system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Can art be objectively judged?

I'm sure this question has been asked countless times in this subreddit, but reading through what I could find, none of the answers truly satisfied me. 

I'll talk about music as an example of this, as it's one of the arts I'm most fond of. I find myself discussing with some of my friends about how much of the music in that dominates the market is VERY, VERY "bland" (Specially in Brazil, where I'm from). They all follow an already pre-established formula that they know makes money, and thus innovation is not encouraged. Some people would say, by this fact alone, that this type of music is not art, but let's imagine that it is. 

If we compare this music with some of the classical composers that have universal praise, can we say that one piece of work is objectively "better", than the other? Or is it simply a matter if taste? And if so, what is this taste based on?
The same could be said about anything else. 
A recipe that someone enjoys might be seen as disastrous by a chef. 
Literature experts might hate some popular teenage novels.


TL;DR: Are there objective criteria upon which art can be judged?
gpt
Tolstoy argued that something only constituted art if it *infected* you. That is, if you could look at it, and immediately feel something, even if that feeling was indescribable, then it was art. 

"An artist, if he is a true artist, has in his work conveyed to others the feeling he has experienced: what is there to explain?  If the work is good as art, then the feeling expressed by the artist is conveyed to others, regardless of whether the work is moral or immoral. If it is conveyed to others, they experience it, and experience it, moreover, each in his own way, and all interpretation is superfluous. If the work does not infect others, then no interpretation is going to make it infectious. Artistic works cannot be interpreted. If it had been possible for the artist to explain in words what he wished to say, he would have said it in words. But he has said it with his art, because it was impossible to convey the feeling he experienced in any other way. The interpretation of a work of art in words proves only that the interpreter is incapable of being infected by art."

He also argued that simply having a talent or skill in art and using it for remuneration was *not* art, but simply a *simulacrum* of it.

"There are many conditions necessary for a man to create a true object of art. It is necessary that the man stand on the level of the highest world outlook of his time, that he have experienced a feeling and have the wish and opportunity to transmit it, and that he have, with all that, a talent for some kind of art. It is very seldom that all these conditions necessary for the production of true art come together. But to produce, with the help of the developed methods of borrowing, imitation, effectfulness and diversion, that simulacrum of art which is so well remunerated in our society, one need only have a talent for some kind of art, which occurs quite often." 

\- Leo Tolstoy, *What is Art?*