Ben Haggard

Rembrandt: late.

Not long ago a friend expressed to me her dismay that I had been so harshly critical, even dismissive, in my postings on Liebermann and Corinth.  Why, she wondered, hadn’t I simply appreciated the work that I do admire, as I had with Bonnard?  Wouldn’t that have been more gracious, less gratuitous?  I believe these are good questions, so I have continued to think about them.

My answer rests on a distinction between “appreciation” and “discrimination.” To appreciate is “to value or regard highly; to raise or increase in value.”  To discriminate is “to note or observe a difference; to distinguish accurately.”  As Joe puts it, a food enthusiast might be able to appreciate cotton candy, but one would think he lacked discrimination if he ate a lot of it.

This distinction is fundamental to how I think and work as an artist.  I can appreciate all kinds of things—ceramic figurines, B movies, tacky drag, Jello desserts with tiny pastel marshmallows, “My Fair Lady” sing-alongs.  I triangulate among the values these things represent in themselves, the context within which I hold them (which, in the examples above, might be irony or “camp”) and the contribution they make to my own creative life—a process that is most potent when it simultaneously works both objectively and subjectively.  In this way I elevate or appreciate their value.

Discrimination, on the other hand, is the ability (which I find must be continually developed and refined) to make accurate distinctions.  If I am to grow as an artist, I need to hone my ability to distinguish good work from bad, successful from failed, authentic from false, meaningful from vacuous, spiritual from mechanical, vital and challenging from safe and familiar.  As I mature, I expect the distinctions I make to become more numerous, interdependent, and subtle.

I use a different part of my mind to discriminate than I do to appreciate.  One drives toward excellence, the other toward potential.  One works on discovering when and how something is good, the other seeks to see the good in everything.  They are not mutually exclusive—they are simply different mental operations.  Nevertheless, my friend’s point is well taken:  the harsh critic will himself be one-sided and inauthentic if he fails to also hold in mind the larger context in which everything can be appreciated.

Rembrandt: early.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 at 8:56 am and is filed under Art & Artists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.