I have a very ugly painting hanging in my living room. It is of a flower-like object in yellow, orange and green, each color appearing in the shade that most resembles puke.
My roommate found it at a swap meet last year. It was priced at $7, but she ended up getting it for $5 ““ still a bad deal in my opinion. She bought it because she liked it; to her it looked “psychedelic.”
It is around 4 feet by 2 1/2 feet, and at that size it is unfortunately the largest picture we have, so it takes up a rather prominent spot on the wall.
At first, I left the painting alone, not wanting to disrupt the peace, especially since my other roommates didn’t seem to mind.
The main reason, though, that I let that hideous thing hang on the wall was that I couldn’t think of words to explain why exactly I didn’t like it. And in college, when everyone is making a home away from home for the first time, it is important to decorate in such a way that expresses oneself and makes one feel ownership of the space, and I didn’t want to limit my roommate’s freedom of expression for no explicable reason.
Everyone is entitled to react to a piece in his or her own fashion, and it is widely agreed that there is no right and wrong when it comes to art, though one can have educated opinions ““ such as “nice texture,” “great use of color” or “what an original concept.” One can also relate a piece to historical works (“Wow, that looks like Van Gogh!”) or admire a painting because of the statements it makes (“This piece is so rebellious”).
The opinion I suffered from was unfortunately harder to describe ““ I just didn’t like looking at it.
My reaction was more of a base reaction, which is just when a piece forces a second look and inexplicably makes one feel calm or happy or, as in my case, makes one’s stomach cringe.
Pieces that cause gut reactions can often be more memorable than pieces that need an explanation to fully understand.
One can just like or hate a piece of art, inexplicably, and that can be the end of the discussion. Nothing that a caption says about how something breaks conventions or sticks it to the man really matters, as the art attacks the senses rather than the intellect. Nobody remembers captions ““ it’s either in the art or it’s not.
But art often causes opposite reactions in different people, and this is especially problematic when a painting causes such division in two people who are unfortunately roommates.
Since she just liked the painting and I just didn’t, we were forced to start critiquing the painting on an intellectual, rational level in order to settle the dispute ““ something that the piece-of-trash painting just didn’t merit.
I busted out my artistic vocabulary: poor composition, lack of dimension, no movement, blah, blah, blah.
Anybody with three cans of paint could have accidently spilled the jars and made that masterpiece. It is neither pretty to look at nor does it make any obvious statement. It is a random assortment of clashing shapes that just forces the eye to look anywhere but the canvas.
She came back with her reasons: the painting was obviously provocative (as it caused such a reaction in me), it starts conversations (i.e. “what is that?”), it is controversial ““ and isn’t that the goal of art? Don’t we want something in the living room that people will remember?
When gut reactions collide, rational justifications for liking or disliking art become necessary.
At the end of all the discussion, though, we still couldn’t agree on who was right.
There is no accounting for taste, and no matter how much I hate the painting, her reaction won’t change, and vice versa. Sometimes discussions about art really don’t lead anywhere and it becomes necessary to compromise.
So I hid the painting on the top shelf of the closet where she couldn’t reach it.
If you think Crocker is being petty, e-mail her at acrocker@media.ucla.edu.