The Writer versus The Critique

[cacian]

Who has more credential in the end?

A critique or a writer?
If a critique calls a writer average then is it fair for the writer to call the critique average too?

[krishna_lit]

It depens on what the word 'average' tends to mean... Just bcoz a critic didn't like the work doesn't make it any lesser.
As said by famous people: "Critic is a person who knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing."

[cacian]

Average could be someone who is just starting off in the writing world.
I think average tend to mean not mediocre but here I mean the above.

[stlukesguild]

Actually, the quote is "A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing". The quote is by Oscar Wilde... who was not only a cynic... but also a critic AND a writer.

Continuing with the Oscar Wilde quotes, I've always liked this one:

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

Many forget that the critic is a writer... an artist... as well as the poet or novelist or essayist or playwright. Some critics are brilliant writers and their critical writings can rise to the level of the finest literature in other genre. One need only look to Walter Pater, John Ruskin, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt, Aristotle, Philip Sidney's Apology for Poetry, the critical writings of Alexander Pope, Coleridge, Goethe, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Immanuel Kant, William Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, Emerson, Poe, Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Zola, Oscar Wilde, Andre Breton, William Morris, J.L. Borges, Octavio Paz, and endless others.

Which has the greater credentials in the end?

The one whose work survives.

[cacian]

Actually, the quote is "A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing". The quote is by Oscar Wilde... who was not only a cynic... but also a critic AND a writer.

About Oscar Wild how does one become a cynic?
To write is to free oneself from cynicism. Literature and language emancipate the mind and help the individual to see clearly things he/she would not would not have seen otherwise if it was not for the words.
Am I right to think that cynicism and writing do not go hand in hand? Surely there is reason to why we write. There is a reason to everything we do.

[stlukesguild]

You really must rid yourself of these sweeping assumption of what art is and what artists are. There are as many reasons for creating art as there are artists, and artists are as varied in personalities, interests, attitudes, beliefs, etc... as any other group of human beings.

[cacian]

You really must rid yourself of these sweeping assumption of what art is and what artists are. There are as many reasons for creating art as there are artists, and artists are as varied in personalities, interests, attitudes, beliefs, etc... as any other group of human beings.

How do I define art and artist ?
According to others before me?
I was wondering why cynicism when one is an artist. I think that is a valid question.

I personally think that critiques tend to be cynical and writers just themselves until they are told otherwise by critiques.

[Volya]

Why could an artist not be a cynic? What do they have to do with each other at all?

[cacian]

Why could an artist not be a cynic? What do they have to do with each other at all?

I don't know.
Cynics tend to be negative. Art is not negative it is an expression that carries a smile on a face. Art is escapism to a different better world.
Cynicism and art just does not go. That is my opinion.

[Charles Darnay]

The smiling face of Art:

8417

[cacian]

The smiling face of Art:

8417

LOL that is exactly what I mean. And that is not art to me.
To you it is maybe but that is definitely not for me.
Each to their own.

[namenlose]

I don't know.
Cynics tend to be negative. Art is not negative it is an expression that carries a smile on a face. Art is escapism to a different better world.
Cynicism and art just does not go. That is my opinion.

Considering your praise for Baudelaire in a recent thread, I find it quite curious that you maintain such an opinion about the nature of art. Is The Flowers of Evil a positive book? Is it "an expression that carries a smile on a face"? I don't think so. Of course you can take his concept of enjoying the evil, loving the sickness or being always drunk as something positive, but only if you take reality itself as something so negative that it offers us no salvation whatsoever, and no better option than being driven by the same terrifying passion that constitutes our horrors and nightmares.

Even so, it is hardly something one would judge positive, and certainly not an escapism to a different better world. Art is not something that could be so easily defined, and its nature is considerably varied. If one considers the significant role tragedy has represented to the Western Tradition since its origins, the claim that art should be always positive seems even more absurd.

[cacian]

Baudelaire is different in this instance. I would not compare his poetry to this painting.
They speak two different meanings to me anyway.
I think Beaudelaire spoke from the heart and expressed desolation of the human nature in its purest worst.
I took his writing as profoundly true which put a smile on my face for the reason I have just described.
There is a difference between telling it how it is and taking art to the a different level if cynicism and calling it au fait that is art.
The painting Charles posted is not something I would not want in my living room even if it was given to me for free.
Colours and paint is something I would use in a light imaginative invigorating way. I would express colours and painting in the way nature goes about it. Art is an expression of liberation in the sense that one takes from nature and transfer it to a canvas in order to give it even more then what nature has. This kind of art shows that one understand the beauty of nature and is inspired by it and so reflects it in his or her art.
The smile is that link transfer between nature and the artist. The ability to absorb see and capture beauty with eyes and mind, from within and out, in here nature, and make it even more beautiful is what I call art. To enthuse about life shows the healthy relationship between man and nature and Art is one way of expressing it.
By painting nature at its best and showing it at its perfection shows I have a healthy affinity with nature that I am inspired by what life gives me and so I express it in my art as a thank you or an offering to nature.

[Volya]

Art is not always happy. The notion that art cannot be sad, evil, upsetting, or negative is downright idiotic. Many of the greatest works of art, be it in the form of a painting, a song, or a book have been depressing tales of misery.

[stlukesguild]

How do I define art and artist ?

When you write things like:

To write (to create a work of art) is to free oneself from cynicism.

Am I right to think that cynicism and writing do not go hand in hand?

Art is not negative it is an expression that carries a smile on a face. Art is escapism to a different better world.

You are imposing your view of art and artists on others... as if all artists are of the same way of thinking.

I was wondering why cynicism when one is an artist. I think that is a valid question.

So artists should wander about with a big smile on their faces... perhaps popping Valium as needed... living in a world of cotton candy fantasies wholly oblivious to any of the horrors... the inequalities... the pain and suffering that exists in the real world?

The painting Charles posted is not something I would not want in my living room even if it was given to me for free.
Colours and paint is something I would use in a light imaginative invigorating way. I would express colours and painting in the way nature goes about it. Art is an expression of liberation in the sense that one takes from nature and transfer it to a canvas in order to give it even more then what nature has. This kind of art shows that one understand the beauty of nature and is inspired by it and so reflects it in his or her art.
The smile is that link transfer between nature and the artist. The ability to absorb see and capture beauty with eyes and mind, from within and out, in here nature, and make it even more beautiful is what I call art. To enthuse about life shows the healthy relationship between man and nature and Art is one way of expressing it.
By painting nature at its best and showing it at its perfection shows I have a healthy affinity with nature that I am inspired by what life gives me and so I express it in my art as a thank you or an offering to nature.

You have pretty much condemned half of Art History:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_William_Blake_007bmed.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=William_Blake_007bmed.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_Rubens_Descent_from_the_Cross_detail_centre_pan el.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=Rubens_Descent_from_the_Cross_detail_centr e_panel.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_FengZhengjie.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=FengZhengjie.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_132.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=132.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_The_RayL.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=The_RayL.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_skullandpitcher.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=skullandpitcher.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_Grunewald_Matthias-The_Crucifixion-c_1515-II.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=Grunewald_Matthias-The_Crucifixion-c_1515-II.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_Angelico-CrucifixionSM-1438.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=Angelico-CrucifixionSM-1438.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_1205226660_1.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=1205226660_1.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_cruc62_centersmall_zpsc638b521.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=cruc62_centersmall_zpsc638b521.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_gericault_limbs3.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=gericault_limbs3.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_slaughtered-ox.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=slaughtered-ox.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_Caravaggio_Ent.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=Caravaggio_Ent.jpg)

Not all artists are Impressionists enthralled with the beauty of nature. Indeed, a large majority of artists have little interest in nature at all.

[E.A Rumfield]

You must be really bored, all the time, cacian.

[cacian]

You must be really bored, all the time, cacian.

I am in my mind I guess too. Yours is different from mine.
It all depends on what you call fun.

[E.A Rumfield]

I am in my mind I guess too. Yours is different from mine.
It all depends on what you call fun.

I apologize. My comment was unnecessary.

[cacian]

The painting Charles posted is not something I would not want in my living room even if it was given to me for free.
Colours and paint is something I would use in a light imaginative invigorating way. I would express colours and painting in the way nature goes about it. Art is an expression of liberation in the sense that one takes from nature and transfer it to a canvas in order to give it even more then what nature has. This kind of art shows that one understand the beauty of nature and is inspired by it and so reflects it in his or her art.
The smile is that link transfer between nature and the artist. The ability to absorb see and capture beauty with eyes and mind, from within and out, in here nature, and make it even more beautiful is what I call art. To enthuse about life shows the healthy relationship between man and nature and Art is one way of expressing it.
By painting nature at its best and showing it at its perfection shows I have a healthy affinity with nature that I am inspired by what life gives me and so I express it in my art as a thank you or an offering to nature.

You have pretty much condemned half of Art History:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_William_Blake_007bmed.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view¤t=William_Blake_007bmed.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_Rubens_Descent_from_the_Cross_detail_centre_pan el.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view¤t=Rubens_Descent_from_the_Cross_detai l_centre_panel.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_FengZhengjie.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view¤t=FengZhengjie.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_132.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view¤t=132.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_The_RayL.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view¤t=The_RayL.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_skullandpitcher.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view¤t=skullandpitcher.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_Grunewald_Matthias-The_Crucifixion-c_1515-II.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view¤t=Grunewald_Matthias-The_Crucifixion-c_1515-II.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_Angelico-CrucifixionSM-1438.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view¤t=Angelico-CrucifixionSM-1438.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_1205226660_1.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view¤t=1205226660_1.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_cruc62_centersmall_zpsc638b521.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view¤t=cruc62_centersmall_zpsc638b521.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_gericault_limbs3.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view¤t=gericault_limbs3.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_slaughtered-ox.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view¤t=slaughtered-ox.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_Caravaggio_Ent.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view¤t=Caravaggio_Ent.jpg)

Not all artists are Impressionists enthralled with the beauty of nature. Indeed, a large majority of artists have little interest in nature at all.

Well maybe they should start taking a closer look to what nature has on offer.
No point in transpiring to be different if arts is now becoming too similar to be dissimilar.
I am only pointing out that too much of the same is too much and a need for something different is perhaps a good idea.
I don't now what art is anymore if art is about pain and desolation I might as well stay home and watch desolate on tv at least I get it live and don't have to make an effort. I feel my mind does gestate if all I have to look at is misery I might as well call myself miserable which frankly I am not so I take a different approach just in case I lose sight of me. I am part of nature and a gentle offering here and there of what I am bestowed upon naturally is a nice to thing to do. I am nice and so wish not to lose sight of that too much grim has a negative effect on me.
It makes life feel too short and that is the bottom line.
Do I want to run to make life even shorter? or do I want to walk and let it be longer?
I think I know.
I'd rather have it longer so that I can make something and call it art and so it better be good or else it is art that is no longer.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I apologize. My comment was unnecessary.

Doesn't mean it isn't probably true

Art can be negative. Art can be depressing. Art can be cynical. Artists can be all those things, too. These seem to be truths impossible for cacian to accept.

[Charles Darnay]

too much of the same is too much and a need for something different is perhaps a good idea.

Probably the most sensible thing you've written. Now just practice what you preach.

[stlukesguild]

Well maybe they should start taking a closer look to what nature has on offer.

Yeah... those poor ignorant artists. What were they thinking. I mean Caravaggio might have actually achieved something if he had focused upon nature... lovely landscapes and beautiful sunsets.:sosp:

No point in transpiring to be different if arts is now becoming too similar to be dissimilar.
I am only pointing out that too much of the same is too much and a need for something different is perhaps a good idea.

How exactly has art become too much of the same thing? Do you actually have any idea of what you are talking about?

I don't now what art is anymore...

Did you ever?

if art is about pain and desolation I might as well stay home and watch desolate on tv at least I get it live and don't have to make an effort.

Perhaps a good idea.

I am part of nature and a gentle offering here and there of what I am bestowed upon naturally is a nice to thing to do. I am nice and so wish not to lose sight of that too much grim has a negative effect on me.
It makes life feel too short and that is the bottom line.
Do I want to run to make life even shorter? or do I want to walk and let it be longer?
I think I know.

Is Art all about you? You are fully entitled to like the sort of art you like, but that doesn't undermine the achievements of artists who think of art differently than you.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

You do realize your barking up a futile tree, right stlukes?

[Charles Darnay]

You do realize your barking up a futile tree, right stlukes?

I planted one of those once: it was well worth it.

[AuntShecky]

(I finished this earlier, but when I went to post it, my log-in info disappeared. Somebody must be eavesdropping or worse!)


An artist, if he or she is worth anything, is also a "critic," in the sense that his or her work presents an alternative to the way non-artists look at the world; allowing, if not forcing audiences to see with new eyes; by creating something new, the artist challenges the status quo.

By that I don't mean that strictly polemic screeds, dressed up in the guise of a work of art or literature, are necessarily "artistic." The so-called "novels" of Ayn Rand, for instance, as well as the "art" proliferating in the former USSR under Stalin aren't art. On the other hand, works that embody socio-political themes often break through the artist's primary motivation and emerge to stand as works of literature: for instance,authors such as Dante, Shakespeare,Voltaire, Dostoveski, Kafka, Steinbeck, and --though many Litnutters will disagree with me --Upton Sinclair-- criticized the abuses of government, social structures, and organized religion of their day, but their finished works are "universal," still resonant over the centuries. Whether a specific work becomes "timeless" depends only marginally on its role as a historical document from the author's own era; it has less to do with pointing out wrongs as it does with telling a good story-- it has everything to do with how the work is created, with new techniques and absolutely fresh forms.

Listen to StLukesGuild:

Many forget that the critic is a writer... an artist... as well as the poet or novelist or essayist or playwright. Some critics are brilliant writers and their critical writings can rise to the level of the finest literature in other genre. One need only look to Walter Pater, John Ruskin, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt, Aristotle, Philip Sidney's Apology for Poetry, the critical writings of Alexander Pope, Coleridge, Goethe, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Immanuel Kant, William Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, Emerson, Poe, Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Zola, Oscar Wilde, Andre Breton, William Morris, J.L. Borges, Octavio Paz, and endless others.


Some critics can be artists, in the sense that we read their critical works because they are artfully done. The writers who come to mind are: Dorothy Parker, the two former film critics of the New Yorker (Judith Crist and Pauline Kael), John Updike, Dwight MacDonald, Gore Vidal, as well as the literary essays and overviews on publications such as The New York Review of Books and other journals gasping for breath in this era of flailing and moribund print journalism.

[Delta40]

Is it alright with you if I'm a critic of my own work and not considered negative Cacian?

[cacian]

Is it alright with you if I'm a critic of my own work and not considered negative Cacian?

Hi Delta40
That is indeed the idea to be/become your own critic. Negative is relative and so is positive. Hold on a minute shouldn't we be taking this to the Theory of Relativity haha. My favourite subject. :smilewinkgrin:

[cacian]

I planted one of those once: it was well worth it.

Only once? You did say it was worth it.

[tonywalt]

Negative is relative and so is positive.

So true Cacian. And like Great Grandmother Grandmomma Mia used to say. "Positive is relative and so negative" - Then she'd go back to drinking her "happy juice"....

[Volya]

Hi Delta40
Negative is relative and so is positive. Hold on a minute shouldn't we be taking this to the Theory of Relativity haha. My favourite subject. :smilewinkgrin:

.....

[quidoftullamore]

“Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic.” - Jean Sibelius

[Whosis]

A writer is the foremost authority on his work. If he says he interprets it a certain way, that throws down the suspicions of a critic or reader. It is fair to say that critics feed off writers, so who they critique might determine their level as a critic, interviewing mainly fledgling or established writers.