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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 24, 2017 - 10:03am PT
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not this Hardy, though... G.H. Hardy
"It is a melancholy experience for a professional mathematician to find himself writing about mathematics. The function of a mathematician is to do something, to prove new theorems, to add to mathematics, and not to talk about what he or other mathematicians have done. Statesmen despise publicists, painters despise art-critics, and physiologists, physicists, or mathematicians have usually similar feelings: there is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain. Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds."
https://www.math.ualberta.ca/mss/misc/A%20Mathematician's%20Apology.pdf
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Dec 24, 2017 - 01:06pm PT
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Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds."
I've encountered this identical sentiment in many forms. So very true.
Nevertheless, these second-rate minds draw real power onto themselves by posing as grimly professional gatekeepers,and thereby, in flocking together, determine admission into the official pantheons -- by ticket or cash.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 24, 2017 - 01:57pm PT
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Exposition, criticism, appreciation
----
I'm sure this is true - as well as what Ed quoted - but occasionally when someone goes off on criticism, it's even money his magnum opus got dissed and he's lashing back. The "shut up and start calculating" posture closes the door to all but those in the inner circle, when a broader vantage can sometimes place even genius work in the wider context. What's more, with more esoteric work it usually takes one of the chosen ones to grasp the nuances, so at least some criticism comes from the key players in a given field (and they're always sound off). When even the brightest folks take a stab at material outside their wheelhouse, the results are underwhelming, even ridiculous. Having had roughly 50 books reviewed, I stand by these opinions.
That much said, I've seen morons sitting on panels that decide who wins prestigious literary awards, and some total clunker books win going away. Conversely, sage criticism and commentary is invaluable. For example, some jazz criticism (Ellison et al) ranks right there with the better American non-fiction writing we have.
But, yeah, the quality of many reviews is wildly uneven.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 24, 2017 - 02:53pm PT
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Takes a pretty broad brush to dismiss all literary criticism. Criticism in lit can and does soar. Criticizing it as a generality is redolent of sour grapes for sure. As critics go best to start with someone accessible like Harold Bloom or in the visual arts someone like Robert Hughes. I find criticism a device for opening up what might otherwise go unappreciated and it's often an art form in and of itself.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Dec 24, 2017 - 03:10pm PT
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“As for literary criticism in general: I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel or a play or a poem is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or a banana split.”
-Kurt Vonnegut
Yes it would take an overly broad brush to paint art or literary criticisms as being one thing.
That's why I usually take that same brush and paint the great majority of criticisms and reviews as junk penned by self-imposed gatekeepers-- by no means all professional criticisms, just most.
Of course my favorite all-time critic was H.L. Mencken:
“He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.
(writing about US President Warren G. Harding)”
And then there is this unsettling comment:
“Yes, I hate orthodox criticism. I don't mean great criticism, like that of Matthew Arnold and others, but the usual small niggling, fussy-mussy criticism, which thinks it can improve people by telling them where they are wrong, and results only in putting them in straitjackets of hesitancy and self-consciousness, and weazening all vision and bravery.
...I hate it because of all the potentially shining, gentle, gifted people of all ages, that it snuffs out every year. It is a murderer of talent. And because the most modest and sensitive people are the most talented, having the most imagination and sympathy, these are the very first ones to get killed off. It is the brutal egotists that survive.”
― Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit
By " brutal egotists" writers of a certain generation come to mind: Capote, Vidal, Mailer,etc..
Just for the record I think Ueland's sentiments are a little overwrought; nonetheless there's more than a nickel's worth of truth there.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 24, 2017 - 05:31pm PT
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...I hate it because of all the potentially shining, gentle, gifted people of all ages, that it snuffs out every year. It is a murderer of talent. And because the most modest and sensitive people are the most talented, having the most imagination and sympathy, these are the very first ones to get killed off. It is the brutal egotists that survive.”
Anybody who wants to be an artist of any kind needs two things beyond talent: thick, thick skin and a work ethic bordering on the pathological.
Highly recommended is "Nothing if Not Critical" by Robert Hughes. There really is some first rate criticism out there. And is it just me or does Vonnegut strike anybody else as just a bit too cranky.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Dec 24, 2017 - 07:55pm PT
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sycorax: . . . males who over- post and post to themselves on this forum.
Males of course should all be castrated.
As for writing for oneself as a means to see how one thinks and feels about things, that’s a horrible thing to do.
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krahmes
Social climber
Stumptown
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Dec 25, 2017 - 12:17am PT
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Not that it bothers me to mess with anyone’s narrative, but I do dislike the cut and paste and it is certainly copyrighted, but I’ll post this “op-ed” that I came across a couple of days ago in the WSJ and I imagine is behind a pay wall, so all of you can tell me what is up with her.
By
Kim Phuc Phan Thi
Dec. 21, 2017 6:31 p.m. ET
You may not recognize me now, but you almost certainly know who I am. My name is Kim Phuc, though you likely know me by another name. It is one I never asked for, a name I have spent a lifetime trying to escape: “Napalm Girl.”
You have probably seen my picture a thousand times. Yes, that picture. The image that made the world gasp. Some called it a turning point in the Vietnam War—a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of me in 1972, age 9, running along a puddled roadway in front of an expressionless soldier. I was photographed with arms outstretched, naked and shrieking in pain and fear, with the dark contour of a napalm cloud billowing in the distance.
My own people had dropped bombs on Route 1 in an effort to cut off the trade routes for the Viet Cong rebels. I had not been targeted. I had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Those bombs have caused me immeasurable pain over the course of my life. Forty-five years later I am still receiving treatment for the burns that cover my arms, back and neck. But even worse than the physical pain was the emotional and spiritual pain. For years I bore the crippling weight of anger, bitterness and resentment toward those who caused my suffering. Yet as I look back over a spiritual journey that has spanned more than three decades, I realize the same bombs that caused so much pain and suffering also brought me to a place of great healing. Those bombs led me to Jesus Christ.
My salvation experience occurred on Christmas Eve. It was 1982. I was attending a special worship service at a small church in Vietnam. The pastor, Ho Hieu Ha, delivered a message many Christians would find familiar: Christmas is not about the gifts we carefully wrap and place under a tree. Rather, it is about the gift of Jesus Christ, who was wrapped in human flesh and given to us by God. As the pastor spoke, I knew in my heart that something was shifting inside of me.
A decade removed from the defining tragedy of my life, I still desperately needed peace. I had so much hatred and bitterness in my heart. Yet I was ready for love and joy. I wanted to let go of my pain. I wanted to pursue life instead of holding fast to fantasies of death. When Pastor Ho finished speaking, I stood up, stepped out into the aisle, and made my way to the front of the sanctuary to say “yes” to Jesus Christ.
When I woke up that Christmas morning, I experienced my first-ever heartfelt celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. I know what it is like to experience terror, to feel despondent, to live in fear. I know how wearying and hopeless life can be sometimes. After years in the spiritual wilderness, I felt the kind of healing that can only come from God.
I had spent so much of my life running—first from the bombs and the war, then from communist Vietnam. I had always assumed that to flee was my only choice. Looking back, I understand the path I had been racing along led me straight to God. Today I live at ease. Yes, my circumstances can still be challenging. But my heart is 100% healed.
My faith in Jesus Christ is what has enabled me to forgive those who had wronged me—no matter how severe those wrongs were. Faith also inspired me to pray for my enemies rather than curse them. It enabled me not only to tolerate those who had wronged me but to love them.
No matter what type of pain or sorrow you may be experiencing, as Christmas approaches, I encourage you not to give up. Hold fast to hope. It is hope that will see you through. This peace I have found can be yours as well. I pray that it finds you this Christmas.
Ms. Kim is the author of “Fire Road: The Napalm Girl’s Journey through the Horrors of War to Faith, Forgiveness, and Peace” (Tyndale Momentum, 2017). She lives in the Toronto area.
Appeared in the December 22, 2017, print edition.
Faith is strange and marvelous thing. I don’t have much of it these day, as I’m down to threadbare hope in the mystery (woo?). I’ve seen similar faith in the old hard fought and tested crucible of blood, sacrifice, redemption and grace traditions - in a person close to me; and my hypothesis is that faith in the right things will take a person farther down the road and too a better place, than in the end; science, refined reason and over written words.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 25, 2017 - 05:21am PT
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Of Mere Being
BY WALLACE STEVENS
The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor,
A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.
You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.
The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.
I climb the road to Cold Mountain,
The road to Cold Mountain that never ends.
The valleys are long and strewn with stones;
The streams broad and banked with thick grass.
Moss is slippery, though no rain has fallen;
Pines sigh, but it isn't the wind.
Who can break from the snares of the world
And sit with me among the white clouds?
Merry Christmas, everyone!
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Dec 25, 2017 - 03:09pm PT
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Anybody who wants to be an artist of any kind needs two things beyond talent: thick, thick skin and a work ethic bordering on the pathological
Not necessarily. There are and have been lots of writers and artists who have created excellent work but who have god awful work habits and seem to get by on a modicum of talent, as well as perennially thin skin.
The writer Mason Currey ( Daily Rituals, How Artists Work )detailed the work habits of hundreds notable creative individuals and what strikes one foremost is the variety of approaches and habits.
Being a thick-skinned workaholic seems to surface in some if only because such individuals seem to be epigenetically suited to responding to pressures which arise largely from way outside their creative processes and inevitably demand adaptive responses of a certain type and intensity.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 25, 2017 - 03:37pm PT
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Ward, I'd be curious to know how many of the "creative individuals" mentioned in that list (sounds like a fascinating book) are writers, since those were the peer group in question. Skilled writers and musicians are up against such technical challenges it seems those who flourish ARE obsessive per work, especially early on. Even the best in both fields are cranking hard because they are always trying something slightly or miles beyond their current talent. Just goes with the craft. What's especially impressive to me are folks who made big contributions early on. I look at my early work and cringe.
Good to have thick skin but plenty don't. We all like praise.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Dec 25, 2017 - 03:56pm PT
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Yes , you've made a couple good points. And I believe the majority of Currey's profiles were writers.
I must admit I am sometimes much more interested in a creative persons daily work habits ( including circadian functioning) than I am in the nature and quality of work they have churned out. Of course that depends on the person.
There's no question many creative individuals end up working their tails off-- but it doesn't always follow that such work will produce enduring or groundbreaking results.
What's especially impressive to me are folks who made big contributions early on
Yes . Like athletics these things can often depend heavily upon youth.
In art, as in history, those big big creative or notable individuals who tend to make the greatest strides are those who appear to walk from behind the curtain at just the right time. Be it Hitler, Churchill, Beethoven, or the Beatles.
Timing is everything. And it is largely outside of the control of people, no matter how gifted or how hard they work. Although you've no doubt heard that opportunity favors the prepared.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 25, 2017 - 05:21pm PT
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To nutshell what Ward said, relative to my experience, you have to do the right work at the right time to make a mark. How many times have I slaved over the wrong project.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 25, 2017 - 05:38pm PT
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Not necessarily. There are and have been lots of writers and artists who have created excellent work but who have god awful work habits and seem to get by on a modicum of talent, as well as perennially thin skin.
Funny thing about the work ethic and artistic production, no doubt there are some who come to success easily and early, but in my observation over the last forty years, hard work generally trumped even talent with regard to success. I've watched a substantial number of highly creative and gifted individuals go nowhere in terms of production simply because they just didn't do anything and likewise a number of less talented individuals discover talents they didn't know or understand they possessed through hard work. I always loved the old Phillip Glass remark: "You want to be a great artist then get up early and work all day."
And yes there's no geist like the zeitgeist.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Dec 26, 2017 - 07:58am PT
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In his book, “Old Masters and Young Geniuses,” Galenson provided a theory (with selected data about painters, sculptors, poets, novelists, and movie directors) about artistic creativity. He said that there appeared to be two kinds: conceptual innovators who make sudden breakthroughs early in their lives, and experimental innovators who work by trial and error to establish their most significant contributions late in their lives. His other book, “Conceptual Revolutions in Twentieth-Century Art,” Galenson makes the same argument but within a slightly different context (and more colored plates for illustration). I relied upon Google Images to look up all of the references to individual art pieces to see his argument.
Galenson is an economist from the University of Chicago. As such he’s employed a scientific approach to the questions of artistic innovation. He did not seem to express a religious zeal about artistic matters (as sycorax apparently does here in this thread).
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 26, 2017 - 08:55am PT
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Saw a great show at the Morgan Library in New York over the summer titled "Henry James and American Painting" extolling the similarities between James and artists like John Singer Sargent.
"The analogy between the art of the painter and the art of the novelist is, so far as I am able to see, complete. Their inspiration is the same, their process (allowing for the different quality of the vehicle), is the same, their success is the same. They may learn from each other, they may explain and sustain each other. Their cause is the same, and the honour of one is the honour of another." Henry James.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 26, 2017 - 10:30am PT
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He said that there appeared to be two kinds: conceptual innovators who make sudden breakthroughs early in their lives, and experimental innovators who work by trial and error to establish their most significant contributions late in their lives.
--
Great quote, Mike.
I'm of the latter type and what happens is that over the years you develop a concept that you've been unconsciously working on but are slow to realize. Once you have it, you can do work so long its the right work at the right time.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Dec 26, 2017 - 11:12am PT
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John,
I appear to be the other kind at the moment, but who can say since this kind of artistic process is all so new to me. It’s fascinating how much of it appears to be outside of my direct awareness. Deep and dark waters. An image flashes out of nowhere, and then I find I’ve become obsessed with it. Unfortunately, I’m such a noob technically. I’m spending about 75%-85% of my time trying to figure out just how I’m actually going to do X or Y; and then there’s the skills that must find their ways to my hands. That part is very frustrating to me. I want to go fast, but I’m like cold molasses trying to establish a technique that’s good enough to pass some muster with my wife. Alas, there must also be “art” in technique, I suppose.
Paul / James: . . . the art of the painter and the art of the novelist . . . may learn from each other, they may explain and sustain each other.
Funny you would write this. I’m reading Wilson’s “Louise Nevelson: Light and Shadow.” Recently I read that Nevelson’s early sculptures were inspired by contemporary dance (Martha Graham and others) and dancing lessons she took from teachers in NYC in the 30s and the 40s. Wilson claims that from dance Nevelson developed the freedom she desired and the ability to move with spontaneity. Apparently it released her sexually and fueled a “healthy narcissism, which according to Freud, is like the preening of a contented cat: it draws others by virtue of a confidence and self-assurance. (This is apparently the very same thing that Confucius wrote about when he made note of “de” (as in, the Tao de Ching) in “The Analects.” “De” refers to the charisma that draws others into harmony; it comes from being in harmony within one’s environment—although Confucius was particularly oriented to the social environment of societies.)
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Dec 26, 2017 - 11:51am PT
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He said that there appeared to be two kinds: conceptual innovators who make sudden breakthroughs early in their lives, and experimental innovators who work by trial and error to establish their most significant contributions late in their lives.
I don't think the chief demarcation between these two main types is that of conceptual on the one hand and experimental on the other.
I see the early starters as being favored by precocious factors-- not by a deliberate distinction in a choice of approaches. Perhaps the early starters got the proverbial leg up by their childhood environment, education, family surroundings,etc.. And this is not to say these influences were uniformly of the type always supportive or healthy.
Another consideration is the power of youth. Most people in difficult pursuits are at the height of their powers when they are young. Why? Because the physical foundations of talent and effort are humming along like a brand new jet engine. Brain, nervous system, everything is working at energy expenditures rivaling an electrical storm. Again, this is where art and athletics intersect.
The late starters, for whatever reason, don't experience as many precocious factors. They are not flashes in the pan or "one hit wonders." Their bailiwick is the long pot roast. They are willing to nurse an idea for a lifetime, if that's what it takes--perhaps longer.lol
The late starters are wise about the undeniable role of experience, without letting old ways of doing things eclipse the fresh idea, the novel approach. A precise balancing act is thereby enjoined.
Both these types share a deep love for what they see as somehow why they are here: their purpose in life.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 26, 2017 - 03:49pm PT
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“De” refers to the charisma that draws others into harmony; it comes from being in harmony within one’s environment—although Confucius was particularly oriented to the social environment of societies.)
There is this as well this notion expounded by James Joyce and originating with Thomas Aquinas that all works of art manifest in three categories: Integritas, consonontia and claritas or structure, harmony and aesthetic revelation and the primary engine of aesthetic effectiveness is consonontia or harmony. How is it that some compositions, writing, music or painting, compel and some don't. It's a fascinating question. And here perhaps critics become helpful.
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