The number of professional critics dwindles in the face of the internet’s instantaneous, all-inclusive platform. With amateurs’ impromptu reviews multiplying, the space for complex critical thought becomes smaller and smaller, melting into a wide and shallow sea of quick judgements and vacuous raves. Daniel Mendelsohn, a cultural critic for the New Yorker, and Anya Ventura, a cultural critic from Iowa City, explore the parameters of high quality criticism within the context of its deteriorating field.
In Mendelsohn’s article “A Critic’s Manifesto,” the quality of a critique parallels the quality of thinking. According to Mendelsohn, good criticism contains thorough analysis cultivated by a rich foundation of knowledge. In describing his cultural critic idols he writes, “Even when you disagreed with them, their judgments had authority, because they were grounded in something more concrete, more available to other people, than “feelings” or “impressions.” According to Mendelsohn, criticism must be based in the evidence of analysis and education. Ventura’s article, “Slow Criticism: Art in the Age of Post Judgement,” examines the cause of criticism’s current deficiency of complex thought and prose. “Too often we leapfrog over description in favor of judgement, dismiss it as pointless fluff, but description above all is the product of rapt attention. If you are not looking at something long and hard, you cannot describe it well.”
Mendelsohn and Ventura both identify ‘judgement’ as criticism’s final step. While the two journalists’ focuses vary, both agree that judgement’s authority is only as good as its supporting material. According to Mendelsohn, intelligent judgement is grounded in “something more concrete.” It is grounded in the critic’s expertise. Thoughtful analysis derives from understanding the artist’s body of work contextualized within a larger, historical movement. Therefore, authoritative judgement must be based in educated analysis. To Ventura, “something more concrete,” is acute observation. The quality of analysis is determined by the quality of description. Therefore, attentive description and detailed analysis must precede supported judgement. Though Mendelsohn focuses on knowledge and Ventura on observation, I believe that both ultimately call for the same thing. Time. Whether it be studying an artist’s development or sitting with a painting for three hours, well-formed, analytical judgement does not happen over night, and it especially does not happen in an off-the-cuff Yelp review.
Time is the key ingredient to thorough observation and study, analysis, and finally, writing. In critiquing the internet’s growing platform for “vernacular criticism,” Ventura demands that the critic’s prose reflect the complex nature of experiencing art. Therefore, in order to build an original critique, the critic must put in the hours cultivating a literary voice. The numerous and brief social media reviews cannot do justice to the complexity of art, nor that of cultural criticism. Mendelsohn compliments Ventura’s position in describing his cultural critic heroes; from Andrew Porter’s encyclopedic detail, to Whitney Balliett’s “quiet dissections,” to Pauline Kael’s “sustained, cantankerous, and searching critique,” Mendelsohn’s heroes are the exemplars to a less heralded, literary genre. To Ventura and Mendelsohn, advanced cultural criticism is an art form in its own right. Unfortunately, with the rise of corporate-controlled, social media platforms, anyone with ten seconds and username is a critic, assembly line judgments for all.
1,103 Comments
Thanks for your well-written reading! I was really intrigued by your title and I wanted to highlight line of questioning about the corporate aspects of criticism. It seems like there might be a binary forming in our class discussions, made up of “criticism-as-art” (“knowledge + taste = meaningful judgment”) and the other side of the coin, corporate-controlled “yelp-noncriticism.” I’m interested in challenging that binary a little. We shouldn’t forget that publications like the New Yorker and the Nation are corporate enterprises themselves, and their writers are probably under subtle (or not so subtle) pressures from their business-minded superiors. And even if Yelp and Twitter are huge corporations, might the writers of these streams of consciousness “reviews” be less guided by corporate interests? I just want to turn the tables a little; I really believe that corporate influence is inescapable whether you are writing for the New York Times or for your Twitter handle, and I’m interested in discussing this further.
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Hi Julia!
I think something really interesting that your piece brought up was the tension between [or requirement of both] time and expertise when exercising judgement as a critic. If knowledge [according to Mendelsohn] is the foundation of good criticism,do you really need to spend hours in front of a piece like Ventura suggests? Further, if a piece/ form of art has a beautiful, true poetry of meaning and value does knowledge have a place in that ‘analysis’? In some ways I get the impression that Mendelsohn and Ventura want the critic to be both a seasoned historian and celebrity while our generation expects–and ultimately wants– critics to be the think-piece journalists.
Your analysis highlights an intriguing tension in the world of criticism: the balance between time, expertise, and interpretation.
Mendelsohn’s emphasis on knowledge as the bedrock of good criticism is undoubtedly valuable. However, as you rightly point out, Ventura’s perspective raises a crucial question: does extensive time spent with a work necessarily equate to insightful judgment?
The relationship between knowledge and “beautiful, true poetry of meaning and value” in art is another fascinating layer. While informed analysis is certainly beneficial, overemphasizing knowledge might risk stifling the intuitive and emotional responses that art can evoke.
The ideal critic, as you suggest, might exist somewhere between “seasoned historian” and “think-piece journalist.” Perhaps the key lies in acknowledging the value of both knowledge and personal interpretation, recognizing that meaningful criticism can encompass both informed analysis and thoughtful, nuanced reflection.
Furthermore, your observation about our generation’s preference for criticism in the form of think-piece journalism is interesting. This suggests a potential desire for criticism that is accessible, engaging, and sparks conversation.
Overall, your comment highlights the complexity and multifaceted nature of art criticism, prompting valuable questions about the role of knowledge, time, and interpretation in the act of critical engagement.
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Julia —
This essay uses Mendelsohn and Ventura to ponder the issue of critical quality. As Linnea reminds you, the binary between some kind of pure, independent, intellectual critique and something more under the control of forces (corporations) interested in compromising that distance of critique is more fraught, both historically and in the present. But there is something to your point about the emphasis on knowledge and what kind of authority it provides as well as your emphasis on time as a key way question in how critique gets wielded. I’m struck that when it comes to knowledge and authority, Mendelsohn and Ventura ground it in quite different sources. Mendelsohn positions knowledge in a kind of training only a select few are able to wield (without mentioning the time and resources required for attaining that knowledge) while Ventura is more populist: with sustained attention, anyone can produce good criticism. I wonder if this question of time and how it gets used (and by whom and in what ways) is a lurking issue when it comes to cultural criticism. Control of time is an issue that our readings only begin to assess.
I wonder if you might make this this core focus of your essay: cultural criticism and time and how they relate to each other in terms of questions of elite or populist access to the authoritative role of the cultural critic.
Good start here!
Prof. Kramer
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