I've just finished reading “In Search of the Blues” by Marybeth Hamilton. It is a fascinating book in which she argues that self-deluded white people in their search to find “real” black music invented the Delta blues. It's an interesting, articulate and well-researched argument, and I’ve been pretty much convinced by it. Do I feel that it diminishes the quality of the Delta blues? No.
Be it white, black, Indian, Chinese or Eskimo, a great song is a great song. Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” may have achieved great commercial success due to its adoption as the anthem of the very people it slates, but I do not feel that this diminishes the quality of the song. Cultural ironies be damned, I still love it. Ultimately, the only judge of the quality of a song (or any other piece of art for that matter) is itself. It doesn’t matter who recorded it, when or why, all that matters is the quality of emotional expression.
If a song pulls me into its wavelength and makes me feel an emotion that I can identify with, it is a good song. I may not like the person who wrote it but that doesn’t matter, as I can still relate to him on the most basic level of our common humanity. We both have the capacity to feel the same things. It doesn’t matter if I have experienced similar circumstances to those described in the song, as long as something has caused me to feel the emotion expressed in the music. The actual lyrics are secondary in music due to the fact that they are the first application of context to it, albeit still within the context of the artwork. Therefore it is still fair to criticise lyrics when discussing a song, as long as we realise that they are not the primary form of expression. Bad lyrics do not detract from the emotional content of a great song (for example “Sh-Boom” by The Chords); however great lyrics can enhance the emotional content of a great song with intellectual material (for example “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd).
Further to this, in order to engage with a piece of art you should need no prior knowledge beyond normal human experience. This is usually not an issue in music, which is almost purely emotional, but frequently filmmakers and other artist’s whose media contain more intellectual content commit the sin of presuming knowledge on their audience. This is vanity and poor craftsmanship. Drawing in outside pieces of information, or worse image systems, that are not explained as part of the work, is laziness. The first thing a piece of art should do is teach you how to read it. This is not through obvious exposition but as an integral part of the dialectics of the piece. Drawing in elements without establishing their meaning within the text deprives the audience of the ability to interpret the artwork. There may be a few who are familiar with the meaning of those elements as established in something else, but even they will be aware that the artwork does not express, but simply references somebody else’s expression. This lack of emotional expression alienates the audience from the artist, as they are not made to feel anything in common with him. The only reason this is ever done is for the purpose of artistic vanity. The artist does not wish to emotionally connect to his audience; he wishes to display his knowledge of art. He doesn’t want people to equate themselves with him on the basic level of their mutual humanity, but rather he wishes for them to think that he is clever. This is pretension.
It is also necessary for the artist to believe in the emotion and/or intellectual ideas that they are expressing. Otherwise their work will be emotionally dishonest, but again, this can be spotted due to its emotional inaccuracy, and over-reliance on cliché and stereotyping. A man who hates children cannot possibly make an accurate film about the joys of parenting. He doesn’t know what it feels like, so he has no capability to articulate the emotion to someone else. Especially considering that the people that he would be articulating it to would have at least some experience of the emotions involved. Therefore the film will either ring false (not due to intentional irony but due to emotional hypocrisy), or will contain almost no emotional content. This is dishonesty.
Pretension and dishonesty are the only two true sins in the production of art. Even so there will be those who will enjoy and defend artworks that exhibit these. In the case of pretentious art, those who enjoy and defend it are not doing so because of a genuine, emotional connection felt through it, but rather so that they appear clever as well as the artist. It allows them to think, “I understood it, and therefore my understanding of art must be as great as the artists. You don’t understand it; therefore your knowledge is less than mine. I am smarter than you.” Second hand vanity. (Incidentally, this is why most critics of any art form never produce any criticism of any worth.) In the case of dishonest art, it often makes lots of money (think teen-pop music) due to the fact that the quality of the emotion expressed is so shallow. Anyone can relate to it because it is so generic that it is always borderline apathy, which is, let’s face it, the emotional state that we spend most time in.
Apart from Pretension and Dishonesty, there are only three reasons that we fail to engage with an artwork. Firstly there is failure of expression or overly imperfect art, where the artist means well but is unschooled, under-practiced or lazy and has not expressed themselves fully. Secondly there is the lack of personal experience of emotion expressed in the artwork, where we have no frame of reference to engage with the piece. However, often if you return to the piece later in life you may be able to engage with it better now that you have relevant, emotional experiences to draw from. Finally there is simply the reason that the form the expression takes is not one that you prefer. These reasons do not make artwork bad; it just simply means that you do not engage with it.
Therefore we can discern criteria for artwork to use as a tool for criticism:
A work of art should be:
- Self-contained, not relying on reference to other sources in the conveyance of its message.
- Emotionally honest, expressing genuine feelings in a manner that they can be recognised by others who have felt them.
Outside of these two criteria there are no basis for critical analysis of the quality of art. Beyond this the discussion is extraneous and becomes about perception, culture history and even the artist, but not about the work of art itself.
/ my profile 
