Taste (culture)

“ When we say taste, we mean not crudely the knowledge of what is right in art: taste estimates the degrees of excellence, and by comparison proceeds from justness to refinement. Our language, or rather those who use it, generally confound, when speaking of the art, copy with imitation, though essentially different in operation and meaning. ”

“ The very diversity in taste proves its deep-down reality: preference and antipathy being consubstantial with the soul—nay, inherent in the very mechanism and chemistry of the body. And for this reason tastes are at once so universal and uniform, and so variously marked by minor differences. There are human beings all shank and thigh and wrist, with contemplative, deep-set eyes and compressed, silent lips ”

“ So in all grades are there various matters of taste which become extravagance if rushed into by persons unbreeched for the occasion. Luckily for the present day, the tastes of the gourmand and epicure are merged in more manly sports; the great class of Corinthian aristocrats cull sweets from the blackened eyes of policemen—raptures from wrenched-off knockers—merriment in contusions—and frantic delight in fractured limbs! ”

“ Taste is, in a great measure, acquired, cultivated, an art; sensibility, a native endowment. It may be developed, strengthened, educated, but not acquired. Genius produces, sensibility admires, taste judges or decides. Their action is reciprocal. If taste corrects and restrains the too ready or too extravagant sensibility, the latter, on the other hand, furnishes the ground and data upon which, after all, taste must rely in its decisions.
Cultivation of Taste.—We have investigated, with some care, as was proposed, the nature of that power of the mind which takes cognizance of the beautiful. ”

“ Taste is intellectual pleasure, an approving sense of truth, of good, and of beauty. The latter seems the visible or ostensible principle of the two former, and is that in which the universal idea of taste is comprised. ”

“ I may add that taste has local rules which make it dependent in many respects on the country we are in, its manners, government, institutions; it has other rules which depend upon age, sex, and character, and it is in this sense that we must not dispute over matters of taste.
Taste is natural to men; but all do not possess it in the same degree, it is not developed to the same extent in every one; and in every one it is liable to be modified by a variety of causes. ”

“ Men's taste is regaled with the most delicious fruits, which, without art, they have in great variety and perfection. And then their smell is refreshed with an eternal fragrancy of flowers and sweets, with which nature perfumes and adorns the woods and branches almost the whole year round. ”

“ OF TASTE. Our notion of taste may be easily understood by what has been said upon the subject of genius; for mere good taste is nothing else but genius without the power of execution.
It must be born; and is to be improved chiefly by being accustomed, and the earlier the better, to the most exquisite objects of taste in its various kinds. For the taste in writing and painting, and in every thing else, is insensibly formed upon what we are accustomed to; as well as taste in eating and drinking. ”

“ For as Lessing and others so frequently blame the critics for narrowness and onesidedness in matters of taste, inculcating upon them a greater universality of it—a greater power of appreciation of the beautiful, to whatsoever times and nations belonging—so do men of the world also advocate a universality of taste for the live beautiful, on two legs, not excluding any variety of it, but deriving gratification from all. This taste the Venner possessed. ”

“ In the present state of society, taste seems to be equally excluded from the highest and from the lowest sphere of life. The one seems to be too much encumbered with artificial imaginary necessities; the other too much encumbered with the real and natural necessities of life, to attend to its cultivation. It is in the former that taste is universally thought to reside, which is because the idea of taste is inseparable from that of honour. It is that, indeed, in which the general taste of the nation is exhibited. ”

“ We have slowly evolved a tongue and palate on the one hand, and French cooks and pâté de foie gras on the other. But while everybody knows practically how things taste to us, and which things respectively we like and dislike, comparatively few people ever recognise that the sense of taste is not merely intended as a source of gratification, but serves a useful purpose in our bodily economy, in informing us what we ought to eat and what to refuse. ”

“ That you should possess such varieties of taste is no wonder, considering what an abundance of intellectual honours you inherit; nor might the world have been the better for it, had they been tastes, and nothing more. ”

“ Briefly, taste is a metaphor taken from one of our mixed senses, and applied to objects of the more purely organic senses, and of our moral sense, when we would imply the co-existence of immediate personal dislike or complacency. In this definition of taste, therefore, is involved the definition of fine arts, namely, as being such the chief and discriminative purpose of which it is to gratify the taste, ­ that is, not merely to connect, but to combine and unite, a sense of immediate pleasure in ourselves, with the perception of external arrangement. ”

“ For in judging of any new thing, even of a taste similar to that which he has been formed by habit to like, he finds his palate affected in the natural manner and on the common principles. Thus the pleasure of all senses, of the sight, and even of the taste, that most ambiguous of the senses, is the same in all, high and low, learned and unlearned. ”

“ Now taste is of two kinds, the first consisting in the negative avoidance of all that is ill-considered and discordant, the other positive and a by-product; it is that harmony which always results from the expression of intense and disinterested emotion. ”

“ The presence and operation of taste can thus be traced in every act of the mind, and are intimately associated with the feelings of our moral nature. The exercises of taste have ever been regarded as productive generally of pleasurable emotion. Hence we consider ourselves justified in defining, at the beginning of this chapter, taste to be 'the perception of intellectual pleasure.' The common use of language, also—an authority always to be respected in tracing the extent or import of ideas—and even the best theories of taste, when rightly understood, coincide with this definition. ”

“ O men of taste in future centuries, let me recommend you the men of taste of to-day! You will laugh at their cramps, their superb disdain, their preference for veal and milk, and the faces they make when underdone meat and too ardent poetry is served to them. ”

“ Of course, tastes must be to a certain degree inborn, but I am quite sure that many a taste perishes, like a frost-bitten bud, full of the promise of blossom and fruit, because it has never been given the opportunity to develop. ”

“ In the fine arts, certainly, taste is bound to be very much directed by people blest with peculiar gifts and armed with special equipment. But, besides taste in the fine arts, there is such a thing as taste in life; a power of discerning and choosing for one's self in life's minor matters; and on this taste in life, this sense of the smaller values, is apt to flourish that subtler and more precious æsthetic sense. Without this taste no civilization can exist; for want of it European civilization is seemingly about to perish. ”

“ As the universal idea or sentiment of taste is honour, so the universal object of its perception is ornament, from the object, whose excellence we contemplate as an ornament or honour to human nature, to every object which in the slightest degree indicates the influence of that excellence. Take away the idea of that influence in the moral sphere, and taste is annihilated; and, in the natural sphere, take away the idea of divine influence, and taste cannot exist. Every sentiment of taste, as I observed before, ultimately relates to the one or to the other of these principles ”

“ I burned with passion for this charming girl; but would I have done so in her taste for literature and science had not been backed up by her personal charms? I suspect not. I like a dish pleasing to the palate, but if it is not pleasing to the eye as well, I do not taste it but put down as bad. The surface is always the first to interest, close examination comes afterwards. ”

“ The possession of taste insures grace and beauty in the works of an artist, and the avoidance of all that is low or mean. It is as [Pg 118] often the result of an innate sense of beauty or propriety as of art education, and no genius can compensate for the want of it. * * * Tastes differ so much among individuals, nations, or in different ages and conditions of civilization that it is utterly impossible to set up a standard of taste applicable to all men and to all stages in the evolution of society. ”

“ The further we seek our definitions of taste, the further we go astray; taste is merely the power of judging what is pleasing or displeasing to most people. Go beyond this, and you cannot say what taste is. ”

“ Considered as a principle of action, such a taste provides an effectual security against the grossness connected with many vices, and cherishes a temper of mind friendly to all that is amiable, or generous, or elevated in our nature. While, therefore, we regard taste as an important [Pg 59] ally to the sense of duty, we are not to rely chiefly upon it. ”

“ The foundation of taste in the fashions, however, being what I have now stated, it is obvious that a quick perception of their ever-varying changes and a ready and careful accommodation to them, can belong, whether in man or woman, only to a mind essentially frivolous; and that such a taste, if not absolutely incompatible with a perception of all that is permanently grand and beautiful in the works of God, is yet seldom connected with it. ”

“ Polite taste, of course, is meaningful only if it can define itself by what it excludes, and nothing could be in worse taste than a collection of pieces written on windows, carved in tables, or inscribed on the walls of Britain’s loos. ”

“ The taste, the sense by which we distinguish the flavor of our food, has produced, in all known languages, the metaphor expressed by the word "taste"—a feeling of beauty and defects in all the arts. It is a quick perception, like that of the tongue and the palate, and in the same manner anticipates consideration. Like the mere sense, it is sensitive and luxuriant in respect to the good, and rejects the bad spontaneously ”

“ The fact that taste changes, and as a consequence that artistic styles and types vary, is simply due to the everlasting desire on the part of the public for some new thing, and their equally permanent appreciation of novelty of idea or sensation. ”

“ Whilst we consider taste merely according to its nature and species, we shall find its principles entirely uniform; but the degree in which these principles prevail in the several individuals of mankind, is altogether as different as the principles themselves are similar. For sensibility and judgment, which are the qualities that compose what we commonly call a taste, vary exceedingly in various people. From a defect in the former of these qualities arises a want of taste ”

“ But even those who are endued with good natural taste, often judge implicitly and by rote, without ever consulting their own taste. Instances of this passive indolence, or rather this unconsciousness of one's own faculties, appear every day; not only in the fine arts, but in cases where the mere taste, according to the original meaning of the word, is alone concerned. ”

“ FINISHING. TASTE AND DESIGN.
It is of the utmost importance to a young workman that he have correct ideas in regard to taste, and be able to distinguish it from caprice or mere fancy. It is in the power of all to acquire a correct taste, for it is governed by laws that can be easily learned, and they are unchangeable. Taste may be said to be a perception and an appreciation of the principles of beauty and harmony as revealed by Nature through Art. Nothing contrary to nature, no violation of any law of proportion or of fitness, can be in good taste. ”

“ It has been the main scope and principal end of this discourse to demonstrate the reality of a standard in taste, as well as in corporeal beauty; that a false or depraved taste is a thing as well known, as easily discovered, as any thing that is deformed, misshapen, or wrong in our form or outward make; and that this knowledge is derived from the uniformity of sentiments among mankind, from whence proceeds the knowledge of what are the general habits of nature; the result of which is an idea of perfect beauty. ”

“ Perhaps a more satisfactory reason why there are no fine arts of taste and smell—or let us in deference to Japanese modes leave out smell, and say of taste only—is this, that savours yield only private pleasures, which it is not possible to build up into separate and durable schemes such that every one may have the benefit of them, and such as cannot be monopolized or used up. ”

“ Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those material sources which are attractive to our moral nature in its purity and perfection; but why we receive pleasure from some forms and colours, and not from others, is no more to be asked or answered than why we like sugar and dislike wormwood.
2. The temper by which right taste is formed is characteristically patient. ”