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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?

#461

Post by long_time_gone »

SilasX wrote: post #394
long_time_gone wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never demanded "copius evidence" I asked a clarifying question. If you are going to make specific claims, people might ask for evidence of those claims. It's not confirmation bias to ask for supporting details, quite the opposite. > Why is it a big assumption that most people don't need to know "This is by Michelangelo and he is a high status artist" to enjoy the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (or whatever else)? Th…

>I never demanded "copius evidence" I asked a clarifying question. If you are going to make specific claims, people might ask for evidence of those claims. It's not confirmation bias to ask for supporting details, quite the opposite. It is when you don't ask for the same evidence of the opposite, original assertion, and when the test you demand/clarify-the-existence-of is a strangely narrow test that no one would hav…

> So yes, when you come in and single out my response as needing a very specific test before you'll consider it plausible, aren't being epistemically fair.

It seems you felt attacked by my comment, which was not the intent. Apologies if it came off confrontationally. I never asked you to supply “a specific test”, I asked if there was one. Not sure why you took it as a personal attack on your point. I was genuinely interested in if the topic has been studied/tested.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#462

Post by zzbzq »

kbelder wrote: post #434
zzbzq wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument is that I can distinguish them, but not rank them, because I distinguish them with respect to their essential character. Grilled cheese's essential character is something I view with derision, and its rank increases only by shedding that essential character. Grilled cheese with sourdough bread, or with veggies and barbecued meat, would rank as "better food" precisely because they rank as "worse grilled c…

So, you've embraced the 'no true scottsman' fallacy as the primary arbiter of your taste.

But in "no true Scotsman" there's an assumption that there's an external definition of the Scotsman category that is invariant from the fallacious clause, whereas here the definition of the grilled cheese category is the system under question. Otherwise, I could say "yes, I like grilled cheese, especially when it isn't grilled and contains neither cheese nor bread."

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#463

Post by pyrale »

fsloth wrote: post #456
pyrale wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the whole point was to point out that some things can be considered rationally better than others While it's anyone's right to pass their opinion as a fact, it helps little in terms of explaining how different people react to art. > art theory is about as usefull for enjoying and doing art as ornithology is for birds. I believe the trouble here is that birds rarely try to pass as ornithologists. Trying to f…

"I hope blue is your favorite color, because it's mine; and if it's not yours, you're wrong" No, but if we both are at a painting course and painting the same still life, it is plausible we can come to a honest agreement about whose painting we prefer, which details are better presented in the others work and so on. We are obviously talking of two entirely different things - art as a social phenomenon, and art as art…

3 examples of still life:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Jan_Brue...

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437317

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/490581

As you can see, the three artists didn't value the same things in their composition. All three are recognized enough to have their place in a museum. And I seriously doubt you can find a consensus about a general theory to rank their work.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#464

Post by rossdavidh »

baud147258 wrote: post #440
rossdavidh wrote: post #141

If PG's arguments were true, then a lot of people whose taste seemed to be quite good, were completely wrong about the Impressionists when they first appeared on the scene. Ditto almost every other new art school. So no one prior to that had good taste? You take a time machine to the century prior to Van Gogh's life, and you might not find anyone in Europe who thought his paintings were good if you showed them what t…

> So no one in Europe had good taste then? Quite a few artists imitated his style, so some had apparently good taste

As I understand it, only the young ones. Disclaimer: I am not an art historian.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#465

Post by quesera »

Igelau wrote: post #431
quesera wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're making a derisive judgement on his fashion choices, from the distance of a couple decades. This is always an error, but you should see his "vest" years! As it happens, there's a story behind the choices of black turtleneck (very specific maker), Levi's (5xx?), and New Balance (993s). They are the results of deliberate application and prioritization of optimizations -- evaluated by his personal criteria…

> black turtleneck (very specific maker) Pretty sure that's Issey Miyaki. > They are the results of deliberate application and prioritization of optimizations -- evaluated by his personal criteria only, of course. You might think I'm kidding, but I am not. I believe you 100%. None of those words is synonymous with "good taste".

There is no "good" in this equation, but clearly the decisions were the result of the application of large amounts of "taste".

But see above re: application of current sensibilities to historical fashion decisions. Always a mistake.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#466

Post by cwmoore »

wcarron wrote: post #246
cwmoore wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder whether you think this essay is "great" mostly because you agree with it? That one must judge art, to enjoy art, appears fundamentally exclusionary, itself to my tastes, and to use PG's word, "crass", but in yours, his, and most people's, more or less innocently so.

Not OP but > That one must judge art, to enjoy art, appears fundamentally exclusionary, Well, yes. You must make a judgement in order to have a reaction. In order to have a positive reaction to something (enjoy) it, somewhere along the line, you must have decided if had positive attributes. If it had bad attributes, you would not enjoy it. But a decision/judement/evaluation IS made.

Another point this raises is approximately identical to the headline question, so that if there is such a thing as good judgement there is also good taste and vice versa, and they will fail in similar ways related to subjectivity.

I feel this even dilutes the situation further because the moral questions of judgement are often out of place or under questioning in works of art.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#467

Post by newbamboo »

deviantfero wrote: post #411
newbamboo wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry if I didn’t grasp your point. I am trying to. Maybe a simple set of questions would help: You don’t feel some art is better or special? Or you don’t feel a person can discern between art that is better or worse, even in the most extreme cases? Or is it something else? If you yourself are an artist, or own art, then surely you find some works better than others? Museums make these decisions about what to own. Do…

> Maybe a simple set of questions would help: You don’t feel some art is better or special? Or you don’t feel a person can discern between art that is better or worse, even in the most extreme cases? Or is it something else? Yes, but that is the point I think, subjectivity. You also feel that way for different reasons, and who's to judge which of us is objectively right?

“who's to judge which of us is objectively right?”

History, hiring committees, the general public, artists assessment of their own work, artists assessments of other peoples work, common sense, to name a few. Obviously I have come to my own conclusion on the matter. My interest is in why others can’t see what to me seems self evident. I too used to not understand, to think it’s all subjective, that there is no there there. But I hadn’t thought about it deeply enough. It seems some are confused because of books they’ve read or ideas put forth by thinkers they’ve found persuasive. I guess I would need to read all of those the same books to understand their position, but what’s the point if I know they are wrong? When alchemy was a thing I might need to read enormously to understand the full scope of the beliefs of those practitioners. A waste of time frankly.

I like to engage who have less invested in their own mistaken conclusion about art, because many people are like me or Paul, ready to be turned around if prompted to really think about it more deeply. Those people may find, as I have, that art becomes much more meaningful and enriching when you believe there’s something to it. To believe it’s all subjective is a great insult to the professionals and artists who devote themselves to it. It robs the person who possessed those beliefs of the opportunity to fully appreciate art. I know this from personal experience. I’ll leave it at that. A long way of saying I agreed with the essay.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#468

Post by fsloth »

pyrale wrote: post #463
fsloth wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I hope blue is your favorite color, because it's mine; and if it's not yours, you're wrong" No, but if we both are at a painting course and painting the same still life, it is plausible we can come to a honest agreement about whose painting we prefer, which details are better presented in the others work and so on. We are obviously talking of two entirely different things - art as a social phenomenon, and art as art…

3 examples of still life: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Jan_Brue... https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437317 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/490581 As you can see, the three artists didn't value the same things in their composition. All three are recognized enough to have their place in a museum. And I seriously doubt you can find a consensus about a general theory…

Yes, which means all of whom have recognized mastery of their art. So in a way they all are at the top.

But can we "rank art" at all? I think we can but we need to look not at the masters, but at the multitude of nameless students, most of which will never get their works displayed.

Let's take an thought experiment - an art class of local hobbyists is given the task of copying only one of them, let's say the Pissarro one.

After everyone considers their work done, each student is given the task of distributing the paintings to two groups, "the better half" and "the not-as-good" half.

Are the groupings random, or is there "a sense of taste and quality" guiding the students?

If you agree that it is likely that this grouping can be done in a way that is not random, we can agree on my point that there is a non-numerical-yet-not-random way to rate art that can be applied at least some of the time. If we disagree, we disagree and that's fine.

Another example:

Our daughter likes to draw a lot in her own style. Now she is revisiting her old drawings and redrawing them few years later. While her earlier work has some naive charm, she tends to prefer her later pieces, and indeed I do find her current work "better" in the sense that the characters are "more" there - they are more skilfully renderered and have "more character".

I think she is "a better artist" a few years later. Would others agree on this? Again, I would imagine they do.

I think the condensed version of my claim is "There are scenarios where within a given genre/style art can be rated by a non-random yet non-numerical measure".

I think piano competitions, especially the ones where the contestants play the same pieces work this way - there is a non-numerical, yet non-random measure guided by the jurys taste on who is the best.

I do appreciate you have the patience to continue this dialogue!

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#470

Post by LudwigNagasena »

motohagiography wrote: post #103

Wrote professionally about taste in a previous life. It is related more closely than we expect to techne or competence from physical knowledge. When we think of poor taste, we tend to think of symbols that are separated from their function and meaning, where instead of representing that, "I do this thing," something gaudy says, "I have this thing!" That's what crassness is, and it comes down to our relative apprehens…

>Wrote professionally about taste in a previous life. It is related more closely than we expect to techne or competence from physical knowledge.

Closer than we expect? Huh? Competence and skill are the two most common concepts associated with taste, ask any person who hates contemporary art.

> It's whether something legitimately represents power. Taste may be an instinct for honest signals, which would seem like its own sort of intelligence.

I understand that nowadays everything in humanities has to be about power to be fashionable, but that sounds like quite a reach. I don’t really follow this logic on crassness.

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