Artistic taste

[abu nuwas]

.
abu nuwas: "Is it as simple as that? I think things are good or bad,
because I have been told so?"

Yes.

Famous quote: "You can't judge a hammer without nails."

That is v depressing. I have been rather hoping that bruv and I have it wrong.I know one paint a less bald picture -- for example, putting emphasis on having doors opened for one, and the benefit of good guidance; or the development of the brain, and understanding. But none of that accounts for distaste at chocolate boxy Hallmark cards. Also --- who told you you were right to agree?

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I don't want to sound derogatory, but the kind of logic that says things are only good because we are told so reeks of elitism. Whatever happened to liking something because it speaks to you?

Why can't it be beautiful to one and plain to another? Art speaks to us or it doesn't. Our own constitution should be strong enough to distinguish between our true taste and the 'inherited' taste of others.

My folks think that poetry is a fool's game; that hip hop is noise and Picasso needed new glasses. That doesn't mean that I necessarily have to feel that way because it's what I was told, does it?

It is the disallusioned reverse of elitism. I am not suggesting that everyone likes the same stuff--obviously they don't, or my brother and I would have simply admired the calendar also. And when we looked at these scenes, they were nice, in a chocolate boxy kind of way. But once, I should have thought them nice, full-stop. In this case, it is not a case of technical imperfection, it is content. After Sis and her new friend Zeitgeist had breezed through the door, I knew that a coach and horses in the snow, with some rotund man in a tall hat at the front, was in some sense despicable. Not what a Real Artist would do.

Your folks are in the opposite situation (much as I may sympathise) because they know Johnny Foreigner when they see him, and his name is Zeitgeist. Old hat though he now be, That Picso still lingers in the minds of true believers in Zeitgeistism. So I amend now. When we are being told what is right and what is bad, it helps a good deal if it accords with the spirit of the time, or fashion, or call it what you will.