Art is not objective either. If you don't like that genre, first, what is wrong with you? And second, there are reasons for why you wouldn't like Mama Mia. Maybe you grew up watching sports and thrillers (again, what is wrong with you?). I'm not saying that art is objective, I'm saying art is relative. That is to say, taste in art is predictable and logical.

Science can also be relative. Take psychology as an example. Much like art, psychology is based on our nature and nurture. A woman who was raised comfortably with parents who were always there for her is going to react very differently to a situation than a man who grew up with mostly absent parents. So some realms of science can be pretty similar to art. Yay!

To answer the question I asked at the beginning, "what separates art from science?", the answer is nothing. Art is a science. The relative science of creating emotions in the viewer, listener, etc. That's a much better definition than the one from the first paragraph. In your face, Meriam-Webster!