Blog Three: Of the Standard Of Taste

Hume’s essay, “Of the Standard of Taste,” attempts to set up some parameters around “tasteful” art, and the ways in which one can truly judge if an artwork has taste or not. He claims that every man passes judgment on art based upon their own experiences, but only a man with the “delicacy of taste” is able to effectively give an unbiased verdict on a work. What I really liked about Hume’s argument is that he tried to give a thorough definition of why men try to analyze art and what makes a man worthy of judging an artwork. The flow of this explanation set up some valid points that I agree with on art and the art world.
Hume began at a logical starting point: defining the difference between judgment and sentiment in making opinions about art. Sentiment, he says, is always right, for it comes from a man’s own experiences, thoughts, and understandings. It is a feeling unique to each man and is considered to be right because it doesn’t really say what is true about the artwork, only a connection between the piece and the workings of the mind of the man. Hume sums this up by saying “Beauty…exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.” Not only did this remind me a little of Plato’s argument that art is only a man’s thrice-removed, personal representation of the true Idea, but it also clarifies why so many people can have differing opinions on the same piece of art.
However, Hume goes on to say that true judgment is the only thing that can evaluate taste. This judgment stems from Hume’s observation that there are some universal ideas that every man has to allow him to judge art. These ideas, combined with practice and really delicate, tuned senses, make a man able to judge taste. I think that this could be a plausible point. Just like in any field of study, there are always people who understand it and perform in it the best because their minds or bodies are molded in such a way to make this possible. Not everyone in the world is capable of doing the kind of work that would garner a Nobel Prize—that is why those that do are so great; they understand their line of work so well that they are able to perform the best in it. The same, I think, can apply to art. There are a select few people that retain the keen observational and analytical skills that, when combined with much practice in looking at art, are able to give a much better opinion on taste than those who do not have these things. These kinds of people become art critics and curators because of their abilities.
To this argument, one might wonder how one can discern between those with good and bad judgment. Hume brings this up in his essay—“Authority or prejudice may give a temporary vogue to a bad poet or orator, but his reputation will never be durable or general.” I think that although this doesn’t give an immediate fix to the problem of weeding out the individual with bad judgment, it does give a long term solution. The one who is pulling judgment out of the air instead of from practiced knowledge will eventually be found out and will not be considered highly anymore (just as with artwork).
This brings me to answering this week’s blog question on whether the two paintings are tasteful. According to Hume, I am not able to pass judgment on the pieces, because I both do not have the practice in analyzing artwork, nor do I have the “delicacy of taste and senses” that one needs to give an unbiased critique of art. I can use the technique of comparison that Hume refers to in his essay, though. Compared to other artworks I have seen, the clown painting has no background I can go off of to tell me why this painting is meaningful. I guess the monkey painting (if the frame is included) is kind of clever. Usually a man (or woman) would be in the center of a portrait, but by putting a monkey there (a well-painted monkey at that), it makes the audience stop and think for a bit, which I think makes it a better piece of art than the clown painting. However, I am not sure whether or not the points I brought up qualify as being “tasteful” since I both do not have the capacity to judge correctly, and also because Hume didn’t leave us with an explicit definition of what tastefulness is.