If you engage with the work of art, you are entitled to an opinion about it.
If, instead, you refuse to read or view or listen to it — or taste the green eggs and ham — you don’t get to have an opinion. Knowing what you’re talking about is the bare minimum requirement for expecting other people to care about your opinion of a cultural product.
What is distressing to me — and to all lovers of art and of free expression — is that of late we appear to be taking seriously the opinions of those who have not ponied up even that very minimal buy-in. We wouldn’t pay attention to restaurant reviews written by someone who has never been to the restaurant in question. Why are we reading — and accepting — evaluations of literature by people who have never read the books they’re condemning?
It’s not a high standard. I’m not calling for a “critic’s license” or saying that one must have an advanced degree, or 25 years of experience, or a sheaf of academic articles and a stack of books to one’s name in order to have an opinion about art.
I’m just saying that if you want me to take you seriously when you tell me that something is great, or awful, or trash, or immoral, or pornography, you should probably have actually made contact with the thing you’re talking about.
Fine – “freely express yourself”.
But do not use force to make me, or anyone else, pay for your stuff.
For sure Paul but I don’t see how that’s relevant to the quote or linked article 😉
Hah. We know why that is, both the trashing and the avoidance. Pratchett was a libertarian-ish conservative. Or a conservative-ish libertarian; I’m not sure he’d have liked the C-word at all. Put it this way: were he an American, he’d certainly have been a fairly mainstream Republican, leaning towards the libertarian wing (indeed, in the first photo I ever saw of him, he was wearing a 1988 RNC T-shirt).
But that’s like wackyland for the British media. They find people who still openly call themselves Marxist or Maoist pretty humdrum, if not actually exciting, but a British person aligned with the American mainstream is an intolerable extremist. This “Arts” columnist has obviously seen the odd quote, like my favourite, “Pulling together is the aim of despots and tyrannies. Free men pull in all different directions,” and decided that Pratchett was an unperson. Had he been pushing socialistic ideas in exactly the same style, he’d have been hailed by these people as a National Treasure.
The linked article is poorly thought out and argued.
Why does ‘and free expression‘ become linked with ‘lovers of art‘? Smuggling in a conflation of loving art and loving free expression there, no evidential basis is asserted.
Why should I want you to take me seriously? I have seen that you argue either badly or dishonestly. Why should I care what you think about what I think given what you have shown? The analogy to a restaurant review is entirely misconceived, firstly a customer usually pays for a meal in a restaurant, and has a dish prepared to order from a menu, so there is a representation as to what is on offer in terms of food, and drink. There is also an element of risk, however small, in eating food. Whereas with art, it is ready-made, independently of the wish of the spectator, and sometimes a patron, and it is not consumed (ftsoa) in the process of ‘appreciation’.
Off and F*** and Off and F*** and Off and F*** and Off, I am entitled to trust my judgment.
But there is a good point:
E.g. John Maynard Keynes dismissing von Mises and other Austrian economists, despite being unable to read their German-language texts.
It’s a fair comment. I have no problem pronouncing the writings of Marcel Proust or Thomas Pynchon to be unreadable, for the simple fact that I’ve yet to be able to read any of their books from start to finish. Lest anyone think that this points to a literary deficiency in me, I should point out that I’m one of the few people I know who has (truthfully) read the equally-awful Finian’s Rainbow all the way through. I still shudder at the torture I inflicted on myself.
Ditto music. As a classically-trained musician, I know good music when I hear it — which is why I have no problem declaring rap to be illiterate doggerel masquerading as music. Just putting music over a rhythm track and chanted lyrics doesn’t make it music; sorry. Ditto the alleged music of John Cage (sounds, not music) and the alleged art of Jackson Pollard (splashes, not painting). The essence of art is not “that it makes you think” or “evokes a reaction”; art is an attempt by the artist to express their concepts to others in a recognizable and understandable manner. For that, a common or universal structure of presentation is necessary (like, for example, an alphabet) or else the end result is confusion or (even better) laughter. Using the dreadful Pollock as an example: by definition, a splash is uncontrolled; a brushstroke the essence of control. The latter makes things more understandable; the former is just a more-or-less random action. (The oft-derided comment of “My kid could have done that” is actually closer to the mark than people think. Anyone could have painted a whole canvas with a single red color, or upturned a urinal to make an exhibit — in other words, it’s not art when it’s a reproducible action that anyone could have done.) The difference between the artist and the pretender is simply explained: Michelangelo could easily have created an exhibit similar to Tracy Emin’s “Unmade Bed”, but there is no way on this Earth that Emin could create “David”. She couldn’t even copy it.
You don’t need a degree in fine art to be a critic of art, or music, or any of the arts. But as Sarah Skwire (is that a real name? what was wrong with “Squire”?) points out, you do at least have to have made the acquaintance of what you’re criticizing — as well as an understanding of the history of art or literature, or else you just become the mark of the conman.
Well, possibly. It all depends on how much of an investment she wants us to make. It is, IMHO, possible to discern within a page or two, or a minute or two, or a glance or two, whether a book, a film or a piece of music, or a picture is not going to be worth further investment. This is much like business investment – it may take much study to decide on an investment, but many investment opportunities can be dismissed almost immediately.
Ms Skwire offers : Even the Supreme Court, when debating whether Louis Malle’s film Les Amants constituted hard-core pornography, implied that in order to know whether the work was pornographic, one would have to see it — not merely read a description of its contents.
Which is crap. (Good) descriptions convey valuable information.
I sympathise with her feeling – that criticism on the basis of no direct knowledge is less valuable than criticism on the basis of direct knowledge. But I do not sympathise with the implications. The common man’s derisive opinion of modern art is based on virtually no knowledge – but sufficient knowledge nonetheless – that the Emperor has no clothes. Nor is it necessary to waste weeks or months attempting to learn the postmodernist code to realise that it is all a waste of time. The mere fact that they hide behind deliberate obscurity demonstrates clearly that they have nothing to say. No further investment is required.
@ Kim du Toit:
“declaring rap to be illiterate doggerel masquerading as music.” ThankYou! ThankYou! ThankYou!
…so you can’t comment on something you have not read. That is too funny. I watched what the Nazis did and currently what Muslims do.
I think Mein Kampf and the Koran are crap and I won’t waste one second of my time reading either one. I will go on amazon.com and give them one star ratings (that’s the lowest possible) and encourage people to read ‘The Road to Serfdom’ and ‘The Robe’ instead both of which I have read.
We all know by now that for SJBs neither facts nor reasons matter. QED.
I have to admit that a lot of my Amazon book reviews are written to warn people not to bother with some book, because I couldn’t get past page X (my record, IIRC, is the second paragraph in one novel). Writers who can’t write don’t get better farther along.
But let me defend Pratchett: I find his themes to be worthwhile, if (and maybe because) traditional; and his prose is as nearly perfect as any I’ve ever read. His words are precisely chosen, his sentences parse, his paragraphs cohere, his chapters divide logically, and his books are exactly as long as his plots. He tends to be compared to Dickens because of his brilliant character names (although Pratchett’s names are better), but the real comparison is with Austen, whose charity with her characters is very like his own. A ‘mediocrity’ he is not.
Can’t comment about the visual arts, but for the rest i beg to disagree: great art has a complex structure, and one cannot judge the structure of a book from a couple of pages; or the structure of a movie, or a symphony, from a couple of minutes.
In some cases, of course, one might be so disgusted within a couple of minutes, that reading/watching/listening any further would be pointless. I don’t remember i ever felt that way, but it could happen.
I remember once arriving at an airport prior to a 3-hour flight having forgotten my in-flight reading. No problem, thinks I: buy a detective novel at the airport bookstore.
Which I did. Annoyingly, the flight ended about ten pages from the end of the book, and what with one thing or another, I forgot the book on the plane. The thing was that I could have stopped at the arrival airport’s bookstore, found the book and read the last ten pages — but I didn’t bother, because I basically didn’t care about the characters or the story enough to bother doing even that most basic of writing: the denouement.
Lesson learned. From that day, I’ve never bought an “airport book” to read on the plane. Now I take infinite care to remember my in-flight reading, and I’m more likely to forget my passport than that.
I would suggest, ladies and gentlemen, that if you’re looking for an example of bad literature — other than the aforementioned Proust and Pynchon — you could use this as an example. (And no, I have no recollection of either book or author, other than that the title was on the New York Times’ top ten list.)
I read “Pleasures and Days” many years ago (don’t remember anything, but remember enjoying it very much at the time).
I struggled through about 2 pages of “Atlas Shrugged”, and gave up – YMMV.
I grew up listening to classical music (mostly romantics), and I do like some rap, although not enough to look any further into it. It is certainly music in my book, though.
I do enjoy some modern visual art, and some classical art. Post-modern, though… Well, the term itself puts me off, so I don’t even bother – which I guess goes to counter the quote in the post. Or maybe not – I just won’t bother, so sue me. But I wouldn’t pass judgement either without looking first, I hope…
OK, now you got me curious…
Kim:
Are you certain you don’t mean Finnegan’s Wake instead of Finian’s Rainbow? The latter is a Broadway musical turned into one of Fred Astaire’s later movies.
Since we primarily approach to art as a source of enjoyment, we can confidently say this or that is good or bad. It all depends of how much we enjoyed the piece of art. Art is not, by the way, whatever someone decide to call as such.
Proust is not absolutely bad, Kim. I liked him before I was 25. Not that much now, though.
Ted, you’re absolutely right. I conflated Finnegan’s Wake and Gravity’s Rainbow; both are illegibly turgid and both are adored by the Literati Pretentii. The only difference between the two is that I finished Finnegan and only got a third of the way through Gravity.
@ Kim du Toit Hah! I was in a university production of Finian’s Rainbow! Can I claim to have read them both?
I did get 110 pages into the English translation of Mein Kampf, which I believe may be a record for a normal person in ‘idle curiosity’ mode.
You can certainly see the magazine title ‘Playboy’, or ‘Penthouse’, and not need to open it up to know that pornography is somewhere inside, mixed up with all those fabulous articles. Life is too short to read everything worthwhile.
Alisa, i know that ‘good’ readers should read from page 1, but I found that if I randomly dipped into ‘Atlas Shrugged’, I found it quite interesting. Then I went and read it in correct order.
There is a one word description of the difference between the ‘art’ of the literati and the Art of the masses. That word is craftsmanship.
In the contemporary ‘art’ of the critics and literati all the art of the piece is experiential and the thing on display serves only to high light that experience, its form and substance are largely immaterial.
For the Art of the masses every line, shadow, color, tone, shade, and texture of the piece on display is as exactly as possible what the artist intended to be there from the beginning. Each element of the piece is important to showing the artist’s mood, and intention in creating the piece.
For ‘art’ the artist says this is what happened while I was creating, for Art the artist says I created this.
I agree that to actually criticize something one needs to have “experienced” it yourself. Otherwise you’re merely talking out of your a$$, and should expect no one to grant your alleged “opinion” any credence.
But to be fair, that’s not what Jonathan Jones (the author of the piece Skwire was complaining about) was doing. He was merely saying that Pratchett’s novels aren’t great literature, a point about which I’m sure Pratchett himself would agree. They are intended to be light entertainment, and they succeed greatly at that (hence their popularity). Jones doesn’t dispute this, or say that there is no place for such light reading. His complaint is not about Pratchett per se; it is about what he sees as the current tendency to conflate the ordinary with the great. I don’t see why that is so offensive to Skwire. We may all disagree about what constitutes “great” literature (personally, I found Joyce’s Ulysses completely unreadable), and if I’m going to waste time reading fiction it’s simply for entertainment and I don’t want to have to work too hard on it, but that’s just personal preference. De gustibus non est disputandum and all that.
Jones has made a decision (or so he implies, anyway) to confine his reading to great works, books which “can change your life, your beliefs, your perceptions.” That’s certainly his prerogative. And if that’s what he desires to do, there is no need for him to read Pratchett (although he did say that he skimmed one of Pratchett’s books “to see what the fuss is about”). Reading a description of the novel, and maybe a review or two, is more than sufficient to form a reasonable judgment that the book isn’t high art. I certainly have no need to read romance or fantasy novels to know that I have no interest in them; simply knowing the subject is sufficient.
Jones is merely saying that there isn’t time to read every book (a statement with which we can all agree), and so he chooses to exclude Pratchett from his reading list in order to focus on higher-quality literature. And he’s bemoaning the fact that the general public seems unable to tell the difference. I don’t find either of those positions objectionable.
When I was at art college, the up and coming exciting trend was pop art. I liked the work of Roy Lichtenstein, Peter Blake and Robert Indiana a lot (but less so Warhol) but it took me nearly fifty years after to realise why this was so: I was a moderate artist at best and so I believed back then with the talent I had available I could emulate the pop art movement. As I got older I began to appreciate the work of artists I couldn’t ever hope to reproduce.
For me that’s the thing about the arts: when you are young you think you can do it too and are impatient with the learning curve required (the supposed 10,000 hours) but with age you begin to appreciate far more what goes into more complex pieces of work.
Except that is not what she is saying. She is saying “read it or don’t expect to be taken seriously as a critic”. That is not the same as simply commenting.
I have also watched what Christians do. Yet it gave me almost no insight into what the New Testament actually says. That was why I have indeed read translations of the Koran. And “My Struggle” as well. And the Bible.
A completely reasonable position. And having read both I agree, they are intellectually worthless crap. But I can credibly write an informed critique of the works if I was moved to, having actually read them, which is a bit different to simply having an opinion about them.
And I applaud your efforts. But what you are doing is worthy activism… actual critique of the work underpinning those dismal beliefs does mean you really do have to read them.
“I’m just saying that if you want me to take you seriously ….”
Why, by great Odin’s codpiece, would we care.
1. Social Justice Warriors ALWAYS lie.
2, Social Justice Warriors ALWAYS double down.
3. Social Justice Warriors ALWAYS project.
How about I don’t buy your stuff? How about I SERIOUSLY don’t have time for old milk in a new bottle. How about I remove your name as a line item?
Didn’t Pratchett famously not use chapters?
He was merely saying that Pratchett’s novels aren’t great literature, a point about which I’m sure Pratchett himself would agree.
I think he may jest turn out to be, though. Raymond Chandler wrote pulp novels, P.G. Wodehouse churned out unserious stuff for fun, but both are very highly regarded now.
I think Pratchett *is* great literature, or even Great Literature. He had more interesting & insightful things to say about political dynamics than any author of fiction I have ever read. I would liken him to Lord of Light era Zelazny or Heinlein at his best, who *I* regard as Great Literature.
I have not read the linked articles (!), but I did like the points made by Laird and Perry (and I have read both comments 😛 )
To me, art is anything made with the intention to provoke emotion or thought (or both), no matter of what kind. The word intention implies that it is up to the self-proclaimed artist to, well, proclaim himself as such. As long as no one is forced to pay for that art with their money or time, no harm is done.
However, the question of what is “good” art is best approached through the eyes of the beholder – i.e. the person whose emotions and thoughts are hoped to be provoked. It is their subjective perception of a particular piece of art that determines to them whether the piece of art in question is good art or crap, while everyone else’s mileage may vary quite widely.
You got me. Maybe I should have said ‘his scenes break logically’ but I don’t think the lack of headings makes them any less chapters, and while I hate to admit it, I simply thought of them as ‘chapters’ and that’s what they became in my own mind.
“art is anything made with the intention to provoke emotion or thought (or both), no matter of what kind.”
Is art a political speech?
“As long as no one is forced to pay for that art with their money or time, no harm is done.”
Yes, a harm is done to esthetics when we accept as art whatever is presented to us as such.
Art requires craftsmanship, experience, and a vast knowledge of the best examples in each field. Those are essential requirements, without which you cannot create art. However, that’s not enough. The magic element in the formula is artistic talent.
If the creator has all of those features, then he could make art. We could like his work or not. If we don’t like it, we can say it is bad, or vice versa. That’s personal opinion. It could be shared by many people, but it’s still personal.
Beethoven was a very talented composer, with great knowledge of other previous and contemporary composers. He had a great command of his craft and produced remarkable works. I don’t like his music, so for me for example his famous 9th symphony is bad.
Perry, I never meant to imply that Pratchett isn’t interesting and insightful; he most certainly is. I am quite fond of his books. And conveying ideas through the medium of easily-accessible light fiction is probably the best way of reaching a wide audience and disguising the fact that you’re presenting a political philosophy. But I very much doubt that many people, even Pratchett himself, would classify his work as “Great Literature”, or even lower-case “literature”. It’s just a fun read.
I meant that no harm is done to humans – which aesthetics is obviously not. Rather, it is a concept that refers to something that is entirely within the realm of subjective human perception. As such, it is the personal choice of a particular human to turn his or her attention to something that a self-proclaimed artist chooses to call ‘art’, or to ignore it – so again, as long as other people are not forced to pay for it with their money or time, it should be none of their business. No harm done.
…sort of like with gay marriage, come to think of it.
Alisa, unless I live in a cave alone, there is no way I can avoid the ubiquitous “modern art”. Being my subjective life a very important part of my whole life (the most important, in fact), the harm is done.
By the way, esthetics is a social construct.
Laird, in one of his books there’s a footnote that paraphrases as “The compassion proper to a headsman is a sharp axe.” How can any use of words that trenchant not be literature?
True, neither can I avoid many other things I don’t like – that does not mean that I’m being forced to deal with them. You can always turn away and look at something you find more appealing – or are you saying that the world outside the cave should be filled only with things you do like, and only be called names you find acceptable? If I want to splash a can of paint on a canvas and call it ‘art’, you are more than welcome to ignore it and move on – either because you think it is not art, or because you think it is bad art. Point is, those two last things are not the same.
Cristina : By the way, esthetics is a social construct.
This chap begs to differ
http://evp.sagepub.com/content/11/3/147470491301100316.full
Actually, Beethoven’s 9th is one of his better symphonies — the first three movements of it, that is. The fourth, an exercise in the interminable screeching of a rather trivial tune, should have been drowned at birth.
:>)
Having spent far too much time at modern art exhibits (my wife is an artist), the trend that marks most modern art as junk is the proliferation of the “artist statement”. I am sorry, but if you have to post a three paragraph explanation of what your “art” is about just so people looking at it have some idea what you are trying to say – YOU HAVE FAILED AS A VISUAL ARTIST.
Among many such efforts one that has always stuck in my memory was a white canvas with hundreds of apparently random short black streaks on it. Glancing at the artist statement revealed that the piece was created (for lack of any other appropriate verb) by the artist blinking her eyes onto the canvas after applying her mascara in the morning every day for a year or so. The level of narcissism in something like this is staggering.
What is odd about the modern fetish over process as opposed to product is that there are a few artists who manage to catch my interest with it. Cristo is a personal favorite (the guy who wrapped the Reichstag among other things), in part because as an engineer I can appreciate the technical difficultly of what he does (both as projects and the actual structures). I very much enjoyed the Gates project in New York City. Not everything works, but most have an immersive quality to them that is unique.
“You can always turn away and look at something you find more appealing”
That’s possible with many things, but not with “modern art”. You cannot escape the omnipresence of the music everywhere. You cannot avoid the fashion displayed around you. You cannot ignore the media. You cannot prevent the utterance of swearwords around you. In short, no rest for the troubled soul.
“are you saying that the world outside the cave should be filled only with things you do like, and only be called names you find acceptable?”
No, I wasn’t. Although, now that you mention it, it would be a very nice world indeed.
“If I want to splash a can of paint on a canvas and call it ‘art’, you are more than welcome to ignore it and move on”
I will, of course. But, that splash is still not art.
“those two last things are not the same”
That’s arguably. After all we say that something trivial becomes art when it reaches its more complete and perfect expression. Consequently, bad art must be an oxymoron.
Julie, in my opinion, almost everything by Beethoven should have been drowned at birth. 😀
Lee Moore, I’ve heard this motif with variations since I started junior high. Yes, I had an unorthodox education.