The multitalented Lore Sjoberg has a very funny post on the ideal response to people like me.
Of course, Lore saves the best for last. Though there are some good, intelligent arguments that invoke subjectivity, “it’s my style” is by and large the exclusive refrain of art criminals and the people who defend them. Think Least I Could Do is bad? Guess lowbrow humor just isn’t your thing! Think Michael Bay’s Transformers films are lame, disposable pap? Obviously you just hate action movies and would be more at home with some girly frou-frou drama.
You say I can't draw? Well, they said the same thing about Picasso! Ever hear of a little picture called Guernica? HEH! Showed you buddy!
Indeed, there is no good or bad in art, no right or wrong, merely differing tastes, and all works float as equals within a relativistic vacuum. Rules of composition? Art school? What do those ivory-tower fops know? Why, they paid Andy Warhol ten gazillion dollars for an empty soup can! Hah!
…that’s pretty much the theory, to the best of my understanding.
Of course, the empty can rattles the loudest, and it is the most artistically bankrupt who will proclaim the shrillest that their detractors just can’t appreciate their snowflake-special brand of genius. This is no coincidence; there are two kinds of artists–those who address their shortcomings and improve, and those who spin excuses for their shortcomings and stay shitty forever.
Which is not to discount subjectivity out of hand. The value of many an artist’s work has been recognized too late–and the artist who challenges no boundaries is merely another Kinkade. A subjective eye toward art is indispensable to the survival of the craft.
History will redeem me
Now here’s why none of that applies to what I do. Recall what I said last time about Schultz and Disney; there is no style without fundamentals to stylize. A five-year-old’s crayon doodles are not in the “abstract style”–theirs is the absence of style. Similarly, memes, strawmen, recycled art and ZOMBIE HITLER do not constitute stylistic innovations–they are stratagems for circumventing the creative process altogether. The types of webcomics you will see reviewed here are barely art and if they can be said to have a style, it is no style of artistic merit.
The Gutter Snipe, in its response to my post, noted that “aesthetics are not laws”–rather, aesthetic standards are now, as ever, in flux. That much is true. But I fear for the future in which our aesthetic standards reward laziness, accept pettiness and hold sacrosanct the lowest common denominator. You are no Cezanne, so don’t make subjectivity into your personal aegis.
July 2, 2009 at 3:34 am
LICD is dead. Long live SICD…
http://www.drunkduck.com/Smug_I_Could_Do/index.php
July 2, 2009 at 2:37 pm
In my reckoning, ‘Rihanna Somalia’ is hard to top.
July 8, 2009 at 12:18 am
[...] What The Hell People starts off with a recent Lore Sjoberg post about criticism care of Wired.com. (Excerpt: “It’s important to let people know what parts of your work you won’t change, so they won’t bother criticizing it. For instance, you might say: ‘I’m writing an original story about a Jebi knight named Lucas Starwalker who fights an evil imperial overlord named Darthon Vaderon who turns out to actually be his father. I’m not going to change the plot, the setting, the characters or the names, but aside from that let me know if there’s anything I can do to make my story even more awesome!’”)He applies its words of wisdom to webcomics. Its concluding words: The Gutter Snipe, in its response to my post, noted that “aesthetics are not laws”–rather, aesthetic standards are now, as ever, in flux. That much is true. But I fear for the future in which our aesthetic standards reward laziness, accept pettiness and hold sacrosanct the lowest common denominator. You are no Cezanne, so don’t make subjectivity into your personal aegis. [...]