# Art Criticism Does Not Study Ideas



## Beethoven14 (Feb 14, 2019)

Inspired by a recent thread where a member has been attacked for adherence to Plato's aesthetics I present an important quote which I hope will spur some useful discussion of method.

_"...for art criticism, we need people who would show the senselessness of looking for ideas in a work of art, but who instead would continually guide readers in that endless labyrinth of linkages that makes up the stuff of art, and bring them to the laws that serve as foundation for those linkages."_

Tolstoy, letter to Nikolai Strakhov, 1876.

For the critic Harold Bloom, who uses the above quote to open his 2011 work _The Anatomy of Influence_, the quote serves to introduce Shakespeare as the "laws that serve as foundation for those linkages" while also showing the inadequacy of Aristotle's and Plato's discussions of art. But we always have to be careful when studying Aristotle and Plato since their presentations are cloaked in many layers and it is often unclear whether in a passage their focus is simply to reveal an important problem or instead to provide a genuine solution. Still as a starting point it seems fair to say that Aristotle's general theoretical approach in the Poetics and his discussion of music in the Politics along with Plato's critiques of passages in Homer and his discussion of Music as a core part of the education of guardians would both fall under Tolstoy's critique as "senselessness of looking for ideas in a work of art".

My initial questions to this great forum then are:

1) Are there any examples of looking for ideas in a work of art which are not senseless?
2) What exactly is this "endless labyrinth of linkages" and is this really what art consists of?
3) How can we be better guide each other through this "endless labyrinth of linkages"?


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I would say the text cited above is a fair example of the ideas of art and criticism. Neither are concrete nor do they particularly have boundaries. This is especially true for criticism.


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## Beethoven14 (Feb 14, 2019)

Beethoven
Shakespeare
Coltrane
Tarkovsky
Michelangelo
Bach
Mozart
Cervantes
Ozu
Fellini
Homer
Schubert
Kurosawa
Dante
Malick
Raphael


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## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

As for "examples of looking for ideas in a work of art which are not senseless," I think that it makes sense to look for ideas when the artist explicitly invites the audience to do so and gives the audience hints or instructions for how to apprehend them. We see this in programmatic works of music like Vivaldi's _The Four Seasons_, in graphic art like _The Voyage of Life_ painting by Thomas Cole, and in the "Romances" (novels) of Nathaniel Hawthorne, to which he wrote prefaces explaining how readers can interpret his symbolism, etc. Finding the ideas in programmatic works of art is quite straightforward, but most works are not programmatic.


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## UniversalTuringMachine (Jul 4, 2020)

Short answer:

1) looking for ideas diminishes the work of art (idea as reduction of art, art as an instrument not an end) so it's senseless, instead we should expand the work of art through the links
2) a structualist's perspective: it's the massive, ever-changing network of symbols and meanings that governs the human activities and understandings
3) by not being lazy, for a start


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## Guest (Jul 6, 2020)

Beethoven14 said:


> _"...for art criticism, we need people who would show t*he senselessness of looking for ideas in a work of art*, but who instead would continually guide readers in that endless labyrinth of linkages that makes up the stuff of art, and bring them to the laws that serve as foundation for those linkages."_
> 
> Tolstoy, letter to Nikolai Strakhov, 1876.


Let's just stop here for a moment.

What?

I mean, he wrote _War and Peace_, so he must be an authority, mustn't he? (or is that a fallacy?)

Let's make some sense of what he's saying in the bit I've emboldened before going any further (well, this idiot needs to at any rate). I tried this, but it's unfinished...unless someone else can find the rest of it...

https://harpers.org/2011/12/tolstoy-the-chain-of-ideas-that-constitutes-art/


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## erki (Feb 17, 2020)

As an artist for me art is a play and fun(even if dark) but tool to communicate my inner vision as well. Often art is merely making some kind of order - new or old - out of chaos. Art-criticism misses the point most of the time. They try to explain the artist for those who are too lazy/afraid to think or feel. Art should be taken simply - you like it or you don't but with OPEN mind. Sometimes it takes fair amount of courage to like something - much less to dismiss.
Reading meanings into it is another art form already that may be based on existing art pieces but represents mostly the critic and not the art he criticises.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> Let's just stop here for a moment.
> 
> What?
> 
> ...


That Tolstoy also says (directly following the quote given in the OP):

_And if critics can now understand, and even express in newspaper scrawl what I am trying to say, then I congratulate them and can bravely assure them that they know more about it than I do.
_
perhaps means that he doesn't know either?

I admit that I have zero understanding of 'the senselessness of looking for ideas in a work of art' unless 'ideas' means something other than I assume it means.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Beethoven14 said:


> 1) Are there any examples of looking for ideas in a work of art which are not senseless?
> 2) What exactly is this "endless labyrinth of linkages" and is this really what art consists of?
> 3) How can we be better guide each other through this "endless labyrinth of linkages"?


I dismiss question 1.

2. Art is the 'mapping' of a 'template of the artist's experience' onto the audience's experience (consciousness), via an ever-changing and evolving 'agreed-upon language' of meanings and symbols.

In this way, it becomes an "endless labyrinth of linkages" because it can be experienced again and again, by new beings, through the years.

3. We are guided by the confidence and belief in our own experience, i.e., our 'being' as we travel through this existence. Don't let rationalism take over; experience is valid. Remember that all art is about inter-subjective experience, not objective formalities.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Art criticism was a cottage industry in the 1800s and early 20th century, the reason Tolstoy would write about it. So did Robert Schumann and Tchaikovsky.

I thought what these artists showed in their criticism is they were much better at their other art forms -- literature Tolstoy, music Tchaikovsky and Schumann. I found their art criticism blather.

It may seem difficult to fathom but the critics who likely has the most to say is not necessarily bereft but likely has little talent in any other art form and probably none in the one s/he critiques. 

It's the same reason mediocre or fringe athletes make the best coaches and managers -- they couldn't do it, much as they tried, but through their fruitless effort they learned what it took to be successful and they can transmit that to others.

And, as Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky and Schumann demonstrate, though inspiration comes naturally to them it doesn't necessarily translate to other areas.

It should be noted however Schumann was considered a renowned critical expert in his time.


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## Beethoven14 (Feb 14, 2019)

larold said:


> Art criticism was a cottage industry in the 1800s and early 20th century, the reason Tolstoy would write about it. So did Robert Schumann and Tchaikovsky.
> 
> I thought what these artists showed in their criticism is they were much better at their other art forms -- literature Tolstoy, music Tchaikovsky and Schumann. I found their art criticism blather.
> 
> ...


Tolstoy's essay on Shakespeare and his 'What is art?' are weak works, but I think he is onto something with this idea of linkages.

Schumann was maybe the first to really recognize the importance of late Beethoven.

It makes sense that a critic may benefit from lack of experience in the medium. Samuel Johnson turned away from writing poetry.


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## Beethoven14 (Feb 14, 2019)

I think what Tolstoy means by *looking for ideas in a work of art* is studying art with the intent of gaining knowledge. It may be useful to contrast Aristotle's _Poetics_ with Longinus' _On the Sublime_; I think in this quote Tolstoy is supporting the Longinian approach to art as opposed to Aristotelian. The critic should not play the philosopher. Instead the critic should play the librarian.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Beethoven14 said:


> 1) Are there any examples of looking for ideas in a work of art which are not senseless?


If one has the mental capacity to simultaneously hear music and archetypes in their listening, one can make a clearer effort to understand what they like and what they criticize, and why.



Beethoven14 said:


> 2) What exactly is this "endless labyrinth of linkages" and is this really what art consists of?


It's not talking of universal good, but the unique good in every circumstance exclusive to one another, if you think of time, energy, and matter as an inseparable entity that correlates to diversity. Although it naturally leads one to being stuck in a bubble of universal pattern attribution, by theorizing over specific, _hidden_ reasons for cause and effect, like revelations in psychology and philosophy, one might broaden their appreciation of the new and mysterious, in turn gaining true experience and knowledge independent from reason.



Beethoven14 said:


> 3) How can we be better guide each other through this "endless labyrinth of linkages"?


Thinking outside the box (labyrinth,) instead of mapping it before we know its context. Like a wormhole we may find ourselves coming back to a familiar location, only to redefine and rehash our total context. Which comes first, the perception or the definition?


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

I may have a faulty memory, but I'm pretty sure Tolstoy's _War and Peace_ conveyed definite ideas, some of them rather blatantly.


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## caracalla (Feb 19, 2020)

amfortas said:


> I may have a faulty memory, but I'm pretty sure Tolstoy's _War and Peace_ conveyed definite ideas, some of them rather blatantly.


And repetitiously. W&P may be one of the greatest novels ever written, but it's also one of the preachiest.


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## Beethoven14 (Feb 14, 2019)




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## Beethoven14 (Feb 14, 2019)

from Samuel Johnson, Preface to Shakespeare:

"While an authour is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance, and when he is dead we rate them by his best."

"Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature."

"The reverence due to writings that have long subsisted arises therefore not from any credulous confidence in the superior wisdom
of past ages, or gloomy persuasion of the degeneracy of mankind, but is the consequence of acknowledged and indubitable positions, that what has been longest known has been most considered, and what is most considered is best understood."


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## Beethoven14 (Feb 14, 2019)

a + b > c + d ?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Two thoughts:

1) Goethe invited people (critics, etc.) to ask three questions when critiquing a work of art, which I think are still relevant:
-- What is the artist trying to say?
-- How well does he say it? [gender choice Goethe's]
-- Was it worth it?

2) MarkW's thought: The principal job of a critic is to judge quality, and to justify his/her judgment by whatever means or standards used (and explained), and let the reader agree or disagree.


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## Guest (Jul 24, 2020)

MarkW said:


> Two thoughts:
> 
> 1) Goethe invited people (critics, etc.) to ask three questions when critiquing a work of art, which I think are still relevant:
> -- What is the artist trying to say?
> ...


Goethe in good company then


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## Beethoven14 (Feb 14, 2019)

Chimes at Midnight
Ran
Tokyo Story
Nostalghia
Apocalypse Now
Citizen Kane
Andrei Rublev
The Sacrifice
Stalker
The End of Summer
Equinox Flower
Seven Samurai
8 1/2
Vertigo
Ikiru
La Strada


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

I have to admit that I did not know about the quote from Tolstoy untill now, but several keywords do strike a chord in my mind. Linkage is something in mind about the musical ideas which I believe hidden in the musical world(maybe senselessly). But the law of my dialetical discussion is never to usurp the possibility of peoples self-discovery, it is how I organize my arguments and language into the discussion. I am sorry currently I can not organize meaningful argument about music in the light of this discussion. So let me comment on Plato`s interpretation instead, isn`t the ambiguity of Plato`s language might also apply to my law? He did not want to spoiler peoples self-discovery in their own actual life? We have to appreciate the ancient efforts so far, it is basically amazing how many great ideas were proposed in 500BC? If I can think of more about music, I will return later.



> _But we always have to be careful when studying Aristotle and Plato since their presentations are cloaked in many layers and it is often unclear whether in a passage their focus is simply to reveal an important problem or instead to provide a genuine solution._


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

_"...for art criticism, we need people who would show the senselessness of looking for ideas in a work of art, but who instead would continually guide readers in that endless labyrinth of linkages that makes up the stuff of art, and bring them to the laws that serve as foundation for those linkages."_

I'm not even going to pretend to know what Tolstoy is going on about. My guess is that one would have to be knowledgeable of Tolstoy and his era to really understand what he means-and I don't. What does he mean by "ideas" (and does that word in Russian have other connotations)? What does he mean by "endless labyrinth of linkages". This, to me, is just word salad without context. What does he mean by "stuff of art"? And by art is he/we referring to just literature, or "Art", or music too, or all of the above?

Most reviews nowadays aren't the declamatory soap box that they used to be in the 19th century, although William Logan might be an exception to that rule.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I'm spending quite a bit of time thinking about two books at the moment, Samuel Beckett's _Unnamable_ and Mallarmé _Coup de dés n'abolira jamais le hazard_ . Both are sometimes interpreted as philosophical texts, texts with ideas. But IMO, if you read them like that they're disappointing. Neither Mallarmé nor Beckett were philosophers, and neither books contain the sort of systematic rigorous exploration and investigation you read in Aristotle, Descartes, Kant or Wittegenstein.

But the idea of seeing the works as ideas, meaningful phrases, concepts, which evoke each other and other texts, seems to me more fruitful, at least in the case of the Beckett - where there may be quite a lot of pleasure to be had finding the references in _The Unnamable _to Backett's other novels, or to Dante or Heraclitus.

The Mallarmé is completely intractable!


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

art is an ideology made to order of politicians to build new realities. Tolstoy should have known better.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

best men to ever learn what is art were Stalin & Zhdanov; see how they handled the subject matter?


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

Some thought after a short searching, humbly, not researching.

While Plato constructed his philosophy of the state and the arts, his arguments were not realistic, but mostly idealistic, clearly he was not bargaining his ideas with the rulers, not like eastern flatterers as so called philosophers and artists. The biggest insult to an artist is nothing more than making a bargain of his own work for material gains. His teacher Socrates is the example how most western thinkers follow their own ideas, dying to protect them.

_"The major theme of the Republic is the nature of justice, which is considered to be of highest value for the unity of human societies and the harmony of the individual souls. Most of the work is presented as the imaginative elaboration of requirements for a hypothetical ideal city, ruled by philosophical guardians, in whose entire organization justice would be perfectly embodied_. "

Lelouda Stamou in " Plato and Aristotle On Music and Music Education: Lessons From Ancient Greece"

Plato did not exercise political power while he composed Republic, when Plato used history, it can be surreal to our time as he quoted Atlantis and mythological gods as the rulers. It is why many modern academics warn us not to take Plato too seriously, not just with a gain of salt but a spoonful of salt. But Greek historians which recorded true histories did not care to philosophize their records, we never remember Herodotus as a philosopher, simply as a recorder of history.

Also, Plato did mention about figured bass(the ornamental melody dependent on the sang melody)! that is the basso continuo a baroque concept, but he opposed it. It can be highly confident that in Platos time, people knew about proper Caccini style homophonic songs with basso continuo, at least:

"_The accompaniment should not include melodies different from the vocal line that was created by the composer, and should not include any contrasts of close and wide spacing of notes, of fast and slow tempi, or of high and low ranges_."

Lelouda Stamou from the same essay. The description of the immoral music sounds like baroque songs with basse continuo and contrapunctal music.

Socrates and Plato can never be sold-outs to the powers, since Socrates died for exposing corruption like Cicero did. Aristotle also criticized tyranny, he could never be servile to any one who would dictate his writings with power and terror：



> The tyrant, who in order to hold his power, suppresses every superiority, does away with good men, forbids education and light, controls every movement of the citizens and, keeping them under a perpetual servitude, wants them to grow accustomed to baseness and cowardice, has his spies everywhere to listen to what is said in the meetings, and spreads dissension and calumny among the citizens and impoverishes them, is obliged to make war in order to keep his subjects occupied and impose on them permanent need of a chief.


Of course this thread is about arts and music, we can infered from their political criticism how will they define the relationship between arts and politics. This classical definitions of art still dominnate modern westernized world. To me, the fight against oppressor is more like a piece of art than abusing ones power and cheap intimidations.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

Aristotle and Plato both opposed music as the dominant profession in life, defined music strictly as supportive means to education into a wholesome man. I do instinctively know somehow, listening to much music which Plato criticized is a sin, I sacrificed a lot of joys of life common people enjoy and found a way not to let emotion running free and obtaining another kind of joy from this "corruption."

I cannot say Plato and Aristotle were wrong, no, they are right. I did not read about this untill now. But where is the philosopher who tried to redeem his own indulgences? (St Augustine?)and where is the perfectly wholesome man after so long history of no music, but wars and our powerless servitude to the stupidity. How far can we achieve wholesomeness through monastic life spiced with military training? However, Platos criticism can also be used against music which is too much of "something" I do not like, it is a hypocrisy, as my hedonism however controlled, is still a corruption to Platos eye, yet I might use his criticism against the others. A sin is sin, it is inevitable if you have baroque elegance you will have modern atonality, Plato predicted spot on. 

But I simply do not believe in always repressing ones own desires can lead to exclusive enlightenment specific to the ascetics. As long as nobody(including God and yourself) can accuse you of rape, robbery, scam, other petty crimes discription of which itself offends, you should be free to commit some kinds of experimental secret deception to yourself, but always keep yourself aware of them. Then why not taking in some evil, to digest? But from now on, I will not criticize any kind of music again. This is not a criticism against Plato and Aristotle, rather a tribute, just not everybody can be lucky enough to be taught in person by great people like them, so some "evil" just take hold of us, and words in a book are obviously powerless to words on a melody.


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