“…. Taste is the enemy of creativeness.” ?

inoneeye · February 5, 2009

I looked up "emulation" and the online dictionary emphasizes a desire to equal or surpass another, a sense of "ambition"

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sorry, don't know how i chopped it. ....'typically by imitation' was the usual meaning for me. I see much more potential in equal or surpass. Thanks Fred.

inoneeye · February 5, 2009

I can appreciate what I do not like, I guess.

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An admirable trait. I think it is reflected in your imagery and posts. So your personal preference is probably not often an obstacle. I purchased an Ansel Adams print soon after starting in the Darkroom. It is still in the darkroom. I have never liked, appreciated his work beyond his technical prowess. It only speaks to me as a craftsman. Landscape as a genre has always eluded my attempts to either capture what I feel in real time or as a vehicle to express my vision. I continue to take a stab at it occasionally. I quess it remains outside my comfort zone and I remain thoroughly challenged by it creatively.

The idea of a unique image of Half Dome rings my bell. It would be an exciting accomplishment for someone to achieve. Of course opinions/responses would vary as to what constitutes unique, but I am talking on a personal level …when it appears original to my experience.

it rises far above "street photography". John why rises far above?

why not just good or some other adj.. Are we seeing an example of accrued baggage for the genre of “street photography” – I am sure we have all seen our share of anonymous, or stolen street shots. If something rises far above then perhaps it shouldn’t be thought of with a label. Or even make a comparison. But I have certainly encountered compassionate street work before. Maybe cream of the crop, was your intent?

And J I also find your work to be very good. I'll stop by when i can take more time to look it over.

oh yeah, Fred your work is ok to.

John, still waiting for all those new images you've mentioned....?

Norma Desmond · February 5, 2009

"So your personal preference is probably not often an obstacle."

And sometimes it is downright magnetic.

jtk · February 5, 2009

"John, still waiting for all those new images you've mentioned....?" - Josh

Me too.

"If something rises far above then perhaps it shouldn’t be thought of with a label." - Josh

"shouldn't be thought of" ... hm.

In any case, I didn't label anything as "street photography," I pointed out superiority to the pop genre to which a fine photographer's work appears superficially related... some were shot on a street, after all. But what you see is photojournalism, the product of a higher calling. I'm just sharing a perspective. Relax.

"...shouldn’t be thought of with a label. Or even make a comparison" - Josh

Comparisons are primary modes of thought and expression (as is labeling, incidentally). Remember?

Josh, I pointed to an example of humane photojournalism, calling it superior to "street photography." You seem to be arguing for "IMO," token self-censorship.

Any fool can take a snap of Half Dome, and I guess that makes him a "nature photographer." Take that Holga downtown and suddenly he's a "street photographer." Understand? Call that "taste" if it makes you happy, but I think there are issues of personal skills, values, goals, dedication, heart...stuff like that.

inoneeye · February 5, 2009

no John just seeking clarification on your intention. I was reading that in your opinion "street photography" is something to rise above.

And the holga reference i do not understand...?

inoneeye · February 5, 2009

"You seem to be arguing for "IMO," token self-censorship."JK - no relax.Remember?Understand?JK - since you feel you need to talk this way to get your message through to me and we seem to rub each other the wrong way, maybe we could agree to not address one another.? or each others ideas. If you find that disagreeable, fair enough, i'll bow out.

fate_faith_change_chains · February 6, 2009

From all of what's already been said it seems that ' taste ' can indeed best be understood as having many different levels from wich it is being formed and reformed. Moral and other social values are being weighed against pure aesthetic values. But someone's appreciation of a work of art doesn't necessarily has to be judged either from a percieved moral value given to it or either from a percieved aesthetic value given to it. In any case, giving to much weight on ones moral / social taste can endanger ones perception and experience of the aesthetic value inherent in any work of art. Moral taste and aesthetic taste shouldn't outweigh each other.

From the point of view of the artist, I can agree with some of what ( if I remember correctly ) FPW has said, that great artists almost necessarily and by default have a very strong personal taste as the driving force behind what makes their work recognizable as their own. In this view it doesn't make it very practical to say that taste is the enemy of creativeness. The artist can always have taste, be it aesthetical or moral, but it has to be formed and reformed constantly to work in conjunction with a vision that keeps it's focus not too broadly and not too narrowly defined. The artist ( of life ) becomes Wu-Wei. For making it more agreeable in practice maybe the quote could be changed a bit by adding one word : " Fixed taste is the enemy of creativeness."

jtk · February 6, 2009

Phylo, interesting points, especially "Moral taste and aesthetic taste shouldn't outweigh each other."

...I'll only quibble about that "shouldn't" ...why "shouldn't" aesthetics outweigh morals, or the other way around?...but you're right to differentiate the two types of value and presumably it's most effective to balance the two values...

Some say Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi work makes it hard to accept her African work. Similarly, I have a hard time appreciating Annie L's photography (beyond its technical merits) because of its pop-culture limitations (and the personal baggage I bring).

Personal baggage seems important to the discussion. Some folks love..or hate... Mapplethorpe, for their own reasons. Others go nuts for duck snaps, wide angle distortion, or wizened sea captains with pipes, rendered with HDR :-)

Norma Desmond · February 6, 2009

I think Phylo's distinction is key as well, and I join John's quibble about the weighing of the two . . . don't even agree it's most effective to balance the two. The holocaust survivor who needs to reject any sense of esthetics in Riefenstahl is entitled to that. The staunchly political guy who couldn't stomach Charlton Heston's views is entitled to be nauseated even when he's doing a decent job of playing Moses.

Baggage does seem important to the discussion. But I'd go further than John:

"because of its pop-culture limitations (and the personal baggage I bring)."

The "personal baggage I bring" is the easy part of the statement . . . knowledge of her from your days in San Francisco, familiarity with the politics of the times, the Art Institute, Rolling Stone, etc. The more significant baggage is what seems to be more taken for granted: "pop-culture limitations" (and the baggage, as if "pop-culture limitations" isn't, itself, baggage). In the phrase "pop-culture limitations" is to be found the opinion or baggage you instead seem to take as a given or for granted. First, you see it as "pop." Second, you see "pop" as limitation.

We all have baggage that we don't necessarily recognize as such. It's part of the reason Truth is so difficult.

Taste and baggage probably have a lot of overlap but may aim differently. Phylo has addressed the driving force behind taste. Developed taste seems to have a lot of potential where too fixed taste could be a problem. Baggage can drive us, but its potential seems more destructive or at least restrictive, especially when it goes unnoticed.

jtk · February 6, 2009

Fred, you're right on. I don't defend my baggage, but since it's there it's most proper ("moral") to be open about it, and there's rarely any reason to say "IMO."

"Taste" has a primary meaning, having to do with vestiges of a stuffy, vestigial class system. This thread has invented three new meanings for the word. That's "not to my taste." Pinkie held high, snif snif. :-)

Julie H · February 6, 2009

For making it more agreeable in practice maybe the quote could be changed a bit by adding one word : " Fixed taste is the enemy of creativeness."

</blockquote>

I disagree strenuously with that statement.

I think the best artists are consumed by (and sometimes destroyed by) the certainty of their own (fixed) vision; the struggle is to get it down. To get it to fit onto a piece of paper or canvas or into a block of stone. Think of Van Gogh. Think of Michelangelo (his incomplete works) and on and on through the ages.

-Julie

Norma Desmond · February 6, 2009

John--

In this case, I think you are citing a "quirky," even if historically primary, usage of "taste." In conversations and most discussions I've been involved with, "taste" is used in precisely the casual way we have been using it in this thread. Most people in most discussions would have no idea or interest in the relationship between taste and a stuffy, vestigial class system. We're talking about what we like. It would be unusual, outside of a specific discussion of stuffy, vestigial class systems, to use "taste" in the manner you are suggesting. Believe me, and you've seen it, I can dwell on a word or term with the best of 'em, but sometimes I just gotta get with the program and keep moving along. The philosopher in me makes that hard to do, but the more practice I get at being quick on the shutter, the more I keep moving along, with my eyes as open as I can keep them.

inoneeye · February 6, 2009

"I think the best artists are consumed by (and sometimes destroyed by) the certainty of their own (fixed) vision; the struggle is to get it down"

On getting it down I think Julie sheds a light on a potentially significant distinction. Van Gogh, i believe found himself stifled in the beginning when he was emulating a Dutch School of art approach. Darker more realisitic (pardon me for my very loose interpretation). It was only after he moved beyond/aside that did he begin to establish his style. inner voices.? As time past and he became more decisive and confident that his vision had validity he came into full blossom. Perhaps it is worth considering our creative endeavors on a career(?) curve and weigh the benefits and downfalls of our flexibility in that context.

I sat up and took attention to; "..... the best artists are consumed by (and sometimes destroyed by) the certainty of their own (fixed) vision" This would have made a better original question for this thread.

Norma Desmond · February 6, 2009

But, Julie, isn't there a difference between a fixed/focused/determined/certain vision and being consumed by one's taste. I don't think those you mention fall into the latter category. I think there's a sense in which vision transcends taste (even though vision may sometimes, though not always, use taste to get its footing).

inoneeye · February 6, 2009

Fred, your further refinement in segregating taste from vision, though not always is also very helpful.

inoneeye · February 6, 2009

Fred, your further refinement in segregating taste from vision, though not always is also very helpful.

Julie H · February 6, 2009

Fred,

Yes, there is a difference. However, to get from taste to creativity -- making, doing, acting -- we have to go through vision. All other senses of taste don't seem to me to have anything to do with creativity, either good or bad.

You could consider taste to be (part of) the 'how' and vision to be the 'what' -- or (flexible) taste to be a part of the 'means' where vision is the (fixed) end, but I don't think that's very ... important.

If you think of taste as strictly 'means', who cares what 'taste' Cezanne or Weston uses or refers to in his relentless pursuit of his own vision? Is the 'means' of particular relevance to his creativity?

-Julie

Norma Desmond · February 6, 2009

John--

Something just struck me. Here we are in a forum talking about taste, baggage, Annie Leibovitz, and your own decisions and experiences regarding portraiture:

"it has to do with facing people openly, despite my awkwardness, and photographing them. Simple portraiture. This doesn't feel "creative" to me, but hopefully I'm depicting something insightful, in some way about the subject. Difficult emotionally and technically, frustrating, rewarding. ?"

What better place to turn than Leibovitz, baggage aside? What if there were something significant in her work, beyond the technical which you've mentioned, that could push your vision forward? Even something significant that you don't like. That would be what I was referring to as appreciation trumping taste. If you could just get past the "popness" of it, I wonder if something there couldn't actually strike you . . . and not because you'd like it. That voice, as referenced by you and Josh, sometimes comes from the most unlikely of places.

It just all of a sudden seemed so obvious a place to go here . . . for what it's worth.

Norma Desmond · February 6, 2009

"Is the 'means' of particular relevance to his creativity?"

To me, yes. As I mentioned above, a lot is about the process to me . . . it's the journey, with the goal beckoning. I don't believe creativity is simply an end. It is very much the means. I care plenty about what Cezanne uses or refers to in his pursuit, as I do about my own means.

I may be missing your point or misinterpreting you, though, because it seems a curious point.

inoneeye · February 6, 2009

As one who relies very much on instinct to create, how i developed that instinct i often consider. And what means i have to refine or embellish (not as in decorate - more as in expand on) my vision and communication of that vision, is of importance. In viewing others work I also most often rely on instinct but find it can be useful to bolster my reaction with knowledge, insights. I also find it simply helps me to learn more.

inoneeye · February 6, 2009

a further thought on my comment "In viewing others work I also most often rely on instinct but find it can be useful to bolster my reaction with knowledge, insights." not just support my reaction but sometimes it can cause me to reconsider my first impression. I like that experience. It can be like a breath of fresh air. exhilarating.

fate_faith_change_chains · February 6, 2009

For making it more agreeable in practice maybe the quote could be changed a bit by adding one word : " Fixed taste is the enemy of creativeness." I disagree strenuously with that statement. I think the best artists are consumed by (and sometimes destroyed by) the certainty of their own (fixed) vision; the struggle is to get it down. To get it to fit onto a piece of paper or canvas or into a block of stone. Think of Van Gogh. Think of Michelangelo (his incomplete works) and on and on through the ages.

</blockquote>

Julie,

A fixed taste ( not vision ) in my used context, doesn't NOT undermine the presence of a strong conceptual continuity in the paintings of Van Gogh. This conceptual continuity ( borrowing from Zappa ) is put forward by the artists vision. You could say that the vision is fixed, but more like a strong beam of light that takes notice of all of it's surroundings, or maybe forget that one, not the greatest of examples...But I do feel that it's a vision that's not so much fixed as it can take notice of one thing but without completely ignoring the other. I think this feature is what makes the vision of any great artist precisely so perceptive, to have insights that for others go unnoticed. And for this vision to stay perceptive, the artist needs a flexible enough taste, or matter of opinions, through wich the perceptivity can truly flourish.

Also, I would argue that there's only one thing that Van Gogh and Michaelangelo where completely certain about, and that's the materials that they used for making their art, but from the first brushstroke on and the first hitting away of marble, nothing was a certainty apart from the paint and marble itself. Maybe what's being mistaken for a ' laserbeam fixed vision ' is the single endresult that doesn't show all that went before it.

Julie H · February 6, 2009

Phylo,

I understand what you're saying. And I agree in the sense that art is hard -- very hard, even for the very best. (My way of describing it is trying to see around corners. You know it's there but you can't quite see it...)

Fred,

It's hard to sort means from ends (as you know, and I think maybe that's your point). But try this: if someone could have gone to Edward Weston and said, "Mr. Weston, I'm sorry but you will not be allowed to photograph peppers, nautilus shells, nudes, or toilets ever again" do you think he would have been unable to continue to work? Or if they had told Cezanne to just quit with the same darn mountain, go to the beach for Pete's sake, would he have given up painting?

It's my feeling that the artist will find a means from whatever is at hand, and therefore what form that means takes is not of profound importance to that artist's creativity. In fact, the means is necessarily accidental, serendipitous; the vision, the drive, the motivation, is not.

Means is, of course, of practical interest to the artist and to the art that gets made; and having the good fortune to happen on a pepper #30 is always nice, but it's not what determines creativity.

-Julie

Norma Desmond · February 6, 2009

Julie--

I wasn't thinking of means in the same way you have just elaborated. I agree that they likely would have pursued their creative energy even with different subject matter . . . peppers or no peppers. I was thinking of means as all of the tools we use . . . the medium, the methods, the way we get our inspiration, our work habits, how we approach what we paint or photograph, how, for example, we get comfortable or else get excited about working with our discomfort. All those are what I was thinking of as means. I live with these and am often very curious to hear about such things in relation to others and how they do what they do.

Norma Desmond · February 6, 2009

Josh--

It's interesting to think about developing an instinct, which seems like a contradiction, since the very nature of an instinct is to be inborn and automatic as opposed to something that develops, like learned behavior. Nevertheless, such contradictions, while stumbling blocks of logicians and some philosophers, are actually the secrets of the universe for others.

The vast reach of our understanding and imagination often comes up against the limits of empirical knowledge and experience. Somewhere in there is inspiration.

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