What exactly does masterpiece mean

A. There are three main meanings, of diminishing degrees of precision: first - and in its original sense and one that we don't really use today - a test-piece of work submitted to a craft organisation or guild as qualification for entry as a master; secondly, a work considered an artist's best or most representative; and finally, a very good piece of work.

Q. How do we use it colloquially

A. The English word 'masterpiece' is a 16th-century derivation from the German Meisterstck, a test-piece. However, almost from the first the English word was used also as much in its extended and transferred senses - in 1606 Shakespeare's Macbeth features the line 'Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!' - more in keeping with uses of the French phrase chef d'oeuvre, which, in the 16th century, came to be used also of great architectural achievements and great pieces of art in addition to its original sense.

Today in English we use it exclusively as meaning either (a) an artist's best piece or (b) in the more general sense of something being good.

Q. In that sense, does it retain any objective meaning

A. It does if there is a consensus as to the quality of a work. It is hard to describe a living artist with an ongoing body of work as having produced a masterpiece in the the meaning (a) above; that is something that can usually only be assessed by looking at a whole oevre, that is after the artist has stopped working. In sense (b) it becomes a way of describing something either in comparison with other works by other artists - a masterpiece of fauvism, for example - or simply a means of expressing an appreciation of something (be it food, a car or even a well-executed tennis stroke).

Q. So is the term more of a hindrance than a help

A. Colloquially, no, as everyone knows what you mean when you say 'that film's an absolute masterpiece'. However, when discussing art, it can, if applied too liberally, influence how you view a work, thus taking away an element of your own appreciation. It is hard not to be affected by the 20-deep crowds trying to get a look at the Mona Lisa behind its bullet-proof glass in the Louvre in Paris.

This kind of fame, the public, and especially critical, ackowledgement that a work is a masterpiece, feeds on itself, and may raise the status of an individual pieces well above its 'real' artistic value and seriously inflating its financial worth. A consideration of how art prices reflect the artistic worth of a piece is another discussion, but hanging the tag of masterpiece on something can only help to influence it.

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By Simon Smith