No accounting for taste

Maybe I'm just prickly because I like Secessionists, but this whole conversation about how people with Klimt prints are undateable reminds me of Howard from On Beauty, and how he refused to let Kiki hang representational art in their home. Howard was an ass and so is anyone who would drop a perfectly good person on the basis of their liking a well-known painting. One can be sophisticated and still enjoy popular things. And it's often very difficult to obtain prints of one's actual favorite paintings. I collect postcards of the paintings I see and like, but often those that strike me hardest are not available as cards, much less prints. Buying a more famous but less enjoyed painting is apparently enough for some to scorn. But is the better course to have bare walls? Not everyone can afford original art.

Then again, maybe this species of snobbery is a good signifier of attitudes, even if the presence of popular art in a home is not; a guy who dumps you for liking Schiele would probably spend a lot of time dragging you to shows by (deservedly) unknown bands and complaining about how much it sucks that his old favorite band got popular and now he can't listen to them anymore. No great loss.