#criticism

It's easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It's a lot more difficult to perform one. ↗

— Chuck Palahniuk

#creation #creativity #criticism #art

Just as no monkey is as good-looking as the ugliest of humans, no academic is worthier than the worst of the creators ↗

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

#academics #art #art-history #artists #arts

One of the most valuable things one of my art teachers said to me was, ‘Don’t get upset by criticism. Value the fact that at least someone noticed what you did. ↗

— Chris Ware

#criticism #art

Psychotherapy is the art of finding the angel of hope in the midst of terror, despair and madness. ↗

— Cloe Madanes

#herstory #mft #art

There is a remarkable degree of consistency in the way mediaeval literature affirms humanity. With all its faults, humanity emerges as more realistic than heavenly ideals. ...... Because the mediaeval period is seen from our own times as historically distant, 'behind' the Renaissance with all the changes which that period brought, it has been undervalued for its own debates, developments and changes. The fact that mediaeval times have been revisited, re-imagined and rewritten, especially in the Romantic period, has tended to compound the ideas of difference and distance between this age and what came after. But in many ways the mediaeval period presages the issues and concerns of the Renaissance period and prepares the way for what was to come. ↗

— Ronald Carter

#age

The problem of knowledge is that there are many more books on birds written by ornithologists than books on birds written by birds and books on ornithologists written by birds ↗

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

#art-criticism #critics #insight #knowledge #music-criticism

Chaucer's world in The Canterbury Tales brings together, for the first time, a diversity of characters, social levels, attitudes, and ways of life. The tales themselves make use of a similarly wide range of forms and styles, which show the diversity of cultural influences which the author had at his disposal. Literature, with Chaucer, has taken on a new role: as well as affirming a developing language, it is a mirror of its times - but a mirror which teases as it reveals, which questions while it narrates, and which opens up a range of issues and questions, instead of providing simple, easy answers. ↗

— Ronald Carter

#attitude

The critic's aim should be to interpret the work they are writing about and help readers appreciate it, by defining and analysing those qualities that make it precious and by indicating the angle of visions from which its beauties are visible. But many critics do not realize their function. They aim not to appreciate, but to judge; they seek first to draw lines about literature and then bully readers into accepting these laws. ↗

— David Cecil

#literary-criticism #beauty

What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading "the best hundred books," you may take this for half an hour. It will be a change. ↗

— Jerome K. Jerome

#literary-criticism #change

This is what is known as perspective, and it is a swindle. ↗

— Kurt Schwitters

#creativity #criticism #critics #objectivity #art