April 16th, 2006 (09:55 am)
I've added my couple of cents worth over at Gabe's live journal regarding the current rant about literary criticism, art and philosophy and possible meanings, mis-readings and subversions. <"http://deadcities-icon.livejournal.com/58222.html">
Here's my piece out of context...
I think viewpoint-perspective (or as I'll hesitantly called them: angles of attack, or defence) is key to any form of criticism. Boxing the critic’s approach into 3 broad categories might be useful to organise one's thoughts but isn't there more to criticism in art, and books in general? Yes, of course there is, but asking the right kinds of questions as a critic is essential, isn't it?
Just look at the reading list for a Philosophy of Art course - Anita Silvers, San Francisco State University... see how broad it is, so many viewpoints can be assumed just from reading the titles. It's the tip of a very deceptive iceberg. For me, beyond the convenient structures or approaches (immersion and so on) wouldn't it make sense to ask intelligent questions based on an aesthetic sensibility? Isn't that questioning mind, that actively seeking to understand the narrow (author's prose) and the wide (critic's insights based on knowledge within the genre, about the genre, working for, or subverting against the norms and cliched stereotypes) at the heart of a critic's agenda?
I ask these questions not in the hope of a definitive answer. No. That’s not the point at all – far from it, in fact. I ask them, like all questions, as a means to explore possibilities, not absolutes.
Here's the list...
Art and its Significance: An Anthology of Aesthetic Theory, 3rd edition, ed. Stephen Ross
Puzzles About Art, Battin, Fisher, Moore and Silvers
Addis "The Three Women of Gion"
Appiah "Race"
Derrida "Deconstruction In America"
Eagleton "From the Polis to Post-modernism" from The Ideology of the Aesthetic
Fister "Women Artists in Traditional Japan"
Foucault "What Is An Author?"
Frueh "Towards A Feminist Theory of Art Criticism"
Garrard "Artemisia and Susanna"
Gates "Writing, 'Race', and the Difference It Makes"
Gates "Canon-Formation, Literary History, and the Afro-American Tradition: From the Seen to the Told"
Gates "The Master's Pieces: On Canon-Formation & the African-American Tradition"
Gilbert and Gubar "The Mirror and the Vamp: Reflections on Feminist Criticism"
Krupat "Native American Literature and The Canon"
Mainardi "Quilts: The Great American Art"
Nochlin "Women, Art and Power"
Pollock "Vision, Voice and Power: feminist art histories and Marxism"
Silvers "Has Her(oine's) Time Now Come?"
Silvers "Who Grows In Phillis Wheatley's Garden?"
Showalter "A Criticism of Our Own: Autonomy and Assimilation In Afro-American and Feminist Literary Theory"
Berger Ways of Seeing
Nicholson & Fraser "Social Criticism Without Philosophy: An Encounter Between Feminism and Postmodernism" in Feminism/Postmodernism, edited by Linda Nicholson
Nochlin "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" in Art and Sexual Politics, edited by Hess and Baker
What does it all mean in the context of any kind of philosophy of art? I guess it depends on your angle of attack or defence? Your intent is everything, isn't it? And perhaps a useful way to look at the validity of a standpoint or a stance when criticising art is to begin *without* any preconceived ideals, to ask questions of the art, to LEARN SOMETHING NEW. Otherwise we're all fucking doomed! Doomed to rigid, overused themes and motifs, doomed to reading the same old tired crap that alludes to the genre's heritage of a small pile of beautiful prose, and a mountain of trite shite, but has stopped questioning the purpose of art and more specifically here: SFF prose.
Is it therefore, as the old cliche goes, art for art's sake? The creation completed. Thrown in a corner to fester and rot? Should the artist have to suffer, bleed, die for his art to have relevance? Or is it for sharing with as many people as possible? In other words, the critic’s perception of what art is for is crucial when formulating a theory or a philosophy.
Which leads me to this...words are NOT the thing, yet…
Persuasion is everything, isn’t it? Or the art of it at least, if your aim is SELL books to the masses, and with it comes an angle of attack. Reviewers and critics provide a book with hooks upon which to lure potential readers. PR folk use the hooks in all kinds of imaginative ways, mostly (ironic slap of the wrist). But I ask this question: is it the critic’s purpose to offer more hooks, or perhaps rip those hooks from the artist’s flesh and stand back and watch the artist scream and squirm?
Some critics take pleasure in their attacks. It inflates the ego. Others detest the power they have to *big-up* or *belittle* a book, and therefore the author. Some see it as a duty to hail the next big new thing, to create another sub-genre in field choked with sub-genres and labels. Others want the status quo to remain, or at the very least not to stray too far from the roots.
I’d argue that formulating a philosophy of art is a life-long endeavour. Because art and SFF are in a constant process of flux, but most times, sadly, do we get to hear about it? How many books do you reviewers and critics receive that either you just don’t fancy or haven’t got the time to consider? The ‘to read’ pile is less than the ‘bin them’ pile.
Therefore art critics are selective. Rightly so. But which factors decide their selections? Clearly their own likes and dislikes, their own set of criteria that tells them: read this, no not that! But why? What drives us to seek out magic realism as opposed to Epic Fantasy, slipstream as opposed to low fantasy?
In the end, doesn’t it all come down to individual preference? Yep, bet the fuck it does. Let’s celebrate the individual’s right to formulate fixed and rigid opinions, as well as fluid, changing ones.
But for art’s sake: flatten the box and step outside into the new, into the individual, into the idiosyncratic. It’ll only hurt a tiny bit, I promise. And in the long run, it’ll surely help in formulating a coherent philosophy of art. In theory, anyway!
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