[Dottore]

Originally Posted by DARISC

I find a lot of art interesting but not all art that interests me suits my taste. Some great art is ugly, yet beautiful; Van Gogh's Potato Eaters for example can be seen as an ugly, dark painting, but is beautiful if the viewer is familiar with Van Gogh's work, whereas Jacques Louis David's Death of Marat is a beautiful painting of death in a bathtub as it were...may be ugly to unschooled viewers.

Beauty and taste is subjective - and neither is relevant to whether a work of art will stand the test of time. There's much more involved with judging art than simply using the basis of "I know what I like". But of course, for other than collectors. historians, artists and aficionados, not knowing about art but knowing what one likes works great when decorating one's home, business, etc.

Not that it matters to the art buyer decorating their home, artists generally consider their work to be more than mere decoration. But artists are generally a magnanimous lot and will happily sell their work to even the most loutish.

You're jonesing for another "what is art?" discussion, aren't you?