"How Good Is Your Taste?" Round

Source.

 

 My friend Tom gave me the book below, probably about twenty years ago. Written in 1946, it's hard to tell now how much of it is tongue-in-cheek, but given the season, I'm going to credit the author with not being a complete monster, and he provided our zoom quiz with a very entertaining round. You must choose the most tasteful article from each of the following selections as decided by Sanford E. Gerard, whose blurb is included. The definitive answers together with Sanford E.'s detailed reasons for choosing them can be found at the bottom of this post, along with details of our players' own preferences, and feel free to leave your own arguments in the comments. Begin...

 

1. "The author presented the rectangles shown to 309 people with very interesting and illuminating results. Eighty-one artists and 228 laymen were asked to choose their favourite. (Before reading further you might choose the shape you like best.)"

 

 

2. "TWO TREES AND A HOUSE AS AN ABSTRACT LANDSCAPE"

 

3. "A layout is a plan for an advertisement. It is created by an art director in collaboration with a copy writer who wants it done her way. This results in two layouts, one good. (Copy writers scored rather low on these tests)... John Stoehrer, high-priced art director, says none of these got out of the office but would like to know which one would have if he had his way." (As far as we could work out, this was an advert for rizlas.)

 

4. "Regardless of how you (or your loved on, if you're a gal) part or don't part you hair, there's a preferred arrangement. It was determined by checking the photo registers of male models issued by such agencies as Conover, Huben, et cetera. Which plan do you think the majority of New York's best-groomed men favor?"

 

5. "One of these arrangements is a discouraging thing to have to sell, say the owners of the East Village Flower Shop (1244 Third Avenue) But what would you do if you had to do business in a neighborhood on its way up but still half tenements? You'd carry both. Which one would you like to sell?" 

 

6. "ARRANGEMENT OF TWO UNITS"

 

 

7. "WHICH CHURCH?"

 

 

8. "The advertisement in which one of these nurses appeared was sponsored by Pepperell Manufacturing Company... James Viles made the picture (of Jean Pearce, popular model). Jimmie and Jean were asked to produce a nurse with a 'going-to-glory' expression. They did: but which one is it?"

 

 

9. "OLD THING AREN'T ALWAYS GOOD: All of these are old – and collectors' items. One was made about a hundred and seventy years ago – two go back about three hundred. Without regard for any incongruity which might result from using them in your home, which do you hate least fervently?"

 

 

10.  "New York is the most important center of a little known industry, and Al Bliss might be called its dean. He makes 'prefabricated' displays for important stores all over the country... Al refuses to be quoted on which he thinks is better but other experts are not so reticent."

 

 

 

 

AND HERE ARE THE ANSWERS...  

 

1:- "The results were as follows: the group as a whole voted for B." However our own group were more split: Peter and Laura chose B. Kevin and Kayla chose A. Sarah liked the square.  

 

2:- "In art school, as a boy of seventeen, I was always baffled when teachers would say, 'That's bad. Look; one, two, three! Can't you unify your composition more?' I liked the one, two, three, but I have learnt (the hard way) that buyers of pictures don't. No one wants to feel impelled to buy anything but money... So E and Y are ruled out. They're too easy to count. Y, of course, is preferable because it is not quite so boring.... To point up the undesirability of E the ground was made to sag in the middle." Square-loving Sarah still picked it however, while the other four got the points by choosing S.  

 

3:- "An adequate answer would require a conference, but all layout experts interviewed immediately selected E." Oddly only Laura chose E. Peter and Kevin chose A, Kayla and Sarah chose C. My faulty reproduction skills may have been a little too blame however, or maybe it was the guy on fire.  

 

4:- "If you picked A or Z you are entitled to a win because 72 per cent use a side part. A is much more favoured than Z... The part was established when Mama faced her little boy and dropped the comb on his left, her right." Our whole group also chose A, the one instance of unanimity.  

 

5:- "You'd like to sell R because it would fetch more money and a more desirable type of customer. J is for the tenement dwellers, who love it! They leave the little celluloid lion from Japan in place too! They really do!" As would classless scum Sarah, Laura and Peter. Only Kevin and Kayla went for R.  

 

6:- "The well-educated women did even worse on this (in case you need consoling). They scattered their votes equally for each design. O was almost universally favored by all the others. The club balances interestingly in O and the arrow helps to complete a line which staggers in a pleasant manner through the rectangle. The supine club in D was next choice. S did very badly, doubtless because of the common distaste for uncertainty in anything... One or two artists with very advanced taste picked D and S because they were bored with correctness. This does not excuse you." Only Sarah picked O however. Kayla was bored enough with correctness to pick S. Laura, Pater and Kevin all clearly fancied a sit-down, and picked D.  

 

7:- "L and A were preferred, in that order. I prefer R to A, but R received almost no votes." Kevin also preferred R. I wondered if R looked the most Hawksmoor-y, but by Hawksmoor-y I really just mean wrong. Peter, Laura and Kayla all went for L. Sarah likes a good big steeple and went for A. 

 

8:- "Everyone concerned (and that includes the Medical Corps) liked R best. J is a look to repel wolves!" I don't see it myself, and Sarah picked J, but everyone else went for the parted lips of R. 

 

9:- "Well the Sèvres vase (that's H) is pretty attractive, if you keep an open mind about things. It's in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The other two items are Venetian and prove that the Doge's Palace and the Bridge of Sighs had no monopoly on horrors. The imitation horn of decorated china which has been made into a parrot with an animal's head on its tail is the most completely horrible object which I can remember seeing. The octagonal rock crystal and silver gilt vase is no dream either." Personally I think if you're going to have crinkly bits why not go full chimera, and Kayla agreed, choosing E. Laura chose F, imagining a candle inside. Sarah, Peter and Kevin went for H. 

 

10:- "The original Lord & Taylor bell window (G) was the talk of New York the year it first appeared. Its simple yet grand conception was breath-taking. You can't blame the little out-of-town stores for demanding that Bliss make bells for them. Nor can you blame them for debasing the conception to suit the taste of their less sophisticated customers. But six bell ringers are not six times as good as one. The effect of all those rumps bobbing up at you must have been striking!" And the majority of our group did indeed go for one bell-ringer, with Peter, Kevin and Kayla choosing not G, but P, whose church Kevin noted was definitely an R. Sarah and Laura went for the Lord and Taylor. How did you do?