[pollyannaish]

I don't think it is either unfair or elitist to objectively compare two different art objects and conclude that one has lasting merit and one is kitschy crap, or to draw conclusions about the taste of the person who prefers the kitsch. There is, for example, a vast qualitative distinction between, say, a Cezanne landscape and anything by Kincaid.

Remove the word crap from that paragraph and the phrase about conclusions about taste and I agree with you completely.

We don't give our kids the basis upon which to make sound aesthetic judgments.

This may also be true, although I stick to my elitist argument. Who is the arbiter of aesthetics? There are an enormous amount of personal and cultural extenuating circumstances, although there are certainly some basic standards.

I will use myself as an example. I LOVE kitschy television. Sitcoms, soap operas, vapid detective shows. They make me laugh, I don't have to think...and they bring joy into my life. I even designate them kitschy crap.

But I will tell you this...I would rather spend two hours watching that kind of thing, than to sit through the excruciatingReds again or be entirely bored out of my skull watching, say, Annie Hall. Or be forced to consume the artistic, but morally bereft American Beauty.

Now, I can most certainly tell you why, artistically, those films are a cut above. My education has given me the opportunity to analyze exactly why they are fantastic. They were critically acclaimed. I can appreciate them for the amazing "Art" that they are...but they bring me absolutely no joy. I can play the game. I know what "taste" is. Instead, for my life I choose joy and fun. Perhaps I'm simply lazy. Or perhaps I don't want to waste my life surrounding myself with things that speak to my impeccable taste, rather than my joyful soul.

On the other hand, The Bob Newhart Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, General Hospital, Monk, Magnum PI, Simon and Simon all make me happy and give me the opportunity to laugh and enjoy life. So, like Kinkade appreciators, I surround myself with "kitschy crap."

While I understand what you are trying to get at, I don't think you quite understand just how elitist your thinking is. If an owner of a Kinkade painting LOVES it no matter the cost...he has not been ripped off. However, if an owner of a Rembrandt hated it...he exchanged part of his life only to prove his credentials and he has been ripped off.

BTW, I love Rembrandt and admire and respect him, although I have much kitschier (sans Kinkade) stuff in my own home. I can't afford the taste that a painting of his would require in my decorating scheme. LOL.

[Rembrandt_fan]

If there is no measure of objective beauty, then it would be pointless to attempt to make something beautiful since--after all--it's all good, right?

But there is a measure, based upon fact, observation, and experimentation. There is, for example, the golden section, that most pleasing of rectangles, which happens to share the same proportionate ratio (1:1.618) as the chambers of a seashell or the petals of a flower or the whorls of the human earlobe. Another example: the human eye (and mind) perceives differently colored pigments differently as a matter of human physiology. The pigment red, for example, when it is of a certain size, makes the human heart beat faster, and comes forward visually when viewed against adjacent, cooler colors such as blue or (its complement) green. Jagged lines at hard angles and smooth, flowing lines of varying width evoke different emotional states and associations in the viewer. Knowing these things (among others) can enable a skillful artist to evoke a wide range of sensation. I cried once, viewing a Rothko painting, and I rarely ever cry--not since childhood, and never before in a public place.

So before you tell me that all art is qualitatively the same, a wholly subjective affair, read Ruskin, Kandinsky, Geothe, Chevreul, Albers, Birren, Rothko, and others. I am wholeheartedly sick of that whole 'eye of the beholder' line of thought, which automatically makes Grandma's paint-by-numbers hobby project the equal of serious, thoughtful work by artists who sometimes killed themselves striving after an aesthetic ideal.

There's nothing elitist about knowing the difference between good and bad art.