340. Criticism Is Creative

A successful artwork shows us something we haven’t seen before. It does this by drawing our attention to an aspect of our experience through a representation of that experience in a particular medium. As such, all art attains its power through metaphor.

In seeing the connection between the artistic representation and our experience, we encounter the beauty and truth of the artwork, and it is this encounter that helps us become more aware of the world and ourselves. We often feel intensely the value of such an encounter, and we are moved to share it with others. Through the practice of criticism, we show others the parts of the work we’ve noticed, and in doing so, we offer our own perspective for consideration.

Of course, not all criticism is positive. Sometimes we notice elements of the artwork that are not as strong as we think they could be, and we draw attention to these deficits as well. This tells us something about the possibility of art beyond this particular work, and thus criticism also expands our sense of possibility.

But even the most negative review of an artwork cannot harm it. Criticism cannot lessen the force of an artwork’s metaphors any more than it can physically alter the work itself. Its metaphors will function just as well they did before the critique was made, and the work will continue to succeed or fail on its own strength. What negative criticism might do is to undermine our desire to see the work for ourselves. But this is no failure of the artwork or the artist. It is rather our own failure in outsourcing the essential task of seeing.

Criticism always adds and never subtracts. It is itself a kind of creative practice, and every critique is also its own creation. The artist might think that talking about their work could limit its power, but the opposite is true. Criticism is always expansive, and by talking about their own work, the artist can add to the experience of their audience. The result is that the original creative effort is multiplied rather than reduced.