Classifying Art

The approach of the BCC to classifying art (and works about art) is outlined in Rick Szostak, "Classifying the Humanities," published in Knowledge Organization 41:4, 263-75. The concluding paragraph is reprised here:

The approach to classification recommended in this paper allows a better classification of works of art (including literature) in several ways:

· It allows works to be classified in terms of any phenomenon or relationship captured in a work

· The ‘theory’ dimension is used to capture artistic style, again in terms both of a particular style name and style type

· The ‘method’ dimension is used to capture particular artistic techniques

· We can thus focus the classification of “types of art” on the medium of expression

· The ‘perspective’ dimension captures rhetorical, aesthetic, ideological, ethical, and epistemological characteristics

· The editions dimension allows recognition of new performances.

In sum, we are able to capture many characteristics of art that are captured poorly if at all within existing approaches to classifying works of art.

The paper is available from the author and will be posted soon.