Taste in visual art is not quantifiable or easily assessed or agreed upon. The old saw "I don't know anything about art but I know what I like" makes the point well. You don't have to have any knowledge or experience of art in order to have a certain taste in or for art.
When I taught a college course called Visual Literacy, I thought it would be interesting to investigate the idea of good taste and bad taste as a beginning assignment. Students were asked to bring in something that they considered good taste and something they considered bad taste and we were going to discuss their choices. Most students brought in what I expected: well-designed objects for good taste and souvenirs or tacky knick-knacks for bad taste. But one young woman brought in a seashell and a plastic horse and exactly reversed her objects. The seashell, she explained, was just something you can find on the beach--they're common, everyday items. But the plastic horse (which, by the way, was so crudely made that the seams were very obvious) had to be made. Someone sculpted it before it was manufactured, she said. Her take on it was that good taste and hard work were related. She had no background in aesthetics. She truly didn't know that you could find great beauty in a natural object and find a plastic horse ugly and commonplace. It was very instructive to me and I dare say this woman also learned a lot that semester.
So why don't people have better taste? I ask myself this often. I wonder why people buy Thomas Kinkaides. His stuff (I can't bring myself to call it art), is hideous, plain and simple. Another questions: Why do people like huge, flashy, buckled designer handbags? They're super ugly. Is is a lack of art education? A lack of good art education? Could I be wrong about my own taste? I am rarely in a quandary when I look at an artwork, building, outfit, interior, etc. as to what's wrong or what's bad or good. I like to think I can back up my taste with solid arguments about originality, changing my view of the world, making me puzzled, angry, amazed, etc.
My son who is 28 and an educated person thinks it is arrogant of me to think that my taste is in some way superior to that of, say, an uneducated migrant worker who has never gone to school or been to a museum. I justify my position in that I've spent years of my life in galleries and museums and through my background and eye-sweat (now there's a name for a blog or website--don't steal it, it's mine!), I have a right to my feelings of superiority. Do I?
So can we teach taste? Maybe, sort-of, kind of. We know that drawing from observation trains one's eyes to see. Perhaps taste can be developed and refined by art lectures, travel, going to museums and watching educational television. The teacher in me would love to think so.
But to get back to the idea of what's good and what's bad--it's an ongoing debate, most likely never to be solved. It's also what makes the art world so interesting. Don't think for a second that all of today's Van Goghs are the same people whose work you see in all the big museum shows. There are plenty of art geniuses who are obscure or under-appreciated today, just like Van Gogh was. The contemporary art world of has much more to do with commerce than with what's good or bad. Cynical? Of course! It feeds my work.
So why don't people have better taste? I ask myself this often. I wonder why people buy Thomas Kinkaides. His stuff (I can't bring myself to call it art), is hideous, plain and simple. Another questions: Why do people like huge, flashy, buckled designer handbags? They're super ugly. Is is a lack of art education? A lack of good art education? Could I be wrong about my own taste? I am rarely in a quandary when I look at an artwork, building, outfit, interior, etc. as to what's wrong or what's bad or good. I like to think I can back up my taste with solid arguments about originality, changing my view of the world, making me puzzled, angry, amazed, etc.
My son who is 28 and an educated person thinks it is arrogant of me to think that my taste is in some way superior to that of, say, an uneducated migrant worker who has never gone to school or been to a museum. I justify my position in that I've spent years of my life in galleries and museums and through my background and eye-sweat (now there's a name for a blog or website--don't steal it, it's mine!), I have a right to my feelings of superiority. Do I?
So can we teach taste? Maybe, sort-of, kind of. We know that drawing from observation trains one's eyes to see. Perhaps taste can be developed and refined by art lectures, travel, going to museums and watching educational television. The teacher in me would love to think so.
But to get back to the idea of what's good and what's bad--it's an ongoing debate, most likely never to be solved. It's also what makes the art world so interesting. Don't think for a second that all of today's Van Goghs are the same people whose work you see in all the big museum shows. There are plenty of art geniuses who are obscure or under-appreciated today, just like Van Gogh was. The contemporary art world of has much more to do with commerce than with what's good or bad. Cynical? Of course! It feeds my work.
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