Today's Quote

Today's quotation is from the eminent art critic Clement Greenberg (1909-1994), and relates to how tastes are often shaped by something other than aesthetic concerns. Funny that he picks on Raphael here, since Greenberg was most famous as an advocate of modern movements like abstract expressionism:

"One of the afflictions of art and of taste is the untruth you may tell yourself about the operations of your taste, or let's say, the results of your taste and the untruth you may tell to others. You're told that Raphael was a great painter and you can't see it yourself, but since you've been told it, you've read it everywhere and so forth, you look at a Raphael and you may look at a failed one and say, "well, it's got to be good because Raphael is so famous, the authorities say he's so good." That's one of the worst ways in which to begin or to continue looking at art."