On Jan 16, 2009, at 8:57 AM, Chris Miller wrote:
And so far -- you might notice -- no one has yet reported that he went to a show -- saw a painting -- and Bingo! -- that work created his taste. (not quite the same thing as going to a movie theater and viewing a single film for 90 minutes)
This statement assumes two conditions that probably do not obtain. One is the Road-to-Damascus, eye-opening revelation, and the other is that when that revelation occurs, taste is created. Taste is a single thing, encompassing may aspects of perception and many individual examples that demonstrate or exemplify such aspects. Encountering a previously unknown work may startle and surprise the viewer, and may change the viewer's personal, internalized "canon" of works that serve as exemplars of his or her own scope of taste. But the new work doesn't "create taste": it expands or modify what already exists.
I have previously described several such occurrences for me. Only one-- that I remember--hit me with a Damascus-like epiphany. When I saw the El Greco show at the National Gallery in the late 80s or early 90s, after they had been cleaned, I was astounded by the clarity and vibrance of the colors compared to the dark muddying of them in color plates in the books. Mark one for epiphany.
Similar to that one (which, I guess, makes two examples) was when I first saw a show of prints (at MoMA, I think, but it might have been elsewhere, in the early 90s). The show was a historical sweep and contained several pieces by pieces by Klee, Rembrandt, Lichtenstein, and others (whom I forget). I was surprised by how *underimpressed* I was with the Klee pieces. Up to that point, I really liked Klee's work, but these five or six prints simply left me unmoved.
Again, as I've mentioned before, in regard to 20th century artists, I changed my mind about Hockney's paintings, slowly at first, then all at once.
A priest at a parish I attended some years ago discussed the concept of repentance (probably during Advent or Lent). He pointed out that generally, the modern Christian concept of repentance seems, in practice, to be rooted in contrition and self-accusation about a transgression. But the original Greek term was "metanoia," which more accurately means a "change of mind," i.e., rethinking what one chooses to do.
That is a more accurate description of how changes like this struck me: I rethought Hockney's works. I changed my mind from rejecting Hockney's works on the basis of their apparent clumsiness of form and toward what they showed.
I did like Jasper Johns's early works almost immediately (flags, targets, etc).
My appreciation for Medieval art, Mesoamerican art, and some other large categories took a while: there was no instantaneous metanoia, no thunderbolt that knocked me off the horse.
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