Abstract
I intend to clarify how the artistic value, which is difficult to be dealt with even in a traditional aesthetics, is described from the viewpoint of information theory. M. Bense thinks simply of the value of work of art equivalent to the quantity of its information. L. Meyer thinks that a probabilistic uncertainty arised from the inhibition and resistance of tendency toward a goal implied in work of art, causes its value. And this Meyer's thought about artistic value seems on the whole familiar with Bense's one. Opposed to such explanations, A. Moles considers the artistic value as a decreasing function f (∣information-capacity∣) of the deviation ∣inf.-cap. of objective information of work of art offered by artist from subjective information capacity of receptor. If this Moles' instructive formulation about the analysis of artistic value which depends on information theory, could be applied not only to the syntactic form of work of art but also to its semantic content, the traditional problems of value in aesthetics must become more clear.
