Much of my early intellectual life was trying to like things others said I should like. And I would often get frustrated at myself, because I usually wouldn’t like what they said I should.
Some of the classics are outstanding — but most of them I’ve found dull, drawn-out, and unsatisfying. And unfortunately, I’ve read hundreds of them.
It’s been that way with art, too. I’ve been to art museums and tried to like the classics of art. I tried to reform my unruly tastes. But I found most of them unmoving and unimpressive.
So it’s a relief to hear that someone else that I respect felt similarly. Here’s Mark Twain:
Wherever you find a Raphael, a Rubens, a Michael Angelo, a Caracci, or a da Vinici (and we see them every day), you find artists copying them, and the copies are always the handsomest. Maybe the originals were handsome when they were new, but they are not now….
[People] stand entranced before [a da Vinci] with bated breath and parted lips, and when they speak, it is only in the catchy ejaculations of rapture:
“O, wonderful!”
“Such expression!”
“Such grace of attitude!”
“Such dignity!”
“Such faultless drawing!”
“Such matchless coloring!”
I envy them their honest admiration, if it be honest… But at the same time the thought will intrude… How can they see what is not visible?
I’ve stopped caring that my tastes are not what some people considered “cultured.” I’m not going to delude myself into liking something just because others do.
Tastes are subjective. Life is too short for reading books I don’t enjoy. It’s too short for old movies with bad acting and bad editing. It’s too short for art that was once moving, but now is mediocre at best.
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested,” said Francis Bacon. And some, I’d add, are to be shut and put back on the shelf for someone else who enjoys them.
