Don't Let The Critics Steal Your Wonder

Have you ever noticed that when the critics come out to critique a new work of art that the critique itself adds nothing to the artist's creation?   

An artist approaches the mysteries of life, meditates on them and tries to get something communicated about them that transcends the use of mere words.  Be it the painter or poet, photographer or musician, architect or playwright the common goal of these artists' work is to get something said about life that didactic sentences are incapable of communicating.

Take the songwriter for instance.  In their craft of applying poetry, rhythm and melody to a complex matter a well done song can convey a transcendent moment of clarity that definitions and analysis could never provide.  It takes us by surprise! Poetry combined with rhythm and melody creates a homogenized whole - a song! We tap our feet, we sing a long, we soak it up.  Like a cup of cold water on hot summer day we drink deeply and our body, our senses and our emotions all respond in a way that no mere description of a cold glass of water could have ever provided.  Like the water, we also experience the song - we don't just hear the music or listen to the lyrics - we live into the song.     

Then along comes the critic to help us "comprehend" it all.  With his lofty words and expert teaching the critic will help us separate the poetry from the rhythm and the melody, after all, he just wants to aid us in overcoming our naïve understanding.  He will show us how the song is nothing more than a combination of well worn lyrics applied to an overused chord progression.     -   Wow!  I am starting to hate this song already. -    And yet, what is it that I am hating? Is it the song or do I now have a growing intolerance for it because I am imposing the critic's neutered opinion on the song? Maybe we begin to see the difference between the nature of art and critique.

An artistic work is a creation, not an explanation!  It is something out of nowhere that has burst onto the scene.  Sometimes we love it; sometimes we hate it.   It makes no difference whether a critic is giving a negative review or providing his highest praise; a critic can neither add nor subtract anything from the artist's work.  The critique sits outside of the creation and never will be part of it.  And yet isn't it interesting that the critique itself is useless without the context of the creation. It is superfluous to the creation.  Imagine if a critic issued a critique for a movie that never existed - it would be nonsense.  And if we do try to artificially superimpose a critique on the artist's creation we lose something; not only is the art diminished but we - our lives -  are diminished.  We thought we were growing into informed adulthood but we will soon find that we are severely lacking childlike wonder asking ourselves "is this all there is?".  

Write a critique if you must! Read the critiques if you like!  They certainly have their purpose but don't sit with the critics too long.  Instead I would encourage you to live into the stories you read, move to the music hear, savor the culinary flavors, gaze into the architects tapestry of colors, be still and experience the artist's creation.