David Hume makes the claim that art is primarily a matter of “taste”. He makes the assertion that art is merely an expression of one’s taste and cannot really be subject to an objective assessment by others. He also argues, however, that there do exist certain qualities in art that are universally accepted as beautiful and can be classified as objectively beautiful. I agree with Hume about everything just short of his final claim. I post that art is merely perception. If someone perceives any image to be art, then it is so. This could be something as simple as a can of beer littered on the side of the road. However, I do not agree that there is such a thing as objective taste. There may be qualities that SEEM like they are the result of objective taste, but those are merely societal constructs. We only see those things as objective because humans have determined them to be beautiful by consensus. But history has shown time and time again that things previously considered ugly and abhorrent were later exalted as exceedingly beautiful (nature for example). Hume is wrong, in my opinion.
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