Connoisseur

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Connoisseur

A connoisseur (Fr. connaisseur, from Middle-French connoistre, then connaître meaning "to be acquainted with" or "to know somebody/something.") is a person who has a great deal of knowledge about the fine arts, or an expert judge in matters of taste.

Modern connoisseurship must be seen along with museum

Museum

A museum is a "permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment, for the purposes of education, study, and entertainment", as defined by the International Coun...
s, art galleries

Art gallery

An art gallery or art museum is a space for the art exhibition, usually visual art. Paintings are the most commonly displayed art objects; however, sculpture, photographs, illustrations, installation art and objects from the applied arts may also be shown....
and "the cult of originality

Originality

Originality is the aspect of created or invented works by as being new or novel, and thus can be distinguished from replica, clones, forgery, or derivative works....
". Connoisseurs evaluate works of art

Art

Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music and literature....
on the basis of aesthetic

Aesthetics

Aesthetics or esthetics is commonly known as the study of senses or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste ....
conclusions.

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Encyclopedia

Museum

Art gallery

Originality

Art

Aesthetics

Aesthetics or esthetics is commonly known as the study of senses or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste ....
conclusions. Judgment informed by intuition is essential, but it must be grounded in a thorough understanding of the work itself. On the basis of empirical evidence, refinement of perception about technique and form, and a disciplined method of analysis, the responsibility of the connoisseur is to attribute

Attribution

In the arts and antiques, attribution is the judgment by experts as to the authorship, date, or other aspect of the origin of a work of art or cultural artifact....
authorship, validate authenticity

Authenticity

Authenticity refers to the truthfulness of origins, attributions, commitments, sincerity, devotion, and intentions.Authenticity or Authentic may refer to:...
and appraise quality

Quality

Quality may refer to:Concepts:* Quality * Quality , an attribute or a property* Quality , which has separate meanings in thermodynamics and harmonics...
. These findings can be collected and organized into a catalogue raisonné
Catalogue raisonné

A catalogue raisonn? is a monograph giving a comprehensive catalogue of Visual arts by an artist. It normally provides the following:* Photographs of every work discussed...
of the work of a single artist

Artist

The definition of an artist is wide-ranging and covers a broad spectrum of activities to do with creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art....
or a school

Art school

Art school is a colloquial term for any educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, especially graphic design, illustration, painting, photography, and sculpture....
.

During the 18th century, however, the term was often used as a synonym for a still vaguer man of taste or a pretended critic

Critic

The word critic comes from the Greek language ' , "able to discern", which in turn derives from the word ' , meaning a person who offers reasoned judgment or analysis, value judgment, interpretation, or observation....
.

In 1760, Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith was an Anglo-Irish writer, poet, and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer ....
says, "Painting

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . In art, the term describes both the act and the result, which is called a painting....
is now become the sole object of fashionable care; the title of connoisseur in that art is at present the safest passport into every fashionable Society; a well timed shrug, an admiring attitude and one or two exotic tones of exclamation are sufficient qualifications for men of low circumstances to curry favour."

In 1890, Giovanni Morelli

Giovanni Morelli

Giovanni Morelli was an Italy art critic and political figure. As an art historian, he developed the "Morellian" technique of scholarship, identifying the characteristic "hands" of painters through scrutiny of diagnostic minor details that revealed artists' scarcely conscious shorthand and conventions for portraying, for example, ears....
wrote, "art connoisseurs say of art historians that they write about what they do not understand; art historians, on their side, disparage the connoisseurs, and only look upon them as the drudges who collect materials for them, but who personally have not the slightest knowledge of the physiology of art."

In his Meaning in the Visual Arts (1955), Erwin Panofsky

Erwin Panofsky

Erwin Panofsky was a German Jewish art historian who emigrated to America and remains highly influential in the modern academic study of iconography....
explains the difference between a connoisseur and an art historian: "The connoisseur might be defined as a laconic art historian, and the art historian as a loquacious connoisseur."

Internationally, the term connoisseur is also used in connection with fine food

Food

Food is any substance, usually composed of carbohydrates, fats, proteins and water, that can be Eating or Drinking by an animal or human for nutrition or pleasure....
, beer

Beer

Beer is the world's oldest and most widely consumed alcoholic beverage and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and Fermentation of starches, mainly derived from cereal?the most common of which is malted barley, although wheat, maize , and rice are widely used....
, wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage often made of fermentation grape juice. The natural chemical balance of grapes is such that they can ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes or other nutrients....
and many other products whose consumption can be pleasing to the senses.