The Responsibilities of Good Taste

“The new school of art and thought does indeed wear an air of audacity, and breaks out everywhere into blasphemies, as if it required any courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that it requires real courage to say, and that is a truism.”  - G. K. Chesterton

It is said that each is entitled to his own opinion. 

There is much truth in this. However, this phrase is often used to justify the indefensible. A certain author that I knew once put forward the following silly scenario to show the limits of this phrase: are people entitled to the opinion that loaded shotguns should be kept in nurseries for young children to play with? Of course not. Few but those with ulterior motives, including fear, would ever say such a thing would be an acceptable 'opinion.' The true responsibility that everyone has is to form their opinions in accordance with the good, the true, and the beautiful.

Opinions are not valuable just because we happen to have them - they become valuable when they are well formed. The flip side of this is that they can actually be very harmful when they are poorly formed. For some reason, bad opinions are justified because of a false belief that all opinions are equal and it is impossible to sort them out.

Let's turn this idea of opinion to the subject of art.

There is a saying that good art should speak for itself.

In general, I hold this to be true. Good art should be immediately appealing, with such qualities as a beautiful and harmonious color scheme, excellent drawing, beautifully sculpted forms, harmonious composition, and division of space. Even the untrained eye will immediately appreciate works that are excellent in these ways, so the work, to a certain extent, speaks for itself. As this kind of art appreciation goes, it is a very good thing.

However, I would put forward the idea that it is the responsibility of the civilized man to have cultivated good taste; in literature, music, clothing, and many other things, but particularly visual art. Sight being perhaps the strongest of the five senses, forms which we take in visually are particularly potent. All the forms that we take in, whether we actively surround ourselves with them or passively float through them, affect our souls and leave their imprints on us, This effect is multiplied when we consider how the forms in our lives also affect our loved ones, friends, neighbors, and our community broadly. (You've seen me write about this already in my artist's statement.) 

"Boating at Vinalhaven" Frank W. Benson, 1920

But -- what is good taste and how does it apply to the visual arts?

'Good taste' is simply to have a well formed opinion, in accordance with the realities of the Good, the True, and particularly the Beautiful, when it comes to questions of art. GK Chesterton says: "A good critic should be like God in the great saying of a Scottish mystic. George MacDonald said that God was easy to please and hard to satisfy."

​A man of good taste should delight in the good - even relatively small goods - and be able to recognize and compare goods so that he knows which are the greater and which are the lesser. The man with thoroughly refined tastes may even be able to identify causes of the goodness he perceives and help others to understand and appreciate that goodness. For example: the man with good taste in wine is able to indicate to his companions particular aspects of flavor, scent, and structure, comparing these qualities to other, familiar flavors and smells in order to enlighten his friends. (If you are an aficionado, by the way, I need learn from you sometime.) Of course the development of such an ability to taste comes from cultivation; being familiar with many varieties of wines and being able to remember them and mentally compare past experiences to present ones. This usually comes only through serious study.

​So too, the man with good taste in art can appreciate amateur art, even a child's doodles, for the good that it is. He can appreciate the excellences a Benson has over a Bruegel (and vice versa) and recognizes the sublimities of Michelangelo and Vermeer as the heights of their particular types of painting.

"Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" Pieter Bruegel the Elder c.1560

But the person with good taste can also call a spade a spade and say when a lesser artist, propped up by fads, doesn't measure up to the esteem with which he's awarded by the Art World Elites, the curators and the gallerists (for instance). Often in our current art climate, however, the choice is even clearer: between what is beautiful and that which is downright ugly. Often this level of taste -- of objecting to the ugly and deformed claiming the mantle of high art -- takes no more than a little bit of common sense and (perhaps, at times, a fair bit of) courage. ​

For this level of taste, look no further than the example of the boy who said the emperor was, in fact - and quite simply - naked.

Let's go ahead and say it: this crucifix in the cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist church in Milwaukee, WI is just plain hideous.

Thus, the responsibilities of good taste vary and take different forms in different circumstances. All of us, however, do have an obligation to the Beautiful in whatever circumstances we find ourselves and no matter how cultivated our tastes are or if we are just starting out on the journey of appreciating the beautiful. We cannot call what is beautiful ugly or claim that what is ugly is beautiful, nor can we claim a shallow or lower beauty is equal to a higher or more profound one.

When somebody suggests that a Pollock is equal to a Michelangelo, it would be appropriate for you to laugh as if at a bad joke and then ask the poor fellow to please be serious. Just as no one is, in fact, "entitled" to the opinion that loaded shotguns should be kept in every nursery, likewise some opinions regarding art merit only flat rejection.




As an exercise in developing good taste I have assembled a Pinterest Board of the 10 best images of Our Lady in Western Art. Tell me what you think! Share your thoughts and let me know if there are any images that you would put in the top 10 and which ones you might let drop out. I am always trying to refine my taste too!