Each decade has its men in art, music, science, literature whose works at first seem ugly, only to win out in the long run.
Hence the danger in pronouncing this or that painting ugly; it may seem grotesque and hideous today; thirty years hence it may command thousands from men and museums eager to possess it. That has been the history of many great paintings.
Still we do have our notions regarding the ugly and the beautiful, and while our notions change and develop year by year they naturally control at each given moment; that is, we cannot say we think a picture or a piece of music is beautiful today because the chances are we will think it beautiful a dozen years hence, any more than we can say we like olives on first tasting them, simply because most people come to like them after a time.
To the London public in 1840 the pictures of Turner were absurd.
To the Paris public in 1874 the pictures of the Impressionists were ridiculous.
To the New York public in 1913 the pictures of the Cubists were grotesque.
These several publics were not to blame; they could not help their impressions. They had been brought up on very different picture-food and did not like the taste of the new.
The attitude of the public was normal, logical, and sane. If the people had received the new men with wild acclamations of joy and called them great on first sight it would have meant such instability of opinion and character as to render the homage absolutely worthless.
In a sense, tenacity of opinion on the part of the public is the salvation of art as well as of morals; it is essential to substantial progress.