Writing About the Arts

William Zinsser proivdes a useful window onto the undefined and shapeless body of Arts criticism. He provides shape with his musing on the distinctions between reviewing and criticism: there are those who promote and those who mediate. The most compelling point (related to the former) of Zinsser's article is that critics need to find anyway to engage with the artist. That is, if critical mediation between the arts and public is possible, the critic must craft, like a gunsmith, his or her own language. To demonstrate this necessity, Zissner emphasizes the absolute importance of writing with clear language. If mediation is to be effective, the public must be able to understand. There is a careful balanace between dumbing criticism down, either through sensationalism or polemics, and using language as carefully and precisely as possible. For me this is what sets the critic apart from the artist. The critic has the task of mediating art in a universal public language. The artist has the task of mediating reality into negativity (not critical negativity). Thus, the critic is not so much as connected to the work of art as much as s/he is committed to the public.