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‘Tasteful’ Art
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message 1:
by
Heather
(new)
Jul 19, 2019 07:07AM
How do you define ‘Tasteful Art’?
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Definitions of Tasteful (adjective):-showing good judgement especially in style
-attractive and elegant
-classy, majestic, fine, graceful, stately
-refined
-having or showing good social or aesthetic taste
A tough question, I think of Bacon, de Kooning, amongst others and I don't know, is it subjective or no longer relevant?Yeah, tough question.
Yes, definitely a tough question. I looked and looked for at least one article written about anything to do with what critics would define as ‘Tasteful’, but then I thought “I don’t think all critics have ‘taste’” because some art is considered art but I don’t think it is tasteful in the defined sense of the word.That’s why I posted the above definitions so we could kind of compare what the dictionary would define ‘Tasteful’ to mean vs. what it would mean in terms of art. But as you said, in the art world, that becomes a very tricky question.
De Kooning is an artist but I don’t consider his art ‘Tasteful’ in the defined sense that it is “graceful, elegant, refined...etc” and critics will say Hirst is an artist but I beg to differ that any of his work is ‘Tasteful’ in the least.
Heather wrote: "Yes, definitely a tough question. I looked and looked for at least one article written about anything to do with what critics would define as ‘Tasteful’, but then I thought “I don’t think all criti..."My dictionary, ODE printed in 2010, defines tasteful as "showing good ascetic judgement or appropriate behaviour." Interestingly, MW online defines it as "having, exhibiting, or conforming to good taste" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti... suggesting it is subjective.
When I look at art by Hirst / Emin I think it's more to shock and they're trying to be the opposite of tasteful. I recently saw some of Bill Viola's work, one was a video footage of a woman giving birth, in another footage a woman looked fairly close to death on a ventilator. Is this: art / journal recording / to shock / tasteful? I'm think it fits the first three better than the fourth.
Thank you for posting that! I like that definition, it is more on the mark than all the others, IMO. And that last bit you saw I think would be to be ‘different’ something people haven’t done before, and yes, to shock. And lacks good aesthetic judgment, in my opinion.
