Response to Valerie's question

"What makes on person more able to criticize a work than someone else?"
"In my opinion, what would make one more qualified to critique something, would be knowledge in that field. If you critique paintings you should have taken quite a few painting classes, on history and technique for example, or if not that, be able to paint yourself. If music, you should be a musician, or have taken musical classes, whether theory, history, or lessons in a specific instrument would be up to you, but you should have knowledge in that field. Any old person on the streets can rant about their opinion on something, but if you've been trained or taught in that field, your word should carry a bit more weight having some knowledge and experience behind it. Why do people need to be told what to think about art in the first place, why do we need critics in our newspapers and online?"

Response to Denise's question

"When we view visual art are our emotions influenced more by the lines or subject of the painting or by the colors used? Or, if you prefer music, are they influenced more by the pitch or the rhythm?"
"Being a musician I find the second part of this question rather easy. Emotions are influenced by pitch, rhythm, tempo, and volume in equal amounts, they simply have a different effect on the emotion. Pitch, or rather combinations of pitches, define the mood, IE: happiness, sadness, whistfulness, you name it. Rhythm, and tempo define the urgency, and sometimes in conjunction with volume, intensity of the emotion. I have clarified music's component's effects on emotion, would anyone care to do so with painting's components? Brush stroke weight, color, lines/shapes, styles of stroke, type of paint, to name just a few."

Critics

"I came upon an interesting contradiction in my readings, the roll of the critic. They are traditionally and stereotypically seen as some sort of parasitic growth upon the artistic fields, merely there to offer their own opinion, and expecting to be paid for it. Typically they offer simple emphasis on the work's down-fallings, without acknowledging the pieces worth, or what went right in it. Yet there are those few gems who manage to point out what went well, and offer a relatively unbiased view of the piece that could be considered helpful. It seems generally accepted that critics should be done away with. Yet in his works, Bell applauds the critic, calles them useful, uses them to point out things he may have missed, to give him a different perspective."
The dragon looks at me for a minute then responds: "Both these view seem valid to me, while some critics are parasitic, and detrimental in nature, others seem to give worthwhile reviews, that contain shocking insight into the piece's nature, along with the critic's own personal opinion of the piece. A good question would have to be: Should criticism be treated as a profession and paid and respected as such, or should it be treated as a hobby, with the artist choosing to endorse reviews as they like, and newspapers donating money if the choose to, making the quality of the article more important than the affordability of the critic."

And so, I pose the dragon's question to you, my friends: Should criticism be treated as a profession, or as a hobby?