What is a good guideline when evaluating art?

What is a good guideline when evaluating art?
The quality of an artwork is determined by balancing a number of factors. The most important of these is historical relevance, both as it pertains to the artist as a representative of their time period (IE Jacques-Louis David's mastery of neoclassical style reflected the sentiments of the french revolution) and also where the work falls in line with the artists personal career (IE Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is considered one of his greatest masterpieces because it predicts many of the issues he would spend his life dealing with).

Other factors like execution, innovation and overall cultural influence are all taken into account when making an informed judgement about an artwork.

Of course this becomes more complex with contemporary work. Since it is very difficult, if not impossible, to truly know what any generation will be remembered for, attempting to judge a work as indicative of its time period is dicey.

Many people say that "how it makes you feel"* is the only way to judge a contemporary work. While there is something to be said for that - particularly if you are a collector - an informed contemporary art viewer will base their judgement of an artwork on its relationship to art history as it has occurred and is being discussed as well as the factors that surrounded its creation (IE the who/what/when/where etc.) How you feel about it DOES matter; it matters because YOU are inherently indicative of your time period.



*"how it makes you feel" had been the complete answer submitted for this question prior to my entry.