Art criticism
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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- "What is the good of criticism? What is the good? -- A vast and terrible question mark which seizes the critic by the throat from the very first step in the first chapter he sets down to write. ...I sincerely believe that the best criticism is that which is both amusing and poetic: not a cold, mathematical criticism which, on the pretext of explaining everything, has neither love nor hate, and voluntarily strips itself of every shred of temperament... To be just, that is to say, to justify its existence, criticism should be partial, passionate and political, that is to say , written from an exclusive point of view, but a point of view that opens up the widest horizons." --Charles Baudelaire writing on the occasion of the Salon of 1846, first published as a booklet, Paris 1846)
Art criticism is the written discussion or evaluation of visual art.
Art critics usually criticize art in the context of aesthetics or the theory of beauty. One of criticism's goals is the pursuit of a rational basis for art appreciation.
Though critiques of art may have lasted as long as art itself, art criticism as a genre refers to a systematic study of art performed by scholars and dedicated students of art and art theory. Throughout history, wealthy patrons have employed art-evaluators; however, only from the 19th century onwards has criticism had developed formal methods and became a more common vocation.
The variety of artistic movements has resulted in a division of art criticism into different disciplines, each using vastly different criteria for their judgements. The most common division in the field of criticism is between historical criticism and evaluation, a form of art history, and contemporary criticism of work by living artists. Despite perceptions that art criticism is a much lower risk activity than making art, opinions of current art are always liable to drastic corrections with the passage of time. Critics of the past are often ridiculed for either favoring artists now derided (like the academic painters of the late 19th Century) or dismissing artists now venerated (like the early work of the Impressionists). Some art movements themselves were named disparagingly by critics, with the name later adopted as a sort of badge of honor by the artists of the style (e.g. Impressionism, Cubism), the original negative meaning forgotten.
Artists have often had an uneasy relationship with their critics. Artists usually needs positive opinions from critics for their work to be viewed and purchased; unfortunately for the artists, only later generations may understand it. Some critics are unable to adapt to new movements in art and allow their opinions to override their objectivity, resulting in inappropriately dated critique. John Ruskin famously compared one of James Whistler's paintings to "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face".
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