On Jan 13, 2009, at 10:54 PM, Bela Cos wrote:
Work creates the taste? Could that mean that the viewer was seeing
something unexpected? Or do we always see what we expect to see?
In a message dated 1/13/09 4:56:58 PM, [email protected] writes:
In fact, the best situation is when the work creates the taste and
not the other way around.
From the artist's point of view:
In my experience, an artist chooses to finish a piece that he
likes, that is, one that satisfies him in some artistic or creative
way. Works that don't satisfy--ones that he doesn't like--are
abandoned or, if finished, then never shown. Typically. In my
experience. "Liking" a piece implies that the work meets the artist's
standards of taste. Seems straightforward.
To personalize this, whatever I paint (and complete) embodies my
sense of taste in various ways, even if the work shows nonstandard,
odd, exotic, unusual forms. If I do something that is very unorthodox,
and I find that it "works" and I like it and use it further, then that
new form has created my taste for it.
From the viewer's point of view:
When a viewer sees a new WoA and encounters some unexpected,
unexperienced form in the work, then he or she is left with two
reactions: to accept it and incorporate the new forms into their
personal 'canon' of taste, or to reject it. (The third way, to be
indifferent, has the same effect as rejecting it, because the viewer's
taste is not changed.) Impressionism, cubism, surrealism, abstract
expressionism, etc.--all of these genres or styles of art presented
the viewer with very surprising forms, which were either rejected or
accepted.
Taste does follow the work, and only rarely precedes it.
BTW, this is very much like the actual experience of taste. You don't
know whether you'll like something until you try it. They already have
a description of this principle: "The proof of the pudding is in the
eating."
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Michael Brady
[email protected]
