The phrase "artistic touchstone" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to refer to a significant work or concept that serves as a standard or reference point in the realm of art or creativity.
Example: "The painting is considered an artistic touchstone for modern abstract art, influencing countless artists in the years that followed."
Alternatives: "creative benchmark" or "artistic standard".
For decades now, Murakami has been talking about working himself up to write what he calls a "comprehensive novel" — something on the scale of "The Brothers Karamazov," one of his artistic touchstones.
But if they were merely didactic — simple indictments of the system or hymns to the nobility of the proletariat — the postwar films of Visconti and De Sica would now most likely be regarded as historical curiosities rather than as artistic touchstones.
Before multiculturalism and collaboration were artistic touchstones, before World Music had its own corner at Tower Records, Mr. Amram, who composes for symphony orchestras, was improvising with instruments like the Lakota courting flute and with Kerouac's live recitation of his own poetry.
While Tomato's process was technological subversion, their artistic touchstones were more historical.
Books on water, frequencies, cells, animals, and self-organization satisfied his naturalist impulses, and music by techno-industrial act Coil, the Japanese electronic band Yellow Magic Orchestra, electro-funk keyboardist Herbie Hancock, and Miles Davis became artistic touchstones. .
They represent twin poles of artistic endeavour, twin touchstones of taste and evaluation.
Mailer may well be best remembered as an author of essays and, above all, of a sort of literary journalism that is one of the enduring and fertile inventions of the time, but the novel was his touchstone of artistic experience and achievement, and the letters show, both in their substance and in their style, how he got sidetracked.
One reason for his inaccessibility, Ms. Kesaeva and Mr. Groys said, is that like many Soviet artists, he was fundamental disconnected from the market economy — the touchstone for contemporary artistic success.
"If I had to use one word to describe Denver it would be egalitarian". De Luca points to the city's historic preservation and vibrant street scene as touchstone examples of its artistic essence.
