Judging Criteria for Art Shows

The judging of art shows is a crap shoot.  You never know what to expect.  I’ve heard horror stories, as you probably have.  Here are a few true examples:

A judge eliminated all landscapes on principle.
Another one ruled out any painting with the color green.
A judge was coached by the show committee (which hired him) to give awards to the paintings that had the best chance of selling, since it was a fund raising event.   (I’ve heard the same story from several judges over the years).

But even if you leave out the extreme examples of behind-the-scenes art show nonsense, judging art remains highly subjective.  In many cases, judges simply gravitate toward work that appeals to their personal taste.  So the award-winning work all ends up looking like the judge could have produced it.  This is more than unfortunate.  It is stifling to the creative impulse, and teaches you nothing about how to improve your work in the future.

So what can be done?

When I judge a show, my goal is to be as objective as possible.    I want to give awards to the best work, not to the work that looks most like my own.  I created a checklist using numerical values to evaluate paintings, similar to the process used to judge disciplines such as diving, gymnastics, or debate.  The subjective element is balanced as much as possible by a set of objective criteria that can be given a numerical value.

The numbers don’t lie!

This checklist is just one guy’s attempt to be fair.  It can be improved.  But it’s a starting place.

Ok, here is a judges statement followed by the checklist.  If you have any suggestions for modifying or improving the checklist, please let me know.  If you have your own that you are already using, feel free to post a link so others can check it out.

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Judge’s Statement

Nobody makes a picture or sculpture and walks away from it without saying something about it, good or bad.  The creative process always ends with evaluation.   In the beginning, God declared creation to be “very good.   We do the same thing all the time.  Even a toddler will show scribbles to a parent in order to get feedback.  The last time you finished making something, what went through your head?  What came out of your mouth?  We can’t help ourselves.

So what standards are we going to use to evaluate our artwork?   How can you judge your own work in a way that will help you improve?  How can you offer feedback to a fellow painter that will be based on more than personal taste?

My focus as the awards judge was on the arrangement or design of the entire artwork.   Did the artist create a harmony of form that conveys one visual idea? I looked at the elements of design- line, shape, space, value, and color -  in light of universal principles of design- hierarchy, rhythm, balance, unity.

Each contender for awards was evaluated using this checklist.  Awards were given based on the numerical scores.    You may not agree with all the selections, but you can be sure the choices were not made on a whim.    And more importantly, if you evaluate your own work using fundamental principles of good design, you will know where the next step on your creative journey lies.

David Michael Slonim

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(If the checklist below is too small to read easily, you can click on it to see a larger file)