Have you ever looked at a work of art and thought that it was ugly? Perhaps you found it to be appealing. It is not uncommon for us to make value judgments based on appearance. Since the Renaissance, critics have been making such judgments about works of art. In the 1500s, Giorgio Vasari, considered the first art historian, wrote Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects in which he discussed artists whom he thought were the great masters.

Of course, value judgments can change over time. In the 1800s Vincent Van Gogh was lucky to sell a handful of paintings, but in 1987, a Japanese company purchased "Still Life: Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers" for a record $40,000,000! Van Gogh's work was not received well when he was alive, yet  nearly a century later, his work is revered.