There are many people these days complaining about the state of our modern American culture today. The sexual exploitation, the apparent race to see what movie or song can be the most appalling, basest schlock that requires the least absolute amount of thinking or reason required to "appreciate" them (I don't think the quotation marks are sufficient indicators for how loosely I am using that word.) A look at high art generally fairs no better, a fair people I know (both art appreciators and self described cultural rubes) generally dislike most modern art of all persuasions due to the direction that the art has taken, the direction that seeks to cut off all the stylistic rules and forms that had been developed through the centuries. Critics are of no help either since they often treat their audiences not as discerning individuals with valued and intelligent tastes but rather as idiots who have to be reminded that they are not refined enough or have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate great art. After a while it almost comes as no surprise that the average person, after being told (in slyly and subtle insinuations so as not to cause to much ire) that they can't understand art chooses to watch reality shows and Family Guy since they are the only diversions out there that they feel competent enough to judge because they require no thinking.
Of course that is a fallacy, anyone can judge art and comprehend it it merely takes a little brain activity. Once you start working at it and put a little time and effort into it you will slowly find yourself building and developing your own philosophy of what constitutes great art - and you people thought you couldn't be philosophers! Of course the task of critiquing art can be daunting, how can you possibly say anything of value when the critics in the paper use words like expression, sublime and always include odd references to early precedents. The truth is to start art critiquing all you really need to know is yourself. To start critiquing find a piece of art that you like (a painting in your house, your favorite cd, movie or tv show, a book you like anything. It doesn't matter if a culture snob would hold his nose and in a stuck up (inexplicably European) voice insult you in an obtuse way.) Focus on your particular work of art, try to define what you like about it, the melody, the colors, this or that particular line. Also look for and acknowledge aspects that you do not like and that you are ambivalent about (this is probably the most difficult part as you generally ignore what you neither like or dislike). Try to describe what you like/dislike in general terms so that you can take your findings to a different piece of art and compare. Eventually you should be able to find some general themes that seem to come up again and again even if the artistic medium is different (you may find similarities in your likes of music and movie scores, or books and song lyrics, or paintings and cinematography) the more you critically look at forms of art the easier it is to become discerning about what constitutes good art and what doesn't.
Like many things, it sometimes helps to write down you critiques on paper or some medium (what do you think idea of this particular blog originated as) as this helps to focus ideas and on the off chance that other people read it they can provide insights and pick up on subtleties in your own philosophy that you hadn't realized and took for granted.
Finally sometimes it seems hard to branch out into new forms of art. Even if you want to get into classical music or paintings how does one know where to start? It works a little differently for different mediums, if it is musical try to find an album that labels itself as the greatest of a particular genre (don't worry if it actually is). Listen to it and find the composers that you enjoy and branch out from there. If you really like the Mozart piece go out and then invest in a Mozart greatest hits and gradually get deeper into the catalog. There are many great websites that will give you advice as to similar composers (try www.allmusic.com for instance). Painting and sculptures are best learned by just visiting your local art museum and looking at what they have to offer. For movies, tv shows and more modern genres of music it can be a little more difficult to find good representatives of the "high points" of the medium but one rule I like to follow is the age rule. Generally a good piece of art has a "timeless" quality to it, it speaks to human nature. So it is a a good bet that a work of art that was made 30, 50 or 80 years ago that is still remembered has some artistic value to it (Citizen Kane, Louis Armstrong, The Twilight Zone etc) .
Perhaps the most important principle to remember when striving to be a critique of art is to be confident, your opinion is of value as long as you express it in an intelligent and coherent way. If you do not like a particular work of art, trust your gut and try to define why if you can come up with a good answer then you have become a legitimate critic, if you can't come up with a good reason why you do not like a piece of art perhaps you need to go back and determine whether you actually don't like it or just haven't quite figured out how to accurately address it.
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I like what you are doing in this piece. Your method of taking a simple phenomenon and then extracting human experience is a good set-up to deal with the question of, "how do we critique art of any form?" People really are smarter than we give them credit for and also can understand complex material if we are willing to invest the time and patience to help people learn.
ReplyDeleteI also like your ideas about knowing yourself. Knowing the self is an important though vastly underrated position in a Postmodern culture (I do mean that word in all of its philosophical craziness.) All in all a really good piece about how to find yourself and how to find art which suits the tastes of an individual.