On Apr 4, 2008, at 2:42 PM, William Conger wrote:
I'm not going to let you off easily. You want to claim that at some point taste is diminished to zero, particularly when rote systems are involved. I respond that rote systems cannot be implemented visually, not even in diagrams (which select elements for didactic values and thus express taste). Even the selection or invention of a rote system is flooded with taste.
I claim that at some point, taste is diminished to a basic threshold of cultural uniformity. To claim, e.g., that by discussing the use of direct objects or the morphology of adverbs is to exhibit a "taste" preference for them is highly reductionist. To discuss literary or verbal communications in the English language, one would encounter adverbs and direct objects. That's just taking what the cultural sea- level offers. But, using the same analogy, to describe English syntax with Latin terms (ablative, etc.) is to supersede English grammar with the taste-preference for the grammar of Classical languages (which, as has been well documented, did take place in the 19th century and earlier).
Moreover, I am not saying that rote systems invalidate or trump taste, or that taste has no role in them. You're correct that their use and their invention involves taste. But rather, I am saying that perceptions are different from choices of taste. Consider all the bad figure drawings, and then consider why they are bad. Odds are, the makers incorporated taste-based decisions (long legs, big boobs, flipper hands, sloe eyes, rippling pecs, etc.) rather than visually- based ones. R.B. Hales' "Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters" gives many examples of how to look carefully at the model, so that the result is more visually accurate. Of course, his "subtext" was that better visual and manual skills would lead to better and more pleasing pictures. That is where the "taste" lies.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady [EMAIL PROTECTED]
