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Brainstorm: Lives of the Mind Laurie Fendrich

The Problem of Aesthetic Taste

In the next few posts, I’m going to tackle the topic of aesthetic taste — what’s happened to it in the past couple of decades, whether or not we can, or ought, to teach it, and if so, how we can teach it.

Freshmen arrive on campus with their own taste in everything from music to clothes, food, and electronic equipment. Consciously or not, they also have developed certain tastes in art. Taste being what it is, and young people being what they are, freshmen usually arrive with either no taste or very bad taste — not just in art, but in everything — but in either case, they’re very comfortable with their tastes. They don’t expect or want to change them. The paradox is that it just so happens that their taste, which they consider to be something that’s very particular and individual, is, in most important respects, exactly the same as that of most other college freshmen.

If college students have any opinion about art, it’s usually that M.C. Escher and Salvador Dalí are two great artists. Those who have “advanced taste”—i.e., have taken AP art history—love Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Only the rare bird likes Cézanne or De Kooning.

The aesthetic taste of college students derives from what their homes look like and their high school experience. High-school taste fuses together the sights of the mall, TV, the movies, and the Internet. The occasional forced march through an art museum, led by a well-intentioned high school art teacher, makes nary a dent. No matter their socio-economic background, gender, ethnicity, or race, without active intervention on the part of college teachers or enlightened peers, it’s unlikely that students will change their taste during college.

But it’s not just college students who often have narrow or bad taste (these differ, I admit, but they frequently overlap). I’ve known many powerhouse intellectuals, academics, bankers, doctors, and lawyers whose taste was execrable, or just plain ordinary, or who were completely oblivious to taste. How can smart, successful people hang tired, perfunctorily chosen landscapes on their own living room walls, or permit porcelain ducks with little bonnets on their heads to waddle across their coffee tables? Are they lacking some aesthetic gene that we artists have? Or are they just too busy to notice how things look in their own homes?

It’s said that there’s no accounting for taste, although I believe it’s often the case that it’s rather easy to account for it. Yes, taste may be subjective at its core, but that core is surrounded by a lot of reasons that very adequately explain why something is good or bad. There are many who would argue that because of the subjectivity of taste, it follows that no one, including a college teacher, has the right to challenge the taste of another person, including students.

But taking my cue from the wise David Hume (whom I’ll explore further in a future post), I see another side to taste. For all the impossibility of defining good taste, good taste tends to precipitate out over time and then solidify. “Say, that Manet painting sure is beautiful,” is almost as much a fact in its universal application as, “Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius.” In fact, good taste easily ossifies, which explains Martha Stewart. The idea that taste is radically subjective is an utterly inadequate explanation of aesthetic matters.

The higher tastes—hearing and sight—are clearly molded by particular cultures. Just as bonsai trees owe their grownup state to the multiple causes of how they were planted, their particular container, the light, the wiring of their roots, the water and fertilizer and the clipping of their limbs, visual taste varies from culture to culture. Even so, all tastes, everywhere, are contingent on the quality of the “gardener.”

Next time: How a college professor teaches taste.

Posted at 08:42:59 AM on May 1, 2008 | All postings by Laurie Fendrich

Comments

  1. The complaint that college students have the same ‘tastes’ is generally obvious, but not surprising; they are overwhelmingly the same. Isn’t the point of college to mold them into reasonably productive (middle-class) members of society? There is roughly the same homogenizing effect as one might find in the military (though through different mechanisms).

    So, college students like Dali. I like Dali too. I also like heavy metal – my existence is an affront to good taste. However, college students also like Pabst Blue Ribbon. Talk about bad taste – I wouldn’t drink that dreadful beer-like substance if you paid me. But I also don’t lecture them on the finer qualities of beer and point out that their contextually informed preferences suck.

    I am just struck by the arrogance and elitism inherent in that notion that college students have ‘bad taste’ and it is our job as the enlightened caste to fix their silly, misguided notions of aesthetic merit.

    — Marcus · May 1, 10:21 AM · #

  2. Faculty who are among not the intellectual elite have no business in the classroom. It is a prequisite qualification for our profession.

    It is our job — in every discipline — to seek out and present the best work in that discipline to our students. If this is “elitist”, where’s the crime? How else would you organize higher education?

    — Elaine · May 1, 10:33 AM · #

  3. If I am a professor of early American history (which I am) and I have a very sophisticated understanding of, say, colonial legal and diplomatic history . . . why should anyone give a damn if I decorate my house with porcelain ducks?

    — Maria · May 1, 10:48 AM · #

  4. Anyone who is honest knows that being in the ‘intellectual elite’ is certainly not a pre-requisite for woking in higher education; there are plenty of sub-par researchers and even more disinterested and ill-prepared teachers.

    Second, I said ‘elitist’ to be nice. What I really meant was ‘asshole’. Sorry for the confusion. Plenty of people think professors are assholes already, we shouldn’t strive to reenforce the perception.

    — Marcus · May 1, 11:16 AM · #

  5. Banal bourgeois-bashin’, kid-hatin’ Bloomsbury-lite with a click-trawling promise of more to come?

    Now THAT’S tasteless.

    — Shortfingered vulgarian · May 1, 11:57 AM · #

  6. Guys like Marcus, y’know, ya gotta take ‘em through it point by point. It’s probably hopeless—I mean, he proudly plants his flag of taste on the towering mount of NOT liking Pabst Blue Ribbon. (Professor Fendrich was clearly talking about “aesthetic” taste, but never mind.) On the other hand, he’s so palpitatingly outraged that any suggestion of a hierarchy of aesthetic taste somehow casts a negative light on him and his, it’s probably a signal that, somewhere down deep in his mind where not all the fading brain cells have been colonized by Iron Maiden lyrics, he’s painfully aware—even embarrassed—that he’s a vulgarian. His journey on the road to rehabilitation will most likely be clumsy, halting, and fraught with switchbacks. Nevertheless, it must begin with a few baby steps, herewith offered below:

    “Isn’t the point of college to mold them into reasonably productive (middle-class) members of society?”

    No, that’s high school. “Higher education” is supposed to have something, well, higher about it. If Marcus persists in his assembly-line outlook, he’ll just have to spend some time communing with “Anti-hypocrisy advocate” and Richard Tabor Greene. They’ll show ‘im, they will.

    “I am just struck by the arrogance and elitism inherent in that notion that college students have ‘bad taste’ and it is our job as the enlightened caste to fix their silly, misguided notions of aesthetic merit.”

    I take it that Marcus, who admits to membership in the “enlightened caste, teaches college students. (Grim thought, that). And if he does, he’s already in the business of “fix[ing] their silly, misguided notions” about one thing or another. A literature professor tries to guide his or her students to a higher level of taste in literature. A music professor tries to guide his or her students to a higher level of taste in music. An art professor tries to improve their visual taste. Although the canons in those three fields are broad, deep and ever-evolving, it doesn’t mean that there’s no better or lesser within them.

    “But I also don’t lecture them on the finer qualities of beer and point out that their contextually informed preferences suck.”

    Professor Fendrich probably doesn’t lecture—in the sense of haranguing—her students or tell them that their preferences “suck.” (That’s more likely the technique of somebody who uses the word “a**hole” as an epithet in posting on a higher education site.) She most likely guides them gently, gently, by showing them the good stuff and coaxing them to try to appreciate it

    “Anyone who is honest knows that being in the ‘intellectual elite’ is certainly not a pre-requisite for working in higher education; there are plenty of sub-par researchers and even more disinterested and ill-prepared teachers.”

    We all set our sights in accordance with our abilities, I suppose. Me, I aim to use the word “disinterested” correctly.

    “I said ‘elitist’ to be nice. What I really meant was ‘asshole.’”

    Actually, Marcus said “elitism.” His corrected sentence would begin, “I am just struck by the arrogance and a**hole inherent in that notion that…” It makes about as much sense as anything else he says.

    And regarding “Maria,” the professor of early American history who may or may not decorate her house with porcelain ducks: Nobody does give a damn about it. She’s faculty; it’s too late for her, particularly if she’s going to confuse “a very sophisticated understanding of…colonial legal and diplomatic history” with matters of taste.

    Finally, “Marcus and Maria’s Wedding” scans almost as well as “Tony and Tina’s Wedding.” If I didn’t have such elevated taste myself, I’d look forward to polishing up the Hummer3, throwing some Slayer on the sound system, and catching a dinner theater performance of it before stopping off for a cheeseburger and a pitcher of Blue Ribbon at Hooters on the way home

    — LuckyJim · May 1, 12:48 PM · #

  7. Actually, I don’t confuse “a very sophisticated understanding of . . . colonial legal and diplomatic history” with good taste. Although I may have the former, I’ve never claimed to have the latter.

    I’m also willing to say that art and literature professors should guide their students to realize that Cezanne is a greater artist than Escher and Shakespeare is greater than Stephen King. Insofar as the original author made those points, I agree.

    That said, I must differ with “LuckyJim” that nobody cares about my possibly hypothetical porcelain ducks. It is obvious that the author of the original piece does, as she is expressed her astonishment that “smart, successful people . . . permit porcelain ducks with little bonnets on their heads to waddle across their coffee tables[.]”

    I object to the original author’s criticism, as the root of it seems to be “everyone should recognize the things I do as exceptionally important.” I would not be shocked to encounter a very accomplished artist who knew nothing about the French Revolution, nor an erudite anthropologist who could not perform chemistry experiments. Why should Dr. Fendrich be shocked that those of us who do not devote our lives to the fine arts do not display the knowledge and discrimination that she does?

    — Maria · May 1, 01:25 PM · #

  8. Maria:

    Point taken. Caught me out not reading carefully. Prof. Fendrich did bring up porcelain ducks herself. If I’d been a colonial diplomat, the Brits would’ve won.

    — LuckyJim · May 1, 02:10 PM · #

  9. You got me, I’m a vulgarian. I’m from that part of the country where lot’s of people, successful or otherwise, have ceramic ducks. My brain has been addled by the degenerative effects of heavy metal and I stll hate PBR.

    Higher education has a functional utility. For many students at Unranked Underfunded State University, going to college is designed to help them improve their lot in life. Given the way our country and economy are going, there are quite a few people who want and need to improve their current circumstances. I provide a service – sometimes as a skill set, sometimes in the form of critical thinking excercises, but in the end I am imparting some information that should have a real use in the real world. If they still like PBR, duck statuary, Dali posters, or Olive Garden, it doesn’t mean I (or anyone) has failed.

    But then, I probably still wrong. I will, however, apologize for the prior obscenity.

    — Marcus · May 1, 02:17 PM · #

  10. Hume’s “On the Standards of Taste” is one of the most important statements on aesthetics. That said, his clear-headedness, his almost common sense approach to the issue of taste, ignores one important issue.

    As Professor Fendrich writes, “[G]ood taste tends to precipitate out over time and then solidify.” I’m assuming that’s a paraphrase of Hume’s argument that steady, prolonged experience with art tends to improve discernment. What this elides is the fact that steady, prolonged experience is simply another word for training. So the question is whether or not changing student taste is effecting the deeper change that would actually mean something. That is to say, if professors just smother students in great art, sure, students might begin surrounding themselves with higher quality culture. But will they be actually improving their thinking or feeling? Will the student who replaces his Bob Marley poster with a Cezanne poster have actually grown? There are plenty of shallow people at the opera, the symphony, the poetry reading, the art house cinema. They’ve simply learned that there’s something to be gained by surrounding oneself with the “right” culture.

    — Luther Blissett · May 1, 07:52 PM · #

  11. As a teacher of art/art appreciation/art history I can sympathize with the disappointment that students are not more receptive to modern and contemporary art (unless it is easily understandable, kitschy, or classically figurative). I would never, however, attribute it to lack of “taste”, which I find snobbish and offensive. Secondly, I think some of this fascination with Dali, Escher, and Van Gogh comes from the lessons learned in middle and high school (which makes me want to stike a pose like Munch’s The Scream) where the art is distilled to simplistic and easily digested themes that can be sanitized for younger students. Imagine trying explaining (or even being allowed to explain) Serrano’s Piss Christ to a class of middle school kids! My apologies to those who really love Dali, Escher, and Van Gogh, but it would be nice to see more mid-century artists, or even abstract artists, appreciated in the same way- to strike some kind of balance. Lastly, I think that the way we approach teaching about and explaining things like abstract art and even contemporary art can change the attitudes of our students. My first approach is to encourage students to let go of the notion of camparing abstract or non-objective art to any other realistic art because that has nothing to do with the purpose of the works they are studying. I emphasize that abstract and non-representational works of art are an attempt to make an entirely new interpretation of reality rather than re-presenting reality back to the viewer. If we frame the conversation in the right way, then we no longer have to deal with the cries of “it doesn’t look like anything” and “what am I supposed to see when I look at it?” I try to emphasize that art is not always about seeing something represenational through the paint, sometimes it is just about seeing the beauty of the paint itself, for itself. As more time passes, more people will become comfortable with modern and contemporary art that is non-representational and more challenging. After all, Van Gogh was once too shocking to be liked by the masses and now his works are quite popular.

    — anonymous · May 1, 11:07 PM · #

  12. Thanks, anonymous. I think there is a right way to approach art education and aesthetics and a wrong way to do it. I don’t know how Fenrich does it in the classroom, but the tone of this article is definitely the “wrong” way. To borrow her terms, I think it’s much better to refer to someone’s aesthetic sense as being “narrow” (vs wide) rather than “bad” (vs good). A lot of what we define as “good” taste really means “what rich people like,” so using these terms makes us in danger of being classist. Perhaps there are some objective truths in aesthetics, but rather than calling people out for having bad taste, a teacher should just try his/her best to expose students to a wide variety of artwork/styles/foods/etc. It is also important to consider that sometimes people who have “bad” taste and truly enjoy something that you and other elitists abhor, it could be that they are appreciating said item at a deeper level (yes, this only works for some things, but you have to consider it each time you think that your taste is superior.)

    As for the poster who said that college students love PBR, this is basically a classist remark. College students can’t afford beer that is more than $1/bottle or can. In fact, when they buy beer in bulk they can really only afford 25 cents a can. PBR is the best cheap beer, possibly tied with Miller Light (which tastes like water, so it can’t be too bad), though probably cheaper than Miller Light. So it is the obvious choice. Perhaps all of these college students prefer Chimay or Rochefort but they can’t really afford purchasing beers like that for a party.

    — Katherine · May 2, 07:49 AM · #

  13. I’m an art history professor, and the way I see it, it’s not my job to teach my students “taste.” Whose taste? My taste? My job is to make sure that even if they don’t like, say, Jackson Pollock, they understand what he was doing. The students can make up their own minds whose posters go on their walls. I’m not Dr. Aesthetic Messiah, and elitist indeed it would be for me to think I was.

    I love van Gogh, by the way. I must have narrow taste too.

    — Anonymous Art Historian · May 2, 09:01 AM · #

  14. I am an Art Historian. When I teach classes I make it clear to my students that the job of an art historian is not to judge whether art is “good” or “bad” (i.e., notions of our own taste are not what matters), but to try to understand art within the context in which it was produced. We must try to understand the idea of “taste” that prevailed at the time the art was originally produced, as well as many other historical factors (patronage, politics, art academies, interactions literature, music, and other art forms, etc.). I don’t believe it is my job to alter the “taste” of my students, but simply to help them understand what the art was intended to do/mean in its own time/place.

    — anonymous2 · May 2, 09:13 AM · #

  15. I think there’s a pretty good consensus on what is in bad taste. Opinions on what is in good taste vary. If you like bad taste, that’s OK. (I like professional wrestling) But if you don’t explore good taste, I think you miss out on spiritual development. Good art and music are good for the soul.

    — luigi · May 2, 09:35 AM · #

  16. Question to those “neutral” art historians: If you’re not trying—sub rosa—to inculcate good, or at least better, taste in your students, how do you CHOOSE which art to explore so neutrally? Why not try to “understand” the art of Frank Frazetta or Peter Max or Leroy Neiman instead? Or, within abstraction, why not Georges Mathieu instead of Pollock? (I think the answer is, “Well, I operate on received good taste to choose my subject matter, but once I get there, in order to conform to PC egalatarianism in the classroom and to avoid bad student evaluations from upsetting their notions of taste, I pretend to treat Pollock paintings as if they’re microscope slides in a biology class.”)

    — LuckyJim · May 2, 11:07 AM · #

  17. It’s no secret that Nazi murderers could congratulate themselves on their good taste. They could listen to Brahms or Beethoven even as the smell of burning bodies assailed them.

    Nevertheless, as thinkers like Hannah Arendt and Hans Georg Gadamer and even John Dewey have noted, it is an error to separate aesthetic taste from other kinds of deliberative choices that finally determine the character of our public world. Surely everyone knows about the greatness of classic Greek Art and can still be moved by it, while there’s not much to say about Spartan art or the wonderful creations of the Vandals or, for that matter, the aesthetic sensibilities of so many Nazis who warmed themselves by book burning fires.

    So there may be something to the idea that aesthetic tastes have some alliance with a capacity for discerning political judgment. There is a philosophic tradition that argues this point without deluding itself into thinking that just because you admire the right works that makes you a better person —- though I do suspect that SOCIETIES which value such works, make them accessible to large numbers of people, and support the arts generally, deserve praise.

    The real question may come down to money: will these freshmen grow up to be nothing more than philistines who grow increasingly stingy about supporting the arts in public schools, favoring instead the talents of athletes and rewarding coaches with astounding salaries, or will they see to it that their childrens’ aesthetic needs are shaped by a full exposure to the different kinds of excellence that diverse arts, including the so-called popular arts, can offer? Or will, alas, they continue to give unwarranted praise not only to fourth and fifth class art, but continue to elect third and fourth rate leaders?

    — George T. Karnezis · May 2, 12:45 PM · #

  18. The response to Laurie Fendrich’s column shows the interest in, and maybe the need for, aesthetic reflection.

    I think most people still have the subliminal sense that their taste reveals something about them, something not entirely under their control. So they are, understandably and more than usually, sensitive about how others judge their taste.

    If you have a little bit of philosophical inclination, Giorgio Agamben’s 15-page essay “The Man of Taste and the Dialectic of the Split” (in the collection The Man without Content) is a good introduction to modern perplexity about good and bad taste and its historical background.

    It seems to me that we are well rid of the mentality of the college common room, where one’s professors during the day taught the fine arts of food, wine, chamber music, and cigars at night. But we need something more than education of the common senses by popular culture. The liberal arts curriculum needs to extend outside the classroom to help students (and professors) recognize that there is more to, say, music than Top-40, hiphop, and alt-rock.

    By the way, training the senses doesn’t need to produce snobbishness. From what I learned many years ago about opera, symphony, and chamber music I was able to see that the metal of Led Zeppelin was often very, very good, and that Nazareth is metal kitsch. But I still sing along to “Hair of the Dog.”

    George Karnezis’ invoking Arendt, Gadamer, and Dewey reminds me of another cultural critic of the (early) twentieth century, the Austrian Karl Kraus. Kraus was, among many other things, a literary precisianist, to the point that he claimed that the placement of a comma is a matter of morality! The point extends beyond grammar: sloppy expression is part of sloppy thinking and sloppy living. If you want to make a principle of your slovenliness, fine; but Kraus’ argument (and experience) was that the culture of slovenliness will accept with aplomb when people say black is white, stupidity is wisdom, and war is peace. He thus foresaw, with fury and terror, the Austrian and German submission to jingoism before the First World War and to Hitler in the 1930s.

    To quote another important figure for a related thought, “You gotta stand for something, or you’re gonna fall for anything” (John Mellencamp). And standing for something needs to begin with experience and understanding. That’s what education should be about.

    — dionysos · May 2, 01:33 PM · #

  19. Lucky Jim,
    To inform you a bit about my field (you don’t bother to say what sort of academic field you’ve specialized in, but it’s obviously not art history…), we are certainly able to speak about LeRoy Newman as well as Pollock, not to mention Manet, and ancient cave paintings at Lascaux as well. An art historian should also discuss the formation of the “canon” with his/her students, how art is written about and made part of the “institution of art” through collectors, patrons, museums, auction houses, etc. At least this art historian tries to be honest with students about the realities of what Warhol called “the art business”….but I don’t pretend to tell them what they should like and not like, nor what is “good” art and “bad” art which was, I believe, the subject of today’s column.

    — anonymous2 · May 2, 02:12 PM · #

  20. Oh Lord, the Augean stables of art history…

    First, it’s LeRoy NEIMAN. But he’s outside the canon of…good taste?…so never mind.

    Second, I’m no art historian (and I don’t even play one on TV), but you can go back farther and cite J.M.W. Turner about art being “a rhum business” (and maybe even broaden your students’ knowledge beyond the Andy they’ve already heard too much about).

    And third (and what should be most obvious), teaching something about taste isn’t “tell[ing] them what they should like and not like.” It’s showing them, bit by bit, with time out for questions and arguments. Sure, it’s all provisional, and you could be wrong about good art and bad art, but to disown the fact that your long study of art history has given you something more than a database (it has, hasn’t it?) is to abdicate some of your responsibility as a teacher of art history. Or are art historians like the stats guys in sportswriting who leave the judgment of who played well and who played badly to the real writers?

    Maybe Nietzsche was right. (Sigh.)

    — LuckyJim · May 2, 03:24 PM · #

  21. Art historians are trained to research and discuss art from the point of view of historical context, not in terms of esthetics (that’s the realm of philosophers and studio artists). When an historian teaches students about Vietnam and World War II, does he/she talk about whether or not those are “good” wars in his/her point of view, or does he/she talk about the way the war was pitched at the time and what debates at the time and since have concerned? And how do you know whether or not there is an artist named LeRoy Newman…if he hasn’t been incorporated within the “canon” he might exist in my neighbor’s attic apartment, making his art – am I supposed to teach students about him simply because he happens to exist? By the way, for your information, artists speak about art that “works” in its own terms, not “good” and “bad”. Whose rules should they use otherwise – Plato’s? Would a professor of comparative literature make decisions about who was the better author, Dante or Shakespeare? What you’re suggesting that art historians do is equally ridiculous. Should we institute rating systems in our art history classes, so that students can vote on who they like better? If morons like you can parade as faculty and spout your uninformed opinions about academic fields about which they obviously know nothing, then why not? It should all be about what we like and don’t like – right? – and no longer about understanding within historical context. It’s about shaming or forcing students into adopting certain points of view deemed proper by “academics” like you? Not in my classes.

    — anonymous2 · May 2, 04:27 PM · #

  22. “Art historians are trained to research and discuss art from the point of view of historical context, not in terms of esthetics (that’s the realm of philosophers and studio artists).”

    Wow. Freedberg, Gombrich, Shapiro, Nochlin, and a few others would be surprised to hear that. I never realized there was such a disconnect between esthetics and art history. (Well, I did realize it, but was always afraid to say it in public until “anonymous” did.)

    Does an historian teach the German invasion of Poland as if it were no different than the Allied invasion at Normandy?

    “LeRoy Newman.” Sorry. I naively assumed “anonymous” was firing back about the artist I mentioned, and not just throwing names into the hopper, willy-nilly. Yeah, for all I know there could be an artist named LeRoy Newberry, or Leon Neiman, or Larry Nyquist, or…

    Some artists, particularly those weaned on Abstract Expressionism, say only that something “works.” The term had a nice blue-collar butchiness about it in the days of the Cedar Tavern. Other artists regularly employ judgments of “good art” and “bad art”—or even stronger terms—in conversation with one another. You gotta trust me on this.

    No, a professor of comparative literature might not say whether Dante or Shakespeare is better. (Although a tentative judgment at the tippy-top makes for interesting essays and books.) But he or she might venture that Shakespeare was better than, say, Ben Jonson, and tell the class why. (Or, conversely, if the professor were a devotee of Foucault, he or she might say that the only reason Shakespeare is studied is not that he was a better playwright than anybody else, but because he was just the beneficiary of a succession of systems of political and economic power. I presume that’s the tack that “anonymous” would take with the artists taught in his or her classes. Or maybe just because, hell, they’re in Janson or Gardner and it’s always been done that way.)

    Reducing any sort of esthetic judgment to ratings is like saying any piece of criticism can be reduced to the one- to four-star system. And as for students voting on who they like better: of course not…because some students will have risen to a level of taste better than the others’, and I wouldn’t want them to be penalized by having merely a single vote.

    “Morons like [me].” The level of discourse here speaks for itself.

    Nobody said anything at all about judgments of taste obviating any “understanding within historical context.” The latter leads to the former, that’s all.

    And nobody said anything about “shaming or forcing” students to do anything.

    “Not in my classes.” Kids, save the tuition and proceed directly to Google.

    But the scare quotes around “academics” are correct. I ain’t one. Been one, though. It’s not the c.v. that’s arguing here, however, it’s the text.

    — LuckyJim · May 2, 06:07 PM · #

  23. Oh yes – there’s the rub. There’s nothing more tedious than a failed academic who still thinks he’s got something important to say. Go back to grad school, buddy, and annoy your professors. At least you’re no longer annoying students with your gems of wisdom concerning “taste”. Would all agree that the Normandy invasion was “good” – maybe in a Tom Hanks movie….but that’s your level of “taste” evidently.

    — anonymous2 · May 2, 07:29 PM · #

  24. Notice, dear posters: not a single genuine art historical peep from “anonymous” concerning Gombrich, Freedberg, et al., the Abstract Expressionists, LeRoy Neiman, Foucault, Janson, Gardner, J.M.W. Turner, Nietzsche…only Tom Hanks, and “anonymous” brought him into the picture (pardon the pun). Still, I guess substituting “buddy” for “moron” hints at some small improvement in the level of “anonymous’s” discourse.

    Footnote: not a “failed” academic. Full bull, with tenure, actually, major research U and all that. Better offer from outside academe. While prudence probably compels “anonymous’s” anonymity, sheer modesty requires mine.

    LuckyJim is tired—“fatigued” is perhaps more precise—and leaving the playing field on this one. I sure wish “dionysos” would post again, though. Now THERE’S a class act.

    — LuckyJim · May 2, 11:11 PM · #

  25. I honestly think you must be crazy for writing this. There are so many problems with what you are suggesting here, I don’t know where to begin (taste: whose is best? who gets to decide? who is taste culturally informed). To treat taste as if it is some universal thing that one can develop, and to call on Hume to help make this point, is to turn the clock back, oh, several hundred years. I’m curious where all of this will lead in your next posts…

    — Mike · May 4, 08:00 AM · #

  26. Actually… a good historian would present the German invasion of Poland no differently than she would the Allied invasion of Normandy. No one should pretend that the invasions were the same; clearly their context was slightly different. However, a good historian attempts to avoid placing even the most seemingly universal values on the past. If you judge the past before you understand it, you never will. An understanding of the past—even the parts that seem incomprehensible—is the goal (and, if you will, the good) of history.

    — K · May 4, 07:00 PM · #

  27. Thank you, K. Yours is a voice of sanity from someone who evidently understands what it is to be an “historian.”

    — anonymous2 · May 8, 10:06 AM · #

  28. K. and anonymous2: Accounting Dept.? Third door, on the left.

    — A fan of REAL art historians · May 8, 10:31 PM · #

  29. This attitude against understanding art from the perspective of its historical context (which, by the way, for the uninformed, does not exclude understanding art from other perspectives) is based on a fundamentally flawed assumption which is that “art” is somehow apart from other products of human culture and society – that it is, rather, something holy which cannot be touched nor “explained”. Certainly, you’re entitled to your opinion….but one cannot base an academic discipline on the assumption that the subject of our inquiry is “beyond understanding”.

    — a REAL ART HISTORIAN · May 9, 08:41 AM · #

  30. Art is not “apart” nor “beyond understanding” nor “something holy which cannot be touched nor ‘explained.’” But it is different from mousetraps and prescription medicine. Aesthetics (reaction to, judgment thereof) is part and parcel of art history—an academic discipline founded, in fact, on the difference between art and other “products of human culture and society.” (Note that most universities don’t have autonomous or semi-autonomous “physics history,” “economics history,” “psychology history” units to accompany their physics, economics, and psychology departments.) Granted, the academic tide has flowed in the direction of the levelers, who like such terms as “cultural production” (you know, art and cheese and wingnuts), “cultural workers,” and “artistic practice” (the sculptor sold her practice and retired). What I can’t figure out is why art historians of that bent ever went into art history in the first place. Some animus against artists? To get even with with art? A chance to throw around some French at dinner parties?

    — A fan of REAL art historians · May 9, 02:02 PM · #

  31. And by the way, the shoe is on the other foot regarding “this attitude against understanding art from the perspective of historical context.” None of the commentors who favor including aesthetic judgment deny the importance of historical context. It’s the avid contextualizers who see aesthetic judgment as the big no-no in art history. “Not in my classes,” was, I believe, the vow.

    — A fan of REAL art historians · May 9, 03:22 PM · #

  32. Because, fan, going into the realm of “this is good art, class, and this is bad art” is something a good art historian definitely avoids in class and explains carefully to students that the class they are in is “Art History” not “Art Appreciation”. Why did I go into the field? Because I was fascinated by art and wanted to understand it better. Art History doesn’t even attempt to explain human aesthetic reaction. It doesn’t deny the importance of it – but that’s not the subject of our study. The subject of our study is historical development. Remember, fan, that studio artists’ path of training is very different from that of art historians. The expectations are completely different, both in graduate school and after as professionals in the field. We are not studio artists, nor do we pretend to be. We do not claim to be able to understand and see art in the way artists do. We look from a different point of view. I never had any intention of “getting even with art” – what a ridiculous suggestion! In fact, I understand the world THROUGH art. For me, Art made everything else in life relevant. Life began to make sense for me when I studied art history. Why else do any of us go into the fields we choose? The problem with using our platforms as professors of art history to speak about taste is that, as historians, we know that ideas of “good” and “bad” taste fluctuate according to many factors (unless you truly are a classicist), we know then that there is no logically sustainable basis from which to claim we “know” what is “good” and what is “bad”. Actually, for the Art Historian, the question of “good and bad” is not even interesting because, in the end, Duchamp has taught us all that naming something “Art” depends entirely on context. The problem here is that Art Historians are concerned with whatever falls in the category of cultural production which is called “Art” (so anything that acts within the art institutions of a period/culture), and other people commenting here are concerned with “Art” in the sense of something of quality – i.e., the difference between “real” Art or “good” Art and non- or bad art. Art Historians are not concerned with that distinction, as we analyze – as you say – level – everything in a sense as equally valid. In terms of the historical situation – they are equally valid (i.e., academic salon art of 19th century France is equally valid as a subject of study as the avant-garde works of Courbet and Manet).

    — a REAL ART HISTORIAN · May 9, 05:27 PM · #

  33. Question time:

    How come those of us who want our art history classes (or writing by art historians) to include a little aesthetic judgment (because this is what art is about) think context is wonderful, include lots of it, etc., and those who hold forth for context think one lil’ drop of aesthetic judgment pollutes the whole business?

    How does a REAL ART HISTORIAN pick the artists on whom to lavish his/her contextual attention? (Possible answers might include: a) the ones somebody else’s aesthetic judgment has determined to be worthy, b) the ones who might be mediocre but haven’t been picked over already by too many other art historians and can still be fodder for research articles, c) the ones the art historian’s aesthetic judgment says are good/great, but that reason is hushed up.)

    What would one think of, say, a military historian who said, “We do not claim to be able to understand and see war in the way that generals or soldiers or political leaders who declare them do”? Or a literary historian who said, “We do not claim to be able to understand and see poetry in the way poets do”? Or a sports historian who said, “We do not claim to be able to understand and see the game in the way players do”? (A possible answer might include: lack of imagination.)

    Does including aesthetic judgment in an art history class really reduce to “this is good art, class, and this is bad art”? (A possible answer might include: lack of sophistication, subtlety, and nuance, along with a severe underestimation of one’s students.)

    Don’t art historians understand that those pumping for a little aesthetic judgment in art history are actually trying to save them—and their jobs and their departments—from a far greater danger, “visual studies” and “visual culture,” disciplines founded on the idea that, since art history wants to be devoid of aesthetic judgment, we might as well forget limiting ourselves a priori to “art” and expand/level the field to anything one might happen to look at? (A possible answer might note that the mensheviks didn’t see the bolsheviks coming, either.)

    What did Nietzsche mean by “eunuchs guarding the harem”?

    — a fan of REAL art historians · May 10, 07:49 AM · #

  34. I’m quite insulted that fellow academics should have so little respect for the discipline of art history and its goals and methods. And yes, I’m sure poets and historians of literature approach poetry differently. And no, I see nothing wrong with cultural studies/visual studies as I find all visual imagery fascinating and enjoyable. Since you don’t reveal your discipline – may I ask how you select what you cover in your myriad classes? Is there not a “canon” of important moments in the history of your field which you cover? Do you not explain to your students how the “canon” is created? And no, I did not choose the subject of my research because it is little covered. I chose the subject of my research because I love it and am fascinated by it. If you’d like to begin to get insulting in this discussion I can pose the same question to you – whatever your field may happen to be. Why did you select your research subjects? Explain it to us, fan. Enlighten us, please. By the way, the “canon” in art history deals with significant developments – not the most “beautiful” art. Further, who are you – unless you happen to be a fellow art historian in disguise in this forum – to tell us what our field should cover? I suggest you take the time to earn your MA and PhD in art history and then go on to change the field yourself, once you’ve been properly educated in its methods.

    — a REAL ART HISTORIAN · May 10, 08:16 AM · #

  35. No, nothing about me, except it is true that I’m not an art historian. I’m not very interesting at all, except as an interlocutor who asks questions that drive “a REAL ART HISTORIAN” up a wall. He or she is very interesting, though for reasons probably not as flattering as he or she would like.

    — A fan of REAL art historians · May 10, 11:31 AM · #

  36. Oh, my…are we afraid to reveal ourselves “fan”? At least I stand up for my field, am proud to stand up for it, and believe wholly in its methods. You, evidently, can’t say the same about your own…. so sad. And, by the way, it’s pretty evident you’re not an art historian but that you’d like to play one in this forum (if not also on tv). Or perhaps you’re playing a studio artist? Even more pathetic.

    — a REAL ART HISTORIAN · May 10, 01:23 PM · #

  37. With the possible exception of Richard Tabor Greene, nobody in this forum “reveals” himself or herself. You don’t know for sure about my MacArthur fellowship, black belt, or poetry anthology, and I don’t know for sure about your having to work nights in the slide library or those awful scores on RateMyProfessor.com. That’s the fun of it.

    There is a nice little debate about taste, aesthetic judgment, art historical objectivity, etc., contained in all of the preceding comments taken together, and some readers will be entertained, even enlightened, by it. But with protestations of “pride” (which, of course, goeth before the fall), “believing] wholly,” and “stand[ing] up” for academic fields, we’re into silly lapel-pin territory. So it’s time to go, and leave the last word to RAH.

    — a former fan of "real art historians" · May 10, 03:20 PM · #

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