Dear all,
In the next few days, I shall be posting a number of essays dealing with problems in aesthetics on this blog. I inaugurate this new direction with an essay about the Whistler / Ruskin controversy and the fascinating case of Hans van Meegeren. the I appreciate any and all feedback.
Thanks,
-Adam
Artist vs. Critic
The picture that emerges from the Whistler / Ruskin and van Meegeren cases is one of a confrontational relationship between the artist and the critic. Is this relationship, by its very nature, adversarial? In this essay I will argue that to view this delicate and important symbiosis as purely adversarial would be limiting and unfair. I will argue that the critic, while often in conflict with the artist, is by no means obliged to take on a belligerent role vis-a-vis the artist. Rather, he must function as an intermediary between the artist and the public as a publicly elected arbiter of taste.
To view the critic merely as the artist's inevitable afterbirth is to imply a state of affairs where Ruskin can lunge at Whistler with a slanderous notice and van Meegeren can parry by turning out a fraud. To a certain extent, the critic and the artist need each other. Both have pretensions to a paradigm of taste; the artist seeks to create a work of beauty, and the critic evaluates that beauty. At stake here, is much more than an individual artist's reputation. The quarrel between artist and critic is in essence a debate over about ownership; both of the audience and of taste.
I will argue this through an examination of the Whistler / Ruskin and van Meegeren cases, both of which pose challenges to the fundamental relationship between critic and artist. I will round out my conclusion with insights from David Hume's essay on the "Standard of Taste" as well as Henry James' response to the Whistler controversy.
James Abbot McNeill Whistler would have us believe that the artist and critic are completely at odds. Chief among the critics' transgressions is the constant tendency of critics to moralize art. In his 10 O'clock Lecture, Whistler claims that nowadays "Beauty is confounded with virtue, and, before a work of Art, it is asked: what good shall it do?" (p. 30). One of Whistler's more outrageous claims is that criticism is less a means of evaluating art than a way for failed artists to gain intellectual ownership over an artwork erudite prose. On this point, Whistler writes that "[the critic] finds poetry where he would feel it were he himself transcribing the event...and noble philosophy in some detail of philanthropy ...meanwhile the painter's poetry is quite lost to him (p. 34)."
At bottom. Whistler holds that the only person qualified to judge an artwork is another artist. He imagines an age where the artist was able to channel their purely aesthetic message to the audience without the need of an intermediary, the dread critic whose influence "while it has widened the gulf between the people and the painter, has brought about the most complete misunderstanding as to the aim of the picture...the work is considered absolutely from a literary point of view...[he] degrades art by supposing it a method of bringing about a literary climax (p.33)."
In addition, he lambastes the critic as performer: "Exhorting -denouncing - directing. Filled with wrath and earnestness. Bringing powers of persuasion, and polish of language to prove -nothing...Impressive - important - shallow. Defiant - distressed -desperate (p. 35)."
There are many ways to counter Whistler's rather paranoid claims. Perhaps none is more apt that Stuart Culver's analysis of Whistler's nemesis. According to Culver, Ruskin wasn't an across the board conservative, he just thought that Whistler's was a "decadent aestheticism that failed to be offensive in the correct, politically productive way (p. 42)" and in "outrageous defiance of representational standards" (p.43) . More broadly, Culver sees the whole affair as an outgrowth of Whistler misconstruing the critic's intentions: "Ruskin's mistake. Whistler believed, was to imagine that by teaching the public how to read moral allegories into paintings he could bridge the gap between the painter's intentions and the public's reception, (p. 46)" It's true that Ruskin was a particularly moral-minded critic. But extrapolating from this point to a general condemnation of criticism makes no sense.
Furthermore, we find ourselves faced with a formidable challenge if we try to resolve Whistler's desire to connect to his audience directly and his insistence on the autonomy of the artist. The logical extension of his autonomy principle was that "the very presence of the public or the critic in studios and galleries [was] a threat to rational composition, (p. 46)" For Whistler, autonomy seems to be synonymous with isolation.
Han van Meegeren took a similarly adversarial view of the artist / critic relationship. Unlike Whistler, though, his strategy for exacting revenge was to beat the critics at their own game. His extensive knowledge and familiarity of Vermeer's technique and themes enabled him to create a new period and style for Vermeer. In the words of one of the critics who testified at his trial, once "the Emmaus was declared authentic by world-renowned experts...the rest were linked in the same chain, (p. 95)"
By transgressing the critic / artist boundary, van Meeregen thought to expose the hypocrisy and snobbery of the Dutch art establishment, chief among them Dr. Brendius. Lessing contends that van Meeregen brought Holland's art critics to their knees by proving their judgments to be "historical, biographical, economic or sociological, instead of aesthetic." The conclusion van Meeregen wanted the critics to reach, namely that he's as great an artist as Vermeer, reflects an unsound reason at work. Nevertheless, the challenge he posed to the critics is valuable and provocative (p. 122). However, van Meegeren's own admission reveals that he was motivated primarily out of personal spite: "I had been so belittled by the critics that I could no longer exhibit anywhere. I was systematically damaged by the critics, who knew not a thing about art (p. 96)."
While one can view both Whistler and van Meegeren as performance artists who are reaching out directly to the audience for appeal, it's essential to remember that both artists had scores to settle. Thus both artists seem to act more out of anger and frustration than out of a serious desire to seriously question the role of the critic. The Whistler and van Meegeren cases are too personal to persuade, generating far-fetched arguments that cast the artist's sanity into doubt (consider Whistler's warped view of critic qua jealous artist).
Critics themselves, Henry James and David Hume help us understand why exacerbated artists challenge the artist / critic relationship in an effort to reach the audience directly. It is true that critics mediate between the audience and the artist in priestly fashion, ^-^ bridging the gulf between artist and public in order to deal with artistic distance. Based on what their testimony, it makes little sense to call the critic / artist relationship adversarial in any fundamental way.
In the "Standard of Taste," Hume suggests that we all would do well to be first-rate critics, as a refined taste leads naturally -according to the logic - to a refined sense of virtue. He holds belief in an "ideal" to which all criticism should aspire. He accounts for the diversity of opinion among critics and acknowledges that certain modes of critical inquiry are flawed On the first point, he is willing to acknowledge particular disagreements that exist among critics, saying
that though critics agree on the universal concepts we incorporate into our understanding of beauty: "but when critics come to particulars, this seeming unanimity vanishes; and it is found that they had affixed a very different meaning to their expressions. (Hume #2)." On the second point, he argues that we should be charitable with criticism whenever we encounter a principle that clashes with our aesthetic experience. In such a circumstance, we shouldn't blame criticism in general but rather "those particular rules of criticism which would establish such circumstances to be faults, and would represent them as , universally blameable. (#9)"
In answer to the question of why we need critics to begin with, Hume contends that, "when objects of any kind are first presented to the eye or the imagination, the sentiment, which attends them, is obscure and confused. (#18)" The notion that certain people are better and more qualified to form aesthetic judgments than others underlies the notion of criticism in general. How, then, should a critic comport himself? "He must preserve his mind free from all prejudice, and allow nothing to enter into his consideration, but the very object which is submitted to his examination. (#21)" Hume seems to set an impossibly high bar for the ideal critic, who must always view a more of art from the audience's point of view (this is especially important when viewing art from a different age or culture). It is from this identification
with the audience in addition to "strong sense united by delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison and cleared of all prejudice" alone that a critic can comprehend the "true standard of taste and beauty (#23) ." Thus, the critic for Hume occupies an essential role in society, by pointing the public towards the true and beautiful.
We find a similar idea by way of Henry James, whose notion of the critic in the modern marketplace is explained by Culver as "fundamentally sacrificial. It is his job to understand and experience for others too busy or too distracted to encounter art themselves. The critic is then the artist's exemplary audience and, increasingly, the public consumes only vicariously through him. (p. 46)"
This approach to the critic / artist relationship tears all adversarial notions asunder. This conception of the critic is the artist's ideal viewer may also raise questions about the accessibility and functionality of art. James is careful not to let his opinions on the role and purpose of criticism play too great a role in the greater meaning of art. He wants very much to grant art its autonomy. Towards this end, he writes: "Art is one of the necessities of life; but even the critics themselves would probably not assert that criticism is anything more than an agreeable luxury, something like printed talk" (p. 29).
James' insight in this matter is closely related to the Whistler / Ruskin trial and the two ideas about art and art criticism which it upheld: that you can have art for art's sake, but not criticism for its own sake; and that there are both legitimate and illegitimate modes of criticism. As the critic's function is to "master the practice of consuming art," the glance he casts in art's direction must be involving and detached, being that he is both an emissary of the public and, on a certain level, possessed of a keener sense of refinement and finesse.
In essence, Whistler and van Meegeren stage their revolts over a question of access. They represent artists who, fed up with critics opt to transgress boundaries and become performance artists in an attempt to communicate directly with the public. The belletristic nature of these cases is particular to the nature of the conflicts and to view the artist / critic symbiosis as purely adversarial is to do a disservice to a beneficial and essential relationship. For while Hume and James disagree on whether to consider the critic a necessity or a luxury, they both ascribe to him the responsibility and power to impart an appreciation of art onto the audience. If Hume sets an impossibly high bar for the true critic, this is because he considers a true critic to be as rare as he is vital. In the end, artist and critic alike need to answer to a standard of taste.
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