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Is there such a thing as good taste?

paulgraham.com

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Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#61

Post by Brian_K_White »

ritchiea wrote: post #36
lr4444lr wrote: post #2

I don't get into these kinds of discussions with people anymore, because they're not socially palatable. I try to stay open minded too about perspectives that are not mine, and try to be objective about my own biases. But I can't shake the feeling that much as someone might validly prefer some abstract dot on a white canvas to the Sistine Chapel ceiling, who would more likely impress the fans of the other, that artis…

It's really not that anyone prefers an abstract dot on a white canvas over the Sistine Chapel. It helps to think of art as a historical dialogue with other art, as well as an exploration of how our senses experience the world. Minimalist abstract art (Ad Reinhardt is one of the more famous practitioners) was pushing viewers to pay attentions to subtleties and small differences in our perceptions of color and shapes.…

Like is the wrong word. I think the closest appropriate idea is "appreciate".

You probably should not "like" some of the best art at all, because it should have made you uncomfortable and think things you would rather not.

Of course I say "some", because art has all kinds of different purposes or intents, and that is only the purpose of some art, not all art.

So I think recognize, acknowledge, or appreciate are the kinds of words to apply rather than like.

And art can even be good even if you not only don't like it but don't even appreciate it. It can be skillfully effective on you whether or not you like it or even have the background or perception to recognize it's quality.

So even "appreciate" isn't really a valid metric.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#62

Post by aremat »

I'll dodge the question slightly and say that bad execution comingles with what could be referred to as bad taste and intent forms part of the judgement. For example, someone was clearly going for a rustic aesthetic but accidentally introduced a jarringly modernist aspect (excluding deliberate juxtaposition). Or, the intent was clearly to impress the viewer with "sophistication" (a dubious intent in itself), but some aspects are inconsistent or poorly judged. Then there are copies of others' styles (strike 1) executed with poorly matched subject matter (strike 2). Add in banal subject matter or clearly functional art, etc...

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#63

Post by ritchiea »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #61
ritchiea wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not that anyone prefers an abstract dot on a white canvas over the Sistine Chapel. It helps to think of art as a historical dialogue with other art, as well as an exploration of how our senses experience the world. Minimalist abstract art (Ad Reinhardt is one of the more famous practitioners) was pushing viewers to pay attentions to subtleties and small differences in our perceptions of color and shapes.…

Like is the wrong word. I think the closest appropriate idea is "appreciate". You probably should not "like" some of the best art at all, because it should have made you uncomfortable and think things you would rather not. Of course I say "some", because art has all kinds of different purposes or intents, and that is only the purpose of some art, not all art. So I think recognize, acknowledge, or appreciate are the k…

It's perfectly reasonable to appreciate a piece of art, recognize its importance and subjectively dislike it. I believe it's going in the wrong direction to try to completely disconnect your subjective like or dislike of art in an effort to better understand or recognize its value. If anything I try to go the other direction and acknowledge my subjective like/dislike/etc sense experience and then intellectualize from there.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#64

Post by Hugsun »

The mistake he makes is to conflate the ability to recognize quality and the appreciation of quality.

He elaborates further in this recommended read http://paulgraham.com/goodart.html

Goodness is always measured against a standard and although he proposes a reasonable standard, it's still arbitrary as all standards are.

I agree that interrogating ones biases and susceptibility to trickery is worthwhile. Helping oneself and others see through trickery and illusions can be too. This idea can however be pursued ad absurdum as well. All fiction requires a suspension of disbelief and it is in itself a form of trickery.

The implication of the existence of a good taste is that it's good to have this taste. Why are those who like good art better than those who appreciate quality but prefer worse art?

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#65

Post by dagw »

soco wrote: post #52
Levitz wrote: post #43

I think that this, sadly, boils down to semantics. It does seem to me that by his reasoning good taste exists since good art exists, problem being that what is considered good art and what people like change with time, present a piece of modern art to Michelangelo and chances are he would consider it some sort of insulting joke. Good taste then is not something objective, but depends on context and the importance of…

Let my give you my primitive explanation to this, maybe it helps a bit. Art is actually more than than the drawing itself, art always comes with a story. When the technique is so great that you can get a good hang of the story just by looking at it, you have the Sixtine chapel. Probably you won't get everything the master wanted to say at a first view, but it's already a lot. On most modern art though, you have zero…

Thus modern artists write also a lot, talk about their works

Sometimes to the detriment of their works. I had a friend who was an aspiring artist, and it was fascinating listening to him talk about his art. He thought deeply about his work and a very clear vision and philosophy about what, how and why he wanted to achieve. Unfortunately his actual execution never got the same care and his actual exhibitions looked mediocre and thrown together together at the last minute (which, to be fair, they tended to be). He never felt that was the important part, and unless you had been in the pub with him the night before you would never have a chance of 'getting' what he was trying to do.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#66

Post by lr4444lr »

ppod wrote: post #14
lr4444lr wrote: post #2

I don't get into these kinds of discussions with people anymore, because they're not socially palatable. I try to stay open minded too about perspectives that are not mine, and try to be objective about my own biases. But I can't shake the feeling that much as someone might validly prefer some abstract dot on a white canvas to the Sistine Chapel ceiling, who would more likely impress the fans of the other, that artis…

The whole point of conceptual art is that reproduction of figurative art is trivial now, so we move up a level. It's easy to reproduce the dot, but it's the conceptual move to dotness that's non-trivial. These ideas are 60 years old (Walter Benjamin) and you're doing a bit of a Two Cultures in reverse by being this simplistic about it.

Fine. Then ask a totally unskilled person to reproduce both and let's see how many fans can be fooled.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#68

Post by lr4444lr »

dagw wrote: post #45
lr4444lr wrote: post #2

I don't get into these kinds of discussions with people anymore, because they're not socially palatable. I try to stay open minded too about perspectives that are not mine, and try to be objective about my own biases. But I can't shake the feeling that much as someone might validly prefer some abstract dot on a white canvas to the Sistine Chapel ceiling, who would more likely impress the fans of the other, that artis…

might validly prefer some abstract dot on a white canvas No one prefers a random dot on a random piece of canvas. They prefer a very particular dot on a very particular canvas made by a very particular person at a very particular point in history. Remove any one one those and it loses all meaning and value. And even the most ardent fan of that work would never argue that that artist was a greater painter or even arti…

But it doesn't hold up the other way when you remove one piece. I'd wager most people would select a Michaelangelo replica even if they were directly told it was a replica than the dot on the canvas if told it was a replica of whatever artist made it.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#69

Post by mojuba »

codeulike wrote: post #56
mojuba wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social signals exist, no doubt about it, but that doesn't explain a lot. Let's say you are in a museum alone, some of the works presented can resonate and excite you more than the others, but you can't share your excitement with anyone. Where is the social signaling element gone then?

Social signals aren't real-time light-beams that someone has to be there to witness; they make up our likes and interests and who we are. Let's say you are in a museum alone, some of the works presented can resonate and excite you more than the others, but you can't share your excitement with anyone. Where is the social signaling element gone then? Lets say: Two months later I'll be at a dinner party and over a bowl…

Yes but your momentary reaction to what you see, how much of it is "social"?

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#70

Post by CyberRabbi »

abernard1 wrote: post #15

For once I agree with Paul Graham. I expect his post to be surprisingly unpopular with this crowd, as it sleights a core tenet of our postmodern age. Namely, he's arguing for a form of objective truth and of "the good". A statistical derivation of this good for sure (and qualitative as opposed to a Benthamist, quantitative utilitarianism), but a good nonetheless. But I applaud PG for taking this stance. Truth is not…

While you claim to oppose the postmodern idea that there is no truth, you’ve ceded the premise to the postmodernists by framing truth in their terms of objectivity and subjectivity. The success of the postmodernists was precisely to discredit all “subjective” truths by way of distinguishing them from “objective” truths, which no common person can deny.

A stronger position is one that does not require the truth to be objective or material to in turn be universal and self-evident. Abstract truths, such as e^(i*pi) = -1 have no material basis and cannot be materially proven yet remain true and universal. The simultaneously purely abstract and non-arbitrary nature of mathematics is an obvious chink in the armor of the postmodernists’ worldview, so it is no surprise they have gone so far as to now discredit the universality of math by arguing that 2+2=5 https://twitter.com/kareem_carr/status/1289001355437379589?s... (this is a Harvard phd student)

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