How Art Can Be Good

December 2006 I grew up believing that taste is just a matter of personal preference.

2006 年 12 月 我从小就相信品味只是个人喜好的问题。

Each person has things they like, but no one's preferences are any better than anyone else's.

每个人都有自己喜欢的东西，但没有人的喜好比其他人更好。

There is no such thing as good taste.

没有所谓的好品味。

Like a lot of things I grew up believing, this turns out to be false, and I'm going to try to explain why.

就像我从小就相信的许多事情一样，事实证明这是错误的，我将尝试解释原因。

One problem with saying there's no such thing as good taste is that it also means there's no such thing as good art.

说没有好品味这样的东西的一个问题是，它也意味着没有好的艺术这样的东西。

If there were

如果有

good art, then people who liked it would have better taste than people who didn't.

好的艺术，那么喜欢它的人就会比不喜欢它的人有更好的品味。

So if you discard taste, you also have to discard the idea of art being good, and artists being good at making it.

因此，如果你放弃品味，你也必须放弃艺术是好的、艺术家擅长创作的观念。

It was pulling on that thread that unravelled my childhood faith in relativism.

正是这条线索瓦解了我儿时对相对主义的信仰。

When you're trying to make things, taste becomes a practical matter.

当你尝试制作东西时，品味就变成了一个实际问题。

You have to decide what to do next.

你必须决定下一步该做什么。

Would it make the painting better if I changed that part?

如果我改变那部分，会让画变得更好吗？

If there's no

如果没有的话

such thing as better, it doesn't matter what you do.

更好的事情，你做什么并不重要。

In fact, it doesn't matter if you paint at all.

事实上，画不画根本不重要。

You could just go out and buy a ready-made blank canvas.

你可以出去买一张现成的空白画布。

If there's no such thing as good, that would be just as great an achievement as the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

如果没有这样的好事，那就和西斯廷教堂的天花板一样伟大的成就。

Less laborious, certainly, but if you can achieve the same level of performance with less effort, surely that's more impressive,

当然，不那么费力，但如果你能用更少的努力达到同样水平的表现，那肯定会更令人印象深刻，

not less.

不少。

Yet that doesn't seem quite right, does it?

但这似乎不太正确，不是吗？

Audience I think the key to this puzzle is to remember that art has an audience.

观众 我认为解决这个难题的关键是要记住艺术有观众。

Art has a purpose, which is to interest its audience.

艺术有一个目的，那就是引起观众的兴趣。

Good art (like good anything) is art that achieves its purpose particularly well.

好的艺术（就像好的任何东西一样）是特别好的实现其目的的艺术。

The meaning of "interest" can vary.

“兴趣”的含义可能有所不同。

Some works of art are meant to shock, and others to please; some are meant to jump out at you, and others to sit quietly in the background.

有些艺术作品是为了令人震惊，而另一些则是为了取悦；有些是为了向你跳出来，而另一些则是静静地坐在幕后。

But

但是

all art has to work on an audience, and—here's the critical point—members of the audience share things in common.

所有的艺术都必须对观众起作用，而且——这是关键点——观众成员有共同点。

For example, nearly all humans find human faces engaging.

例如，几乎所有人类都觉得人脸很有吸引力。

It seems to be wired into us.

它似乎已经融入了我们。

Babies can recognize faces practically from birth.

婴儿几乎从出生起就可以识别面孔。

In fact, faces seem to have co-evolved with our interest in them; the face is the body's billboard.

事实上，面孔似乎是与我们对它们的兴趣共同进化的。脸是身体的广告牌。

So all other things being equal, a painting with faces in it will interest people more

所以在其他条件相同的情况下，一幅有面孔的画会更让人感兴趣