Sanda Millers, ‘Fashion Media: Past and Present’, evaluated the concept of taste during the eighteenth century, also known as the enlightenment period. The first fashion magazine, Le Mercure Galant was regarded as the first form of modern publicity, emerged and introduced a wider audience of ‘intellectuals’ to a subject worthy of intellectual pursuit and was ultimately progressed by the likes of Denis Diderot. Le Mercure Galant was however, short lived as it was seen to be ahead of its time and was later reintroduced as Mercure de France during the ‘age of reason’ amongst the French revolution. This is argued to have changed societies ideologies of the constrictions of beauty and taste. Miller contemplates the philosophical aesthetics of the concept of taste and discusses whether it is deliberated through personal judgement or a more meaningful, thought-out critique.

The french encyclopaedist, Denis Diderot was aware of moral messages behind a piece of artwork and believed that it should be evaluated on a more irrational basis as there is no common denominator in our own personal likes and dislikes when critiquing. Diderot argues that art is a ‘delicacy of the imagination’ (Barlett, Cole & Rocamora 2013) suggesting that the way we interpret art is based on personal opinion and how we see them is different to how another observer would perceive it. I personally agree with this statement as everyone is brought up differently, shaping our own ideas and opinions through cultural experiences, environmental and political differences and also by the people surrounding us. This lends itself hand in hand to the famous expression, ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’.

A critic who opposed Didorts enlightened efforts was Jonathan Richardson, who thought art criticism should be on an objective basis only. One of Richardson’s work was, An Essay on the Whole Art of Criticism(1719), in which he laid out seven categories that he perceived as being integral to the success of the artwork in which he was critiquing and assigned them a score between zero and eighteen. The categories being composition, drawing, invention and colouring. I personally think that this is also contradictory, as giving a piece of art a score would still have underlying personal opinion behind it. I also struggle to understand where you would draw the line between what ‘score’ you would assign them with. Whats sets an ‘sixteen’ and a ‘eighteen’ a part. He also claimed that, “One man may be as good a judge as another if he applies himself to it.” Thus showing that his beliefs about his own critiquing haven’t progressed alongside the enlightenment period like other critics.
In addition, Henry James, who was an American author had similar opinions to Diderot and wrote, “We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, his donné: our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it.” (James 1888) This suggests that he saw that the freedom of art allowed for a freedom of criticism much like Diderot expressed. He allows himself to see the piece of art in the way that the creator sees it, looking for more meaning and showing understanding towards it in contrast to a score sheet.

To conclude, I believe that taste within critiquing is something that has progressed massively and has a huge part to play within modern fashion and how we view art as a whole. The Enlightenment period paved the way for modern fashion to correspond to the concept of taste which aided the efforts in getting observers to have their own opinions, rather than a universal one that is constricted by tradition.  

Barlett, Cole & Rocamora (e.d) 2013, Fashion Media: Past and Present, London: Bloomsbury

James, H 1888, The Art of Fiction, ‘Partial Portraits, Macmillan and Co, London.

Richardson, J 1792. The works of Jonathan Richardson, Strawberry-hill, London.