Has art jumped the shark after WWI?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Plot and character aren't everything in literature. They are two of the main three creative parts of a literary work, the third being composition. When people are considering what is and isn't a great work of literature, they evaluate it by using those components as criteria. Stephen King's composition just isn't on par with many other authors, and that is why many people consider him pulp.

The energy that comes from Stephen King's writing is due to the well-crafted characters and intriguing plot. His composition(which admittedly is intertwined with how you craft your characters, so he does have some skill there) doesn't really elicit much reaction. It's plain and straight forward, which is not what people are looking for when people are determining what is great literature.

How then do you explain Hemingway's legacy, when his writing is most often even plainer than King's? Who is more talented, the writer who paints a scene using 100 words, or the writer who paints the same scene in fifty? Why?

MacLuhan aside, the medium is not the message. In writing fiction, simple language is just as artful as complex language. Simple language adds more energy. There's a reason why the two most important maxims to an author are "Second draft = rough draft - 10%", and "Kill your babies." Both those maxims work to reduce the verbiage and make each word carry more weight.

The essence of our difference here is that you hold that there is an objective metric for the quality of art. I disagree. Art, like morality, is inherently subjective, and relative. Some people can more clearly elucidate their artistic vision using standard techniques, but confusing the mastery of technique for the expression of artistry, while common, is in my mind fallacious. The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.

Technique helps us express what is inside us, but chasing technique often results distracting both the artist and the viewer from the vision which lies at the root of all art.

Diane Romanello is, technically speaking, a great painter. Her perspectives are congruent, her colors accurate, her brushwork very acceptable. But -- is it art?







Is that art? Why, or why not?

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Of course, because ultimately art comes from an emotional connection with the medium that allows you fluidly manipulate it into a creative expression.

But that just proves my point that standards can be set for what is and isn't art, because you can evaluate a piece of art by looking at how developed that emotional connection was and its influence upon the final product. You see, evaluating art isn't just about the final product. It's also about evaluating the process involved.

Ah, but when the standard is emotional, the metric is necessarily subjective. And that means sometimes crude art is more artistic that the technically refined art.