This is where I'd differentiate between taste and beauty. Taste is a property of people. Beauty is a property of things. Taste is the ability to recognize and respond to the beauty of things in proportion to how beautiful they actually are. Thus, taste is ultimately a matter of intellectual refinement. The intellect, property developed, recognizes beauty effectively. Someone with bad taste can be said to either lack discernment (when they cannot tell the difference between the Pietà and some second rate work) or possess disordered tastes (when they show the same estimation or even greater estimation of the inferior to the superior).
Taste is very much related to desirability because what is beautiful is better than which is less so, and what is therefore good is more desirable than which is less so. Just as people can have bad taste, they can have bad desires. Take food, for example. Those who desire mediocre food to the same degree as good food have poor taste and therefore poor desires. Those with a desire to eat glass or their couch cushions (something people with pika might experience) have disordered tastes and therefore disordered desires.
As to the art itself, since art involves mimesis, good art can be measured in part by how well it imitates. (Imitation should not be understood here simplistically as implying photorealism.) An artist who either lacks discernment or lacks technique will produce mediocre imitations. There are feature of art itself which are not exhausted by imitation. These, too, determine whether the artwork itself is good. Composition and proportionality of the artwork itself (and not just the subject) are examples. While the subject may be beautiful, the execution of the artwork may be poor.
Now as PG says, art has an effect on us (indeed, it communicates to us), but because art is artifact and thus lacks an inherent end, its perfection cannot be completely explained without making reference to something with an inherent end which artifacts lack. Human nature is that thing. Human beings individually may possess variable perfections and variable degrees of perfection, including capacity for aesthetic judgement, either because they have either intrinsic individual limitations or because they have not actualized their capacities fully, but one and the same human nature. So we must look to human nature if we want to explain art. Indeed, throughout history, art tracks the understanding of human nature in a given culture. Cultures that understand the dignity of the human person value portraiture in a way those that don't do not.
Aesthetic judgement is value judgement from a different perspective, and therefore a truth claim (the fact-value dichotomy is bogus).
Taste is very much related to desirability because what is beautiful is better than which is less so, and what is therefore good is more desirable than which is less so. Just as people can have bad taste, they can have bad desires. Take food, for example. Those who desire mediocre food to the same degree as good food have poor taste and therefore poor desires. Those with a desire to eat glass or their couch cushions (something people with pika might experience) have disordered tastes and therefore disordered desires.
As to the art itself, since art involves mimesis, good art can be measured in part by how well it imitates. (Imitation should not be understood here simplistically as implying photorealism.) An artist who either lacks discernment or lacks technique will produce mediocre imitations. There are feature of art itself which are not exhausted by imitation. These, too, determine whether the artwork itself is good. Composition and proportionality of the artwork itself (and not just the subject) are examples. While the subject may be beautiful, the execution of the artwork may be poor.
Now as PG says, art has an effect on us (indeed, it communicates to us), but because art is artifact and thus lacks an inherent end, its perfection cannot be completely explained without making reference to something with an inherent end which artifacts lack. Human nature is that thing. Human beings individually may possess variable perfections and variable degrees of perfection, including capacity for aesthetic judgement, either because they have either intrinsic individual limitations or because they have not actualized their capacities fully, but one and the same human nature. So we must look to human nature if we want to explain art. Indeed, throughout history, art tracks the understanding of human nature in a given culture. Cultures that understand the dignity of the human person value portraiture in a way those that don't do not.
Aesthetic judgement is value judgement from a different perspective, and therefore a truth claim (the fact-value dichotomy is bogus).