James Hendrick - exploring Hume

5.  For this blog entry I will examine the reading on David Hume in ‘The nature of Art: Art as object of taste.’  In this work, Hume asserts that it is possible to judge artwork based on certain qualities that make it good or bad art.  These qualities appeal to emotion or what he calls ‘sentiment.’  Hume admits that what appeals to sentiment is subjectively determined and therefore is not a basis for determining good or bad art.  However, Hume describes a ‘universal susceptibility’ or an universal taste for certain qualities that can be seen in certain works of art.  This ‘universal taste’ determines which aspects or qualities of art the Hume reasons will determine good art.  This is an interesting theory, but coincidence is not a grounds for theory; just because two people agree that something is aesthetically pleasing does not mean the third person will agree.  Hume even takes his assertion another step and asserts that, since it is possible to find aspects of ‘universal taste’, then it is possible to assemble some elite crew of art critics to interpret works of art based on these attribute and decide for general society what is and is not ‘good art.’  This assumption seems counter productive to the purpose of art.  It assumes that all art is competing with other works of art to which it happens to compare in style or form and create a hierarchy of good and bad qualities.  Art, as I would like to think, exists for the sake of itself, not as competition with other works of art for supremacy, nor is the fame of the artist at stake.  Art creates meaning and enhances understanding of some concept of reality.  To think of art as a mere pleasure enhancing medium brings the world of art into a realm of imitation described by Plato as a pitfall or hinderance to society offered by the introduction of art.