“I place my mark and do not hide.” ~Isamu Naguchi, Sculptor

 

Left: Roy Lichtenstein, Oh, Jeff…I Love You, Too…But… (1964), oil on canvas. Private collection

Wanted: Guidance Counselors!

It was T.S. Eliot who said, “April is the cruelest month,” meaning, I suppose that the weather—and our emotional ties to it—can turn on a dime during this transition from winter to spring. As a New Englander, I am certainly familiar with this particular meteorological roller-coaster ride. But my perspective differs slightly, usually seeing the proverbial glass as half full. During these past few months, winter dealt us all its severest blow…drifts to the window frames, hurricane force winds, rain, sleet, rarely-seen tornados and snow thunder, rattling both our nerves and resolve. xxxxxxx

But like many, I emerge at the end of it all feeling very much like a survivor, still in one piece and in an upright position. And as often reported by any survivor of either natural or man-made disasters, I think we enter the warming months with a newly-discovered appreciation for the tiny signs of life regenerated—a single crocus pushing up through the gravel beside the road; the return of colorful migratory bird species to the backyards and waterways of ARTES’s shoreline home; extended daylight warming the car’s interior, inviting me to crank open the sunroof for the first time in months; the long-awaited freedom to shed layers of down and wool to move about with less effort.

And while Eliot’s ‘April’ epigram is oft quoted at this time of year, he waxed insightfully—though perhaps not as memorably–on many fronts. Other quotes worth noting are: “If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” “Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity;” “Humankind cannot bear too much reality;” “You are the music while the music lasts;” and lastly, “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”

This last quote is particularly relevant to the field of art criticism, one to which I and other ARTES writers devote considerable time and energy. As Eliot notes, many forms of art attempt to communicate before they are entirely understood. The magazine is now entering its sixth year of publication, with hundreds of reviews and critical essays logged in and available through its archives. And as we continue to explore our role as informed observers of the constantly changing arts and design scene, the editorial focus remains on feature-length articles, with solid curatorial and art historical footing.

While his ‘April’ quote may be his best known, T. S. Eliot also had something to say about the function of criticism in the world of the arts:

“The most important qualification which I have been able to find, which accounts for the peculiar importance of the criticism of practitioners, is that a critic must have a very highly-developed sense of fact. This is by no means a trifling or frequent gift. And it is not one which easily wins popular commendations. The sense of fact is very slow to develop, and its complete development means perhaps the very pinnacle of civilization” (1923).

Factually-based analysis is key to the role of cultural criticism in society, as it moves the narrative beyond the realm of the personal or subjective, and into the domain of the informational. With so many venues now accessible to encounter art, music, theater and design, the critical voice remains the one that parses an often complicated artistic endeavor in search of its core meaning. Historically, artists have managed to move the creative dial by producing what they believe audiences need, not what they want. Fine art, by its nature, is not a consensual enterprise. The cultural thread of relevance in art often proceeds in ways antithetical to preserving commonly-shared normative values. The creative community can sometimes lurch forward in jolting transitions, seemingly designed to deliberately shock and awe. The critics’ role is not to be ‘critical’ in the common sense of the word, but rather, to work in the public arena, alerting the viewer to possible motives inherent in the creation of these new works. Their goal is to point the way toward an altered perception—challenging the manner people look at art, along with their expectations and responses to the experience. Critics serve as ground guides for what’s around the cultural bend. They often write in the present tense, but with the future tense as a looming, unpredictable reality.

Critical writing is not entirely utilitarian. It can be compelling literature. Effective critical writing should be aimed at raising as many questions as it attempts to answer. It assumes an intelligent audience, motivated to expand its intellectual reach beyond the tried-and-true and into the realm of experimental and ‘bleeding edge’ contemporary exhibitions and performances. The responsible critic assumes that an audience wants to think deeply about the work they are seeing and to integrate it into their understanding of the overall cultural scene. Good critical writing not only opens new vistas; it can often offer a literary experience that is profoundly satisfying in its own right. Consider critic, Mary McCarthy’s 1962 review of Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire as an example:

“When the separate parts are assembled, according to the manufacturer’s directions, and fitted together with the help of clues and cross-references, which must be hunted down as in a paper chase, a novel on several levels is revealed, and these ‘levels’ are not the customary ‘levels of meaning’ of modernist criticism but planes in a fictive space, rather like those houses of memory in medieval mnemonic science, where words, facts and numbers were stored till wanted in various rooms and attics, or like the Houses of astrology into which the heavens are divided.”

The critics’ vital role is to offer a cultural life line for those who may be adrift in an ocean of new and experimental artistic initiatives. Or, they may simply be waiting patiently in the wings—April’s tour guides—helping celebrate our transition from winter’s dull, cold light to the whispered promises that only spring can fulfill.

Thanks for reading ARTES Magazine.

Sincerely,

Richard Friswell, Publisher & Managing Editor