An interesting essay on art

V

varjag

Guest
Stumbled tonight on this essay by Paul Graham. I'm sure the ideas explored there will relate to many people here. Clear analysis written in good language, well worth reading.
 
Hmm, taste is not subjective, yet I found this essay boring and not very well thought out, which does not seem to be the concensus here. Is that irony?
 
Finder said:
Hmm, taste is not subjective, yet I found this essay boring and not very well thought out, which does not seem to be the concensus here. Is that irony?
Click to expand...

Kinda agree with you.
That taste is not subjective, nihil novi sub sole, nothing new here. What taste is, how art work can be appreciated "universally", if it is possible, how different people (and not necessarily from different cultures) can talk about the same piece of art and understand each other ... that is the tricky thing.
 
Marc-A. said:
That taste is not subjective, nihil novi sub sole, nothing new here.
Click to expand...
Marc, you'll be surprised how many people will disagree with that. Especially with folks buying into postmodernism.
 
Taste and subjectivity?

I suppose it's easier to read than Kant's Critique of Judgement, even if the latter is sometimes wrong on certain points. Or Hume's "Standard of Taste." Or perhaps the entire damn 2,000 years of discussion in aesthetics about taste since the Greeks.

But that's okay, because everyone can understand art, so everyone can write about it...
 
mhv said:
Taste and subjectivity?

I suppose it's easier to read than Kant's Critique of Judgement, even if the latter is sometimes wrong on certain points. Or Hume's "Standard of Taste." Or perhaps the entire damn 2,000 years of discussion in aesthetics about taste since the Greeks.

But that's okay, because everyone can understand art, so everyone can write about it...
Click to expand...

Would that be High, Mass, Popular or Avant-Garde, they’d be writing about?
:)
 
The logic is pretty shaky, and he doesn't hold my interest, but I respect the fact that his essay is not written in convoluted art-speak
 
mhv said:
Taste and subjectivity?

I suppose it's easier to read than Kant's Critique of Judgement, even if the latter is sometimes wrong on certain points. Or Hume's "Standard of Taste." Or perhaps the entire damn 2,000 years of discussion in aesthetics about taste since the Greeks.

But that's okay, because everyone can understand art, so everyone can write about it...
Click to expand...

Absolutely! Right on!
 
Marc-A. said:
Kinda agree with you.
That taste is not subjective, nihil novi sub sole, nothing new here. What taste is, how art work can be appreciated "universally", if it is possible, how different people (and not necessarily from different cultures) can talk about the same piece of art and understand each other ... that is the tricky thing.
Click to expand...

Taste is subjective, but biological, cultural, and personal aspects are all weighing in.
 
I tried hard, but lost interest, mainly because I didn't find the arguments convincing on any level.
 
From the article:

There are fields now in which many people work with the same energy and honesty that fifteenth century artists did, but art is not one of them.

I'd beg to differ. From what I've seen over the years, artists work extremely hard at their vocation.
 
Sparrow said:
Would that be High, Mass, Popular or Avant-Garde, they’d be writing about?
:)
Click to expand...

Hehe, it's difficult to figure out. Past High Art (let's say Monet) has now faded into Popular Art (Monet posters), and the latter has probably faded into Post-Modern Art (sampling, appropriation), which is itself a kind of Mass Avant Garde (subvert all categories!).

By that reasoning, given that Kant, Hume, and all the other fun guys were analyzing High Art (can you make those capitals bigger?), their genotypes are pretty much everywhere down the tree of art and scholarship.
 
mhv said:
Hehe, it's difficult to figure out. Past High Art (let's say Monet) has now faded into Popular Art (Monet posters), and the latter has probably faded into Post-Modern Art (sampling, appropriation), which is itself a kind of Mass Avant Garde (subvert all categories!).

By that reasoning, given that Kant, Hume, and all the other fun guys were analyzing High Art (can you make those capitals bigger?), their genotypes are pretty much everywhere down the tree of art and scholarship.
Click to expand...

That’s the thing; the viewer or commentator not only brings his aesthetic judgment to a work but also his intellectual, his taste is clouded by his knowledge. I have to conclude that appreciation of art is just too complex to theorise about as each viewer brings to the work his on subjective reality “art for arts sake” is still the best explanation I have.
 
Finder said:
Taste is subjective, but biological, cultural, and personal aspects are all weighing in.
Click to expand...

Hi Finder,
I was referring to the "bon goût" or aesthetic taste in the kantian sense. BTW, even with no such reference, I can say taste is not merely subjective, or it is so in a very weak sense. We have to distinguish carefully between taste and preference when it comes to art. For instance, I don't like Wagner's Walküre but I love Bach's Italian Concertos or Well-Tempered Clavier: it's a matter of preference. But if I say Wagner's music is crap, then it clearly shows a lack of taste. That's why taste is not subjective.
Best,
Marc-A.
 
Sparrow said:
That’s the thing; the viewer or commentator not only brings his aesthetic judgment to a work but also his intellectual, his taste is clouded by his knowledge. I have to conclude that appreciation of art is just too complex to theorise about as each viewer brings to the work his on subjective reality “art for arts sake” is still the best explanation I have.
Click to expand...

I think the mechanisms of taste (i.e. the inferences, the reasonings, the emotions, the social factors, etc) are rather more understandable than the actual content of a judgement of taste (i.e. one's evaluation of a work).

For example, if you make some sociological analysis, you'll see trends correlating liking Mozart with, say, income or education. But it does not explain whether these works are good in any sense.

So it's possible to make an explanation from the person to the work, but it's much more difficult (intractable? I dunno) to make a similar explanation from the work itself to the appreciation.
 
mhv said:
I think the mechanisms of taste (i.e. the inferences, the reasonings, the emotions, the social factors, etc) are rather more understandable than the actual content of a judgement of taste (i.e. one's evaluation of a work).

For example, if you make some sociological analysis, you'll see trends correlating liking Mozart with, say, income or education. But it does not explain whether these works are good in any sense.

So it's possible to make an explanation from the person to the work, but it's much more difficult (intractable? I dunno) to make a similar explanation from the work itself to the appreciation.
Click to expand...

Yes I agree, however if I were asked to make a judgment between Paul Simon’s Graceland’s and the second movement of Beethoven's ninth symphony, both of which have great significance for me, I would find it impossible to determine what proportion was emotional as opposed to environmental.
Similarly I “know” Guernica is a great painting, by a great artist, so I feel like a bad person because I don’t actually like it; despite, or maybe because of a degree in art and art history; I am conditioned by my knowledge
How often do you suspect someone on this forum judges photos by the equipment used in it’s production rather than the image itself?
Or are we saying the same thing perhaps?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom