I didn't specifically quantify want an audience is. E.G. for a stage actor, or comedian the audience has a large seperation from self, therefor how well the piece resonates and how far it reaches are easily measured. For a poet their greatest poem may be intended for the audience as self, and the value is unkown to the outside. The quantification of an audience are only two ends of a scale. The value of a piece or artist from the zero of complete apathy is largely irrelevant, unless discussing a comparitive of multiple artists in a similiar scale of balance. Most likely any piece of art will fall between the two extremes, while the value is irrelevant inside the audience beyond anything besides specific comparisons.
Then again my wife hates it when I say that we are not snowflakes, we are not absolutely unique. Most likely an audience of one can not exist and someone will come along that "gets its" as long as the bread crumbs are out. Which echoes back to one of the original premises of the passionate few. The problem is, the passionate few can exist for too many reasons to extrapolate beyond their existence without a rigourous academic and reasoned view to each case. I for one haven't read through Bennets work, and his detractors to completely understand his premise to really comment on it in great detail.
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