I adore color, those bold splashes of the most obscure ends of the rainbow add personality to any piece of work. But then again, I respect gray scale art more. Why? Because color may be beauty, but if an artist can capture emotion in a colorless piece of art, then they achieved something wonderful. I believe that gray scale art can either be the worst or the best. An artist either succeeds in portraying pure emotion and reason, or they fail entirely and the art is just that: art. But a good piece of art work isn't just art, it's love, beauty, hate, desire, passion, anger, sorrow, power, happiness, bliss, innocence, or the shocking truth. Art that stirs your soul is the ones that make you think twice. Art that seems to tug on the laces of your heart, or evokes hidden emotions and memories, that's the art that we as humans believe is beautiful. Art should tell a story without a single word, it should make you think without asking, make you wonder like a child, and make you believe you can be part of something.
When I look at art, I don't look for the work the artist put in (not at first, anyway). I look for emotion. I look into the characters eyes and see myself there, see myself as the one who drew/took the picture. If I can't feel that, then I don't believe it's art.