Information about Taste (aesthetics)

The purely physical sensation is at Taste.

Taste in the general sense is the same as preference.

Taste is also a sociological concept in that it is not just personal but subject to social pressures, and a particular taste can be judged "good" or "bad". This theory was first put forward towards the end of the twentieth century and ties in with the theory of aesthetic relativism. Before that, the notion of taste in aesthetics was associated with manners and good habits that are of innate nature, and also referred to one's appreciation for beauty.

History

The modern concept of "taste" is a product of the 16th century Italian style called Mannerism, named at the time for the maniera or "manner" in which a work of art was couched. More specifically, the idea of "taste" as a quality that is independent of the style that is simply its vehicle — though the style might be designated a taste, such as "the Antique taste"— was born in the circle of Pope Julius III and first realized at the Villa Giulia built on the edge of Rome in 1551 - 1555.

To the Enlightenment, "taste" was still a universal character, which could be recognized by what pleased any cultured sensibility. With the shift in perspective that Romanticism brought, it began to be thought that, to the contrary, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and could be individually interpreted, with results that might be of equivalent aesthetic value.

The significance of the term develops with the transition from its purely physical nature to being interpreted as an intellectual quality. It begins to be used in a metaphorical sense to refer to certain degrees of competence in relation to understanding of cultural practices. Taste is also closely related to the concept of discrimination, as being based on certain material experiences it can set distinctions between tasteful and tasteless or having a good taste or a bad taste, thus providing categories for social division and producing cultural hierarchy.^[1]

Criticisms

The main critic of this idea is French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, whose main argument is based on the claim that individual tastes and preferences are socially produced. According to Bourdieu, individual tastes are shaped by certain aspects of social practices and position within society. People aspire towards "higher" cultural forms and produce their identities accordingly – they want to be associated with those who are considered to be more developed intellectually and artistically and therefore tend to consume corresponding cultural products. In this sense the notion of taste is closely linked to consumption and consumerism: the viewer or reader consumes various artistic products and then interprets them by the means of criticism that rests upon the idea of taste.

Defining good taste is difficult or impossible for most, and definitions can vary widely. For instance, this exchange between EC Comics editor-in-chief William M. Gaines and Estes Kefauver at US Senate hearings on comic books held by the Senate Subcommittee for Juvenile Delinquincy.

• Kefauver: [holding up a recent copy of EC's Crime SuspenStories] "Here is your May 22 issue. This seems to be a man with a bloody ax holding woman's head which has been severed from her body. Do you think that is in good taste?"
• Gaines: "Yes, sir; I do, for the cover of a horror comic. A cover in bad taste, for example, might be defined as holding the head a little bit higher so that the neck could be seen dripping blood from it and moving the body over a little further so that the neck of the body could be seen to be bloody."^[2]

G.K. Chesterton: "Good taste, the last and vilest of human superstitions, has succeeded in silencing us where all the rest have failed."

Bad taste

Bad taste is generally a title given to any object or idea that does not fall within the normal social standards of the time or area. Varying from society to society and from time to time, bad taste is generally thought of as a negative thing, but also changes with each individual.

Some varieties of black humor employ bad taste for its shock value, such as Pink Flamingos or Bad Taste. Similarly, some artists deliberately create vulgar or kitsch works of art to defy critical standards or social norms. Some artists argue that the only things that is in really bad taste or that is vulgar, is the Kitsch, intended as a lack of "technical awareness". Despite the economic risks, some retailers also deliberately design and sell objects which would ordinarily be regarded as vulgar, relying on inflated price tags to instil an Emperor's New Clothes effect amongst customers.

Aristophanes, Plautus, François Rabelais, Laurence Sterne, and Jonathan Swift never considered "good" or "bad" taste to be a way to judge their classic works of art.

References

• Stern, Jane; Michael Stern (1990). The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 0-06-016470-0. 

1. ^ Holm, Ivar (2006). Ideas and Beliefs in Architecture and Industrial design: How attitudes, orientations, and underlying assumptions shape the built environment. Oslo School of Architecture and Design. ISBN 8254701741.
2. ^ Wright, Bradford W. (2001). Comic Book Nation. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 168. ISBN 0-8018-6514-X. 

See also

• Kitsch
• Xiaozi
• Paul Graham's essay, Taste for Makers, on the importance of taste in design.
• Grotesque body
• Aesthetics
• Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten

Taste (or more formally, gustation) is a form of direct chemoreception and is one of the traditional five senses. It refers to the ability to detect the flavor of substances such as food and poisons.
..... Click the link for more information.

Preference (or "taste") is a concept, used in the social sciences, particularly economics. It assumes a real or imagined "choice" between alternatives and the possibility of rank ordering of these alternatives, based on happiness, satisfaction, gratification, enjoyment, utility
..... Click the link for more information.

Sociology (from Latin: socitus, "companion"; and the suffix -ology, "the study of", from Greek λόγος, lógos, "knowledge") is the systematic and scientific study of society and societal behavior.
..... Click the link for more information.

For other uses, see Peer Pressure (disambiguation).

Peer pressure is a term describing the pressure exerted by a peer group in encouraging a person to change their attitude, behavior and/or morals, to conform to, for example, the group's actions,
..... Click the link for more information.

Aesthetic relativism is the philosophical view that the judgement of beauty is relative to individuals, cultures, time periods and contexts, and that there are no universal criteria of beauty.
..... Click the link for more information.

Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is a branch of philosophy, a species of value theory or axiology, which is the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste. Aesthetics is closely associated with the philosophy of art.
..... Click the link for more information.

In sociology, manners are the unenforced standards of conduct which show the actor to be cultured, polite, and refined. They are like laws in that they codify or set a standard for human behavior, but they are unlike laws in that there is no formal system for punishing
..... Click the link for more information.

Etiquette, one aspect of decorum, is a code that governs the expectations of social behavior, according to the contemporary conventional norm within a society, social class, or group. Usually unwritten, it may be codified in written form.
..... Click the link for more information.

This article requires authentication or verification by an expert.
Please assist in recruiting an expert or [ improve this article] yourself. See the talk page for details. This article has been tagged since February 2007.
..... Click the link for more information.

Beauty is commonly defined as a characteristic present in a person, place, object or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning or satisfaction to the mind or to the eyes, arising from sensory manifestations such as a shape, color, personality, sound, design or
..... Click the link for more information.

Mannerism is a period of European painting, sculpture, architecture and decorative arts lasting from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520 until the arrival of the Baroque around 1600.
..... Click the link for more information.

antique (Latin: antiquus; old) is an old collectible item. It is collected or desirable because of its age, rarity, condition, utility, or other unique features. It is an object that represents a previous era in human society.
..... Click the link for more information.

Pope Julius III (September 10, 1487 – March 23, 1555), born Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte, was Pope from February 7, 1550 to 1555.

Biography

The last of the High Renaissance Popes, he was born in Rome, the son of a famous jurist.
..... Click the link for more information.

Villa Giulia is a villa in Rome, Italy. It was built by Pope Julius III in 1550-1555 on what was then the edge of the city. Today it is publicly owned, and houses the Museo Nazionale Etrusco, an impressive collection of Etruscan art and artifacts.
..... Click the link for more information.

The Enlightenment (French: Siècle des Lumières; German: Aufklärung; Italian: Illuminismo; Portuguese:
..... Click the link for more information.

Romanticism is an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated around the middle of the 18th century in Western Europe, during the Industrial Revolution. It was partly a revolt against aristocratic, social, and political norms of the Enlightenment period and a
..... Click the link for more information.

Metaphor (from the Greek: metapherin) is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. In the simplest case, this takes the form: "The [first subject] is a [second subject].
..... Click the link for more information.

Discrimination

Major forms
Racism
Sexism
Homophobia
Ageism
Antisemitism
Islamophobia
Ableism

Manifestations
Slavery · Racial profiling
Hate speech · Hate crime
Genocide · Ethnocide · Holocaust
..... Click the link for more information.

Materials are physical substances used as inputs to production or manufacturing. Materials range from man made synthetics such as many plastics to natural materials such as copper or wood.
..... Click the link for more information.

This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling.
You can assist by [ editing it] now. A how-to guide is available, as is general .
This article has been tagged since February 2007.
..... Click the link for more information.

Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate,") generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significant importance.
..... Click the link for more information.

hierarchy (in Greek: Ἱεραρχία, derived from ἱερός — hieros, 'sacred', and
..... Click the link for more information.

This article provides a list of noted sociologists and major contributors to sociology (even if they did not primarily work as sociologists):

: Top - 0–9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A

..... Click the link for more information.

Pierre Bourdieu (August 1, 1930 – January 23, 2002) was an acclaimed French sociologist whose work employed methods drawn from a wide range of disciplines: from philosophy and literary theory to sociology and anthropology.
..... Click the link for more information.

Identity is an umbrella term used throughout the social sciences to describe an individual's comprehension of him or herself as a discrete, separate entity. This term, though generic, can be further specified by the disciplines of psychology and sociology, including the two forms
..... Click the link for more information.

For other uses, see consumption

In economics, consumption refers to the final use of goods and services to provide utility.

Keynesian economics and aggregate consumption

In Keynesian economics aggregate consumption
..... Click the link for more information.

Consumerism is the equating of personal happiness with the purchasing of material possessions and consumption. It is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Karl Marx and Thorstein Veblen.
..... Click the link for more information.

review.

The word critic comes from the Greek κριτικός, kritikós - one who discerns, which itself arises from the Ancient Greek word κριτής, krités
..... Click the link for more information.

Entertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books specializing in crime fiction, horror fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the 1950s, until censorship pressures prompted it to concentrate
..... Click the link for more information.

William Gaines

Birth name William Maxwell Gaines
Born March 1 1922(1922--)
Brooklyn, New York
Died May 3 1992 (aged 70)

Nationality American
Area(s)
..... Click the link for more information.