This seems to be the Haskell equivalent

[Rainer Deyke]

Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> Rainer Deyke wrote:
>> Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>> Rainer Deyke wrote:
>>>> His entire argument seems to hinge on the idea that the difference
>>>> between a good artist and a bad artist is that the better artist has
>>>> better taste.  Which is complete and utter bullshit.  The good
>>>> artist is
>>>> good because he has the skill to better express his taste, not because
>>>> his taste itself is superior.  He can create things that are more
>>>> beautiful (a technical skill), but only for his own sense of beauty.
>>> I'm not sure. Actually to be frank I completely disagree. I'm trained in
>>> music and my father is an architect and painter; I see/hear plenty of
>>> work by artists that technically are very skilled but have poor taste.
>>
>> That statement pretty much presumes that you are qualified to judge
>> other people's taste.  In other words, if you don't like it, then it's
>> objectively bad.  Your own taste is objectively perfect, and the closer
>> some other person's taste resembles your own, the better it is.
> 
> Well it's exactly the point of the article that you oughtn't fall into
> the other extreme. If you did, Da Vinci would not be distinguishable
> from Ghirlandaio nor Porsche would be from Cadillac nor Bach would be
> from Boccherini.

This "other extreme" is a ridiculous strawman that nobody, least of all
myself, is advocating.

An artist has many skills.  One such skill is the low-level skill of
placing brush strokes on a piece of paper.  Another skill is the high
level skill of making artistic choices that lead to something beautiful.
 I'm saying that these are both technical skills that can be objectively
measured, and that they are both independent of the artist's
(subjective) taste.  It's an insult to artists everywhere to reduce the
high level core of their work to mere taste.


-- 
Rainer Deyke - rainerd at eldwood.com