The Greatest Work of Art of All Time

While there cannot be a definite answer to what is the greatest work of art of all time, there are definitely come candidates. To be able to address this question, it is first prudent to define art. My definition in progress for art is any creative device that man has made that has an aesthetic value, but this is by no means the final definition. Dictionary.com defines “art” as “The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.” Now, to define greatness. Greatness is an mastery and proficiently genius and rises above almost every other thing in its same medium. Again this is a far from perfect definition but it is the best I can do for the present time. I would like to here say that this is a neither futile nor perfunctory task at determining the greatest single work of art of all time. It sets the standard for human creation and gives the criterion for man’s efforts at creating something beauty and ingenious.

This definition should be all encompassing. For this essay, works of art include sculpture, architecture, painting, music and literature. If there is a flaw here feel free to point one out. So, we must first define the greatest work of art in each of these mediums, and then compare them.

To begin with literature, it is not a bad idea to choose “William Shakespeare’s” Hamlet as the single greatest thing ever written. There are other candidates, for example the תורה, The Iliad, Paradise Lost, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, War and Peace and a few others. Yet it is a safe bet to choose Hamlet.

Architecture is still art, but there is no single piece of Architecture that can compete in this competition, so it drops out. That leaves music, sculpture and painting. For sculpture there are two candidates in my mind: Rodin’s The Thinker and Michelangelo’s David. Personally I like the latter’s Moses, but I am in the serious minority.

For painting there are many more candidates. However, if we are to consider Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, then that takes the prize for greatest painting. Yet for fun let us consider other candidates. The ones that come to mind, and yes they are also among my personal favorites, are Picasso’s Guernica, Raphael’s School of Athens, da Vinci’s Last Supper and Mona Lisa, and Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. Again, I am sure that I am at least partially wrong in this assumption, but that is the life of an amateur art critic.

Now for music. There is little consensus for what is the greatest single work of music of all time, so I would like to suggest come candidates. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos cannot be ignored, nor can some of Mozart’s Sonatas, and Beethoven’s Symphonies. Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Wagner, as well as a few other composers cannot be ignored. However, the fact remains that there is no general consensus among the musical community for the greatest work. I know some will make a case for some of the Jazz works, a Beatles song or two as well as a plethora of others. But the fact remains that there is no agreed upon masterwork in the musical community. Note again that I am not a professional music critic or an art critic, and the only area where I have some serious knowledge and talent is in literary criticism, but I am adept enough to undertake this study.

So, it appears that we have narrowed it down to four candidates: Rodin’s Thinker, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and David, and “Shakespeare’s” Hamlet. For the sake of argument, I would like to narrow this down even more by disregarding The Thinker and David because their greatness in one disciple make it difficult to judge, so there is no masterwork in sculpture. While David is superior in intricacy and purely aesthetic beauty, The Thinker has more philosophical merit, and the image that is highly enduring. However, David is more recognizable. I guess a case could be made for its superiority over The Thinker but the latter cannot be ignored. Anyway this is my essay and I decided to disregard the two sculptures.

And we are left with Hamlet versus the Sistine Chapel. I bet if you were to ask Michelangelo which was superior he would claim that Hamlet was, but he would say that his David was superior to his Sistine Chapel and Hamlet. But how to examine Hamlet against The Sistine Chapel? This task seems almost impossible, but it must be attempted! From a humanistic perspective Hamlet is superior. From a purely aesthetic period, the Sistine Chapel is superior. From a story line, they are equal, but in creativity, Hamlet is superior. Granted, Michelangelo did not.compose בראשית (Genesis, I love using other languages, as you know), but the way he fit the scene on the ceiling was immaculate
Also, his final judgment was a clear work of beauty, and his incorporation was of the Prophets and mythology was breathtaking.

While this is about 1000 pages too short for a clear and fair explanation of what is the greatest work of all time, I would like to declare Hamlet the greatest work of art of all time in its Humanism, originality, beauty and creativity. This is not by no means the end, but I do have school to deal with (by school I mean doing literally everything in my power to go Ivy, or else life is pointless, but trust me I do not want to go on that rant right now), and I intend to finish this at a later date.

Note that this is an essay based solely on my perceptions of art, and I am sure an art critic could dismantle it, for I am not a professional art critic. However, the prompt is something to consider and I hope that I have at least gotten you to contemplate the topic.