Is there a method of critical analysis that can explain and demonstrate why a work of art is great, or one that enables someone to distinguish between great art, good art, and mediocre art?
From high school through graduate school I attended many classes on works of literature, and, in my experience, the teachers always chose to teach works that were acknowledged to be excellent, or at least historically important. We never, so far as I can remember, took a bad story and picked it apart to show why it was bad. Nor were we ever given a poem to read, for example, and asked to judge it.
Much later in life I took courses in musicology, including a rather advanced method of musical analysis, which essentially showed that Mozart's sonatas followed certain harmonic rules, but which didn't show why they remain interesting musically after more than 200 years, while so much of the music of Mozart's contemporaries is never played.
Sometimes I think there is a kind of circularity at work. Certain people are trained as arbiters of taste, and they train acolytes, and these experts assert that certain art is good. Having made that assertion, one can rather easily dissect the work and point out the things one likes in it. Indeed, most likely these experts are right, though they can be blind to the excellencies of certain kinds of art, and there are matters of taste. I can acknowledge that Verdi's operas are great music, but I'm not on opera fan, and I don't enjoy them.
At the moment, an album of Clark Terry's, "Serenade to a Bus Seat," is playing and totally distracting me from writing. In addition to Terry on Trumpet, the other musicians are outstanding: Johnny Griffin on tenor sax, Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums. You could hardly think of five greater jazz musicians. But I don't know how I could persuade someone who doesn't like jazz that this music is beyond superb. What could I say? Just listen!
Obviously there's a matter of skill. You can hear that these musicians are masters of their instruments and that they play together with precision - but skill is no guarantee of artistic excellence.
What about the other direction: can MFA programs teach people how to become excellent artists? Or at least to become the best artists they can be? I admit to ignorance. I suspect that the answer is no, but I'm not well enough informed.
Food for thought in any event.
From high school through graduate school I attended many classes on works of literature, and, in my experience, the teachers always chose to teach works that were acknowledged to be excellent, or at least historically important. We never, so far as I can remember, took a bad story and picked it apart to show why it was bad. Nor were we ever given a poem to read, for example, and asked to judge it.
Much later in life I took courses in musicology, including a rather advanced method of musical analysis, which essentially showed that Mozart's sonatas followed certain harmonic rules, but which didn't show why they remain interesting musically after more than 200 years, while so much of the music of Mozart's contemporaries is never played.
Sometimes I think there is a kind of circularity at work. Certain people are trained as arbiters of taste, and they train acolytes, and these experts assert that certain art is good. Having made that assertion, one can rather easily dissect the work and point out the things one likes in it. Indeed, most likely these experts are right, though they can be blind to the excellencies of certain kinds of art, and there are matters of taste. I can acknowledge that Verdi's operas are great music, but I'm not on opera fan, and I don't enjoy them.
At the moment, an album of Clark Terry's, "Serenade to a Bus Seat," is playing and totally distracting me from writing. In addition to Terry on Trumpet, the other musicians are outstanding: Johnny Griffin on tenor sax, Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums. You could hardly think of five greater jazz musicians. But I don't know how I could persuade someone who doesn't like jazz that this music is beyond superb. What could I say? Just listen!
Obviously there's a matter of skill. You can hear that these musicians are masters of their instruments and that they play together with precision - but skill is no guarantee of artistic excellence.
What about the other direction: can MFA programs teach people how to become excellent artists? Or at least to become the best artists they can be? I admit to ignorance. I suspect that the answer is no, but I'm not well enough informed.
Food for thought in any event.
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