Hume presents an interesting antimoney in his essay. Art is determined largely by taste, and yet most people can agree that some art is clearly better than other (da Vinci being greater than Norman Rockwell, or Shakespeare being greater than Stephen King). How, then, are we to determine what is right, or if indeed Shakespeare is a better author than Stephen King?
The answer is simple. Some artists and art are just better. Taste may be subjective, but there are still some guiding principles that can be used to differentiate good art from bad art.
Rockwell could never copy the tedious care that artists such as da Vinci had to put into each work, carefully blending dyes and hues to create the colors used in their works. Likewise, an author like Stephen King could never measure up to the mastery of language and human nature in a Shakespearean play. But technical mastery is only one element of good art. It must be judiciously applied.
How do you apply technical mastery to thus create good art? Long, hard work, and vision. Rockwell created work to please the masses. King prefers quantity to quality in his work. But the great artists take their time. They work their art to a degree of perfection that most of us can only dream of. To do this takes time and dedication, and produces a work of such quality that it stands the test of time.
This does not mean that some people won't think that Stephen King is a better writer than Shakespeare. It just means that they're wrong. Hume more or less puts out the idea that, just as some art is clearly better than others, some OPINIONS about art are better. I couldn't agree more.
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2 comments:
What is the difference between tastes and opinions?
I might be mistaken but I thought that Hume stated that experts had a difference in tastes, and those standards of experts should be taken into greater consideration. But not opinions.
And no answer is ever simple, sometimes, its just easier to conclude to an answer.
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