Arts Criticism Is More Important Than It Has Ever Been

Criticism, specifically criticism of media and art, has existed for thousands of years. Different values encouraged different types of criticism: Greek plays being evaluated for how they might change the audience to be more uptight, or disconnected from reality, among other things. Nowadays, there is more art, more audiences, and society is more complicated. Criticism is recognized by most to be gauging the quality of a specific artwork or piece of media, with the intention of helping sift through the near limitless works that are available to us. “We can’t listen to every song or read every book, and art is essential to our being. Thus, critics help us decide how to best use our very limited time.”

So. We already have a lot of critics online. Some say we don’t need anymore critics, or that critics even harm the field of art they are in by making their audience or people in general more critical or aware of things that they don’t need to care about. Almost like an instrument in a song that you don’t hear the first times, but when pointed out, you cannot tune that instrument out.

But criticism is not merely a figure from a publication stamping an artwork with a thumbs up or thumbs down. Consider the way we talk about the art we like with our friends, for example. A common conversation for me includes what I liked about the artwork, what I didn’t like, how I experienced it, how I felt while experiencing it, and sometimes a recommendation.

Now that I say this, its time to discuss why criticism is more important than it has ever been—what has changed over time to make criticism more important now than in the past?

Two main reasons. A few sentences ago I mentioned talking about art with friends. More so now than ever, due to changes in social circumstances like covid and internet access, we create relationships from others through the interests, hobbies, and art taste we share. A brief example of this dynamic: we can (try to) make friends with a person sitting down next to us at work and real life quite easily. The amount of people we talk to or have in our proximity is limited, so it is easy enough to bond with another by simply being next to them. In contrast, the internet opens up a near limitless volume of people to interact with. Thus, we tend to have friends on the internet who we have met or bonded with through media, more so than our friends in real life. (If you have any friends. I’ll be your friend if you don’t have any real life friends).

Criticism is important in the consumption and discussion of media—it equips us with the tools to appreciate art in more depth, and gives us language to discuss that appreciation, among other things. Ever talk to someone about art or an interest in which you know the technical terms and they don’t, or the other way around? Even the ability to form a basic opinion of something is influenced heavily by our experience with criticism.

This is partly due to the language that criticism teaches us: from simple words that everyone takes for granted to references to other influential media that is assumed to be known; we assume everyone knows what “character” and “narrator” means, and constructing a statement about these figures without this language can prove difficult. You will be able to explain what a narrator is through its definition; but once you know the definition, it better outlines who and what the narrator is when you read a book with one. I can explain that “meter” in writing is “the particular arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables”, but until I give examples or one hears two sentences with vastly different meter out loud, you could say the term is “learned” but not noticed or felt. And the references to other works might be considered part of this too; for example, in video game criticism, people were saying “this game is the ‘Dark Souls’ of platformers” to say that the game shares some qualities with Dark Souls while being a different genre than Dark Souls.

Our Relationship With Informal and Conversational Criticism

We all have our favorite artworks and we are emotionally invested in seeing others enjoy that same artwork. When when we introduce some art we like to someone and they don’t like it, it can spark disappointment and argument. If they give what we think are arbitrary or inaccurate criticisms of the work, disdain for each other’s tastes and recommendations will appear. I’m sure everyone has a complicated relationship regarding other people recommending art to them: after a while, many people give up and simply don’t take recommendations, or listen to the person giving the recommendations but never get around to checking the recommended works out.

Part of being a good critic means understanding taste and the various “paths” or “groups” that people fall into regarding their choices and taste in art. The end goal is not a level of sophistication where one only listens to, reads, or watches the ‘best’ work out there, but instead a level of competence that leads to being able to appreciate the widest breadth of art while also being able to independently determine the qualities and personal value of the art. Essentially, being able to form your own opinion regarding all types of works and eloquently enough to communicate reasonably why you like or dislike the work.

And though it is perfectly reasonable to say “I do not like this genre of music” without saying why, the point of this text is to argue that we can form better connections with others when we are able to explain why— articulating our feelings about art in greater depth.

This, I believe, wraps up my text. Though you could say I am writing about “how and why criticism helps us connect with others”, I chose a title about how criticism is more important than ever. With so much negativity surrounding so many different facets of life; are people more alone than ever, unhappy than ever, illiterate than ever, pragmatic than ever; art is needed more than ever—and by extension, arts criticism.