[_21 Oct. '09_]
There is a one-sided feud between artists and critics. When a number of
artists are gathered together you will soon in the conversation come upon
signs of that feud. I admit that the general attitude of artists to
critics is unfair. They expect from critics an imaginative comprehension
which in the nature of the case only a creative artist can possess. On the
other hand, a creative artist cannot do the work of a critic because he
has neither the time nor the inclination to master the necessary critical
apparatus. Hence critical work seldom or never satisfies the artist, and
the artist's ideal of what critical work ought to be is an impossible
dream. I find confirmation of my view in other arts than my own. The
critical work of Mr. Bernhard Berenson, for instance, seems to me
wonderful and satisfying. But when I mention Mr. Berenson to a painter I
invariably discover that that painter's secret attitude towards Mr.
Berenson is--well, aristocratic. The finest, and the only first-rate,
criticism is produced when, by an exceptional accident, a creative artist
of balanced and powerful temperament is moved to deal exhaustively with a
subject. Among standard critical works the one that has most impressed me
is Lessing's "Laocoon"--at any rate the literary parts of it. Here (I have
joyously said to myself) is somebody who knows what he is talking about!
Here is some one who has _been there_.