Confusion about art today, has led many people back to the one criteria they believe can be trusted... this is technical skill or expert craftsmanship.

For me, it comes down to whether the skill interferes with the communication in any way, either positively or negatively. We shouldn't notice the ripples in a carelessly stretched water color, or super-slick-brushwork. We shouldn't fixate on the matting and framing, but on the picture inside.
 

"It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted." (36)

Adolph Gottlieb and Mark Rothko
 

"Realistic art... offers a surface - a picture to look at - as well as a certain objective standard of technique that can beguile a viewer into believing it is unimportant to investigate whether anything else is occurring behind it." (37)
Thomas Albright
 

36. Herschel B. Chipp, Theories of Modern Art, (Berkeley and L.A., California, U. of California Press,1968), p.545
37. Thomas Albright, On Art and Artists, (U.S.A. The Chronicle Publishing Co.,1989), p. 131