Hume & the notion of “Taste”

I have experienced the concept of “taste” only in passing discussion or comments from others, in a casual manner throughout my life. Phrases like “she has very good taste in clothes,” or “that film was made in very bad taste” are examples of these.
After reading Hume’s selection entitled, “Of the Standard of Taste,” I gathered the impression that he wished to convey the message that every individual possesses his or her preferences or “tastes,” and unfortunately, we as a society often forget to accept others’ standards of taste regarding various things (for the purpose of this class, specifically art). He states that the “variety of taste is obvious to the most careless enquirer,” but also that we tend to throw this truth to the side when encountering objects that are very different, but not objects, or pieces of art, that are very similar. This is important to remember when evaluating the two paintings that were available for viewing on this course’s website.
In my opinion, both of the paintings on the course website were tasteful. They represent a kind of art that some people would desire to display in their homes, and others would not. They do not appeal to my personal taste for art in general; although they depict a chimpanzee, a flower, and a person’s face, objects that are found in nature, I do not find them attractive and would not hang them on my wall. The chimpanzee and flower are not “cute” enough and do not display enough humor to attract my fancy, and the person’s face is also unattractive to me. According to Hume, we as a society would accept different critiques of the paintings from different people because they are very similar. They are both paintings of naturally occurring objects and actually appear to be created by the same artist. If they were, for example, a sculpture and an oil painting, people would not accept different critiques of them, simply because the mediums and methods in which they were prepared are so different.