[Aiwendil]

Littlemanpoet wrote:

I'd like to start with a distinction regarding the word "good" in terms of "good art". There is moral good and aesthetic good. One can write a book that is morally bad but aesthetically good; or one that is aesthetically awful while morally good.

A very good point, one which I think I failed to articulate properly to Kalessin in the old days of this thread.

Not long ago, I asked myself just why it was that the form of a woman is so aesthetically pleasing to me. I was not satisfied with strictly gender related reasons.

Here I must disagree. I'm afraid the truth is that there's no more than a genetic program at work there. Aesthetic beauty, I think, is quite different from this (or - a useful definition of "aesthetic beauty" would be quite different from this). Aesthetic beauty appeals to the rational mind; beauty of that sort appeals fundamentally to irrational impulses and drives.

The Saucepan Man wrote:

No. Aesthetic beauty must always rely on subjective assessment.

I don't think I understand your "no". I said that if there is sufficient invariance among human minds then aesthetic beauty can be treated as a mere property of objects. You can certainly disagree about whether there is such invariance. But given sufficient invariance (whatever that may amount to) aesthetic beauty would have to be definable in such a way. To take the limiting case, if all human minds were exactly identical, then obviously it would be definable.

Yes, people like different things. I offered some possible explanations that could account for these differences that are unrelated to aesthetic beauty (popularity, accessibility, etc.). Now, maybe these are enough to account for the variety of tastes and maybe they're not. But they do show that it is not simply differing standards of aesthetic beauty that result in different likes and dislikes.

I can think of works of art which I don't find aesthetically pleasing, but which nevertheless stir such a reaction within me that I would (subjectively) class them as "good".

I think perhaps that you may be taking my use of "aesthetic beauty" too strictly. It is certainly not a perfect term for what I mean, though I can think of none better. Many things can contribute to aesthetic beauty in my view. Comedic value may contribute; allegory may contribute; dissonance and even ugliness may contribute. I've never heard of The Darkness before. But I am a fan of "P.D.Q. Bach". Schikele's music is not good in the same way that J.S. Bach's music is, and if I didn't get the humor I wouldn't like it. But I do get the humor, and I think that this does give it value. Similarly, I would say that The Darkness could be aesthetically good for precisely the reason you like it. This is not at all what I meant by "image". I meant the tendency for certain people to "like", for example, a certain form of music only because it is the popular thing to do - or to like another kind for precisely the opposite reason. In other words, to like a work of art for essentially non-artistic reasons.

You address this yourself at the end of your post:

It depends whether, deep down, you actually believe it to be "good". If you do, fine. If not, then you are simply deceiving (and short-changing) yourself. Personally, I have never been one for "trends", so I can't undersatnd the mentality which persuades one to like something because one is told one ought to. As they say, I like what I like. Perhaps there is value in going along with one's "peers" because it accords one with some kind of security within society. But that has little to do with the subjective assessment of the art itself.

I have certainly never been one for trends either, so I can't understand the mentality any better than you. Maybe, as you suggest, there is indeed a kind of social value in such things. But as you correctly point out, that has little to do with the assessment of the art itself. That is what I meant.