Category: Human Behavior and Cognitive Science

ART? MATTERS OF TASTE? OR MATTERS OF EDUCATION AND SKILL?

Taste is a consequence of ability, bias, knowledge, and skill. Some people have bad taste. Some classes have bad taste. Some cultures have bad taste. It’s not a matter of opinion.

So just as MORAL intuitions vary due to genetics, gender, class, culture, and education, TASTE intuitions vary due to the same. They are both intuitionistic responses. But all intuitions can be trained with the limits of one’s abilities.

Color blindness, tone deafness, face-blindness, weak pattern recognition, and general inability to learn by observation do influence you.

Familiarity with and associations between patterns and symbols and recognition of the difference between content/value/narrative, fashion/style, movement/period, and technique/materials will anchor you in your traditional frames.

However, it is possible to learn to understand all of them and distinguish between them, and separate premium, good, weak, and bad examples.

The principle weakness in developing taste is composition (sets) vs objects (items). One can collect similar items, or one can make a composition consisting of items. Most people capable of learning can be trained to produce compositions instead of selecting (impulsive) items.

For example, we can appreciate Fletes Cruz, a Botero and a Wei, just as easily as a monet and degas, just as easily as a Rubens and Durer, and to recognize the vast difference between Rodin and Michelangelo and nearly every other sculptor that ever lived. Or the self made prisons that Giacometti’s and Picasso’s styles made for them.

Once you look at works, and tie them to periods, movements, and the economic and political environments you can see the arts as just another technological reflection of the period, and enjoy all of it.

I can be just as happy in colonial, edwardian, victorian, craftsman, and mid century modern, and I prefer the romantics but in my hope I would hang a Rothko, and modern.

The problem is, ‘what is your favorite’ is the absolute WORST question you can ask someone, and it is the worst way to develop taste. Instead, compositions can be beautiful or not. Preferable or not. And preferable for intended purpose or not.

Bad work is very easy to identify because of craftsmanship and design. But bad style and content requires understanding context.

Cheers