January 2004  

• This Issue
• Subscribe
• Advertisers
• Ad FAQS
• Ad Web Sites
• About IAT
• Link to IAT

The Art of Criticism

Artists of all ages are aware that once their heart and soul is poured into the canvas it's time for the dreaded public revealing. Will it be liked? Hated? Bought? Trashed? Damned with faint praise or any praise at all? And what of the critic, has he or she ever wielded a paintbrush or is the dislike jealousy in disguise?

The artist themselves have been known to use their works to display their feelings of animosity towards their patrons. Michelangelo's famous Sistine Chapel rendition is certainly one case in point. In particular his depiction of the flayed skin of St. Bartholomew with his own features. He may have done this because he wished to appear in his masterpiece, or in reference to the treatment he had received from some of the Pope's minions who were known to be harshly critical of his work. A third possibility could well be that he used it to show him as he felt, given the physical hardships that the work brought to him and he used the image to display his exhaustion for all posterity.

Art and it's criticism go hand in hand particularly towards what is considered unconventional. Those who have the courage to step away from the mainstream, such as Van Gogh, Tom Thomson, Jackson Pollock and Georgia O'Keeffe all found the criticism to be particularly harsh, and yet they are all considered to be innovative and brilliant by today's audience.

Sadly that may mean the new artists of today have a long hard wait ahead of them for respect within the industry. Why is that? Why are critics so hard on what is new, particularly within the art field, where an open mind is necessary to understand what the artist is saying with the work. Equally valid is what the work says to the viewer about themselves more so than about the artist.

Creativity is what moves us ahead in all fields; science, technology, mathematics, and that leads to terrific inventions and breakthroughs in research and development that can better all of us. We hope someday to cure cancer completely but that could be further off in the future if we continue to vacuum all traces of creativity away by heavily criticizing innovation, something that is as true today as it was when the brilliant Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel. Luckily for those who have had the opportunity to view his works at the Vatican, he ignored his critics and got on with the job.