I'm putting out this question because in the course of the work I do, I have at times heard one artist say about a portrait of another artist something like this:
"The technical skills are good, but the artist doesn't understand good taste". I could look at the painting and see that was true, but had difficulity putting in words what made that so.
So, how does one define in words what is aesthetically "good taste" and what is not? Can one develop "good taste" when they don't natively have it? Can "good taste" be taught? Is there a universally agreed upon idea of "good taste"?
To define this subject further, in general, I'm not talking about a morality issue. The paintings that I'm remembering were of fully clothed people. Though I will say that in the case of one artist I remember, it was obvious that the artist had a strong interest in the female chest since all female portraits had overemphasized breasts. I could tell this even though I'd never met the women to evaluate their chest size.
This was bad taste to me from an aesthetic viewpoint. But, I can't put in words why. I just brought this up as one example and I don't want to limit the scope of this question to exposure vs. non-exposure of body parts because as we all know a nude painting can be very much in good taste.
As you might guess, I don't have to cook Thanksgiving dinner today since I have time to sit around typing things like this.
Threaded Mode
