"Levels" of Art

Jacob asked the following: "Telfer attributed food as a minor art, and Scruton thinks that photography is a lesser art form. Are there levels of art? Are some forms inherently better than others or is all art, or rather, all artforms equal?"

The simple answer is, "no." For a longer answer... there are numerous difficulties with this idea of a "lesser" versus "greater" arts.

For one, it is presumptuous to pick out particular art forms and say that one is better than another. Each different art form has a different tradition, and look for different aspects, so in a sense, trying to categorize "lesser" and "greater" art is like comparing apples to oranges. They're both fruit, but there's no way to argue that one is "better" than another.

Another difficulty is that there is such variation within different artistic "types." For example, I would argue that John Cage's 4'33 is certainly less accomplished than, say, Vivaldi's Four Seasons. It seems ludicrous, therefore, to consider a "song" where the musician merely sits at the piano for 4 minutes and 33 seconds would necessarily be a better work of art than, say, a photograph, simply because John Cage's piece is "music," and thus a "greater" art than the "lesser art" of photography.

Given this large variation of skill, it is absurd to try to differentiate art forms as "greater" or "lesser." Rather, I would suggest that art works be judged solely on their merit, lest we mistake a poor piece of one type of art to be better than a great piece of a different type simply because of the types of art these works are examples of.

To end with a question: Is Scruton justified in his use of "Ideal examples" to build his case against photography?