Your Thoughts On Art

[Alan V]

And here I thought I made it perfectly clear that I was expressing my own preferences in the arts....

A lot of times people tell me that art is entirely a matter of personal preference. What you like and what you don't like is just your choice. 

If that's true, then painting people in a way that isn't portrait-like, or painting childish lines on canvas, isn't something we can really judge. If a person likes it, we just accept that they like it. 

Sure we can judge our own personal preferences. Who better?

Here I think you are tending to a different view: that it is a mistake for an artist to paint people in a way you disapprove of, or to paint childish lines. Or perhaps we could say it's OK to do it if they keep it to themselves and don't try to claim that it's worthwhile for other people to look at. But since such works are clearly misguided, any explanation made for them can be called "rationalizations." 

I thought I was saying that people don't need to offer improbable explanations for their art when it really comes down to their aesthetic preferences and emotional goals. That is rather different.

This indicates to me that there are some standards you are applying. If we say that John Singer Sargent's paintings of people are approached in the proper way because they are more portrait-like, and Cèzanne's aren't, this seems to imply the presence of something more than personal taste. A way people ought to paint.

Of course I am applying standards, and in fact I said that different standards apply to different art while also pointing out that certain styles were successful in some ways but not in others. I think Cezanne painted some wonderfully beautiful paintings and some godawful paintings.

If one person says "these childish lines are exactly what painting ought to be in our age, for X, Y, and Z reasons," is this something we can argue against and use reasons to show that he is wrong? 

Again, why all the elaborate explanations if it all boils down to personal preferences in aesthetics?

This appears to me to claim that art is very much NOT a matter of personal taste, but is involved in the shoulds and oughts of the world. 

Are there articulable rules we can come up with for how paintings ought to be? Or at least for which paintings are good to show in public? 

I'd be curious what those rules are, and how far they reach. Are they in some way moral rules?

So exactly who was misunderstanding who here? After all, I stated that I think most art boils down to entertainment. Different people enjoy different kinds of entertainment. Some don't like the visual arts at all, or like only some of them. I have rather wide tastes as it turns out. That's why I own a whole bookcase full of art books. I have four books on Cezanne, who used to be one of my favorite artists.