05 - A Question of Taste

A work is not beautiful by chance, yet one can by chance render it beautiful.

Sainte Anne, la Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus jouant avec un agneau - Peinture de Léonard de Vinci

“Tastes and colors are not to be debated.”

This quote we often hear allows people to assert their tastes and have immunity from criticism. In fact, they are very much up for debate.

Ultimately, taste can be cultivated. There are good and bad tastes. To claim that something is beautiful when it is not “universally” so is just a pretext to assert one’s individuality. I speak of so called “universal” beauty. Indeed, the foundation of “beauty” is defined by the universal (symmetry, the golden ratio, the balance of masses), which we find in photography, painting, music, and art generally.

The rest stems from a personal dimension, specific to each individual. It is this that thus defines the final beauty of a work, influenced by individual sensitivity, personal and cultural associations, education and acculturation, and the search for personal meaning.

A work is not beautiful by chance, yet one can by chance render it beautiful.

The artist can have an eye, an ear for beautiful things, for good proportions, for harmonious arrangements. Thus, beauty can be cultivated. It is important to truly understand beauty, not merely to rely on matters of personal taste. One must surround oneself with beautiful things, observe the world around us and understand what makes it beautiful.

Beauty is a matter of balance between the universal, the personal, and the chance that lies between them.