I'm really ambivalent about that.

We once had a class sit-down with a popular German author, years ago in school and he put it like this: If you tell a story for a friend, you would focus on embellishing or at least trying to make more interesting what happened. The context of what's happening may be explained at length, *if* it is required or adds to the entertainment value - or not at all. You would only include further, precise descriptions if they are relevant to your story, they usually are not. If you want to tell a story about Peter underdressing, you would probably go into detail about the fact that Peter was at a wedding, you would describe his clothes and maybe everyone else's in contrast, but you wouldn't go into detail about the layers of the wedding cake.

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Then again: There are several big names in classical literature who are famous for exhaustive descriptions and building a picture so complete that the reader becomes utterly immersed. But if you don't do it well, you end up sidelining your story.

I appreciate descriptive writing, but I think there are certain standards of good practice that GRRM doesn't always appreciate. For an example, try reading The World of Ice & Fire as anything else than a glossary to the book's world and see how much of it you can read in one sitting. Examples of "good practice" for descriptive writing: Descriptions from multiple viewpoints, using metaphors , describing characters through character action, describe by dialogue (what's said, what's omitted?), using comparison and describing by highlighting differences.

This is my very personal take on it. I'm not a writer.