Ah, here we have a sore point. It is impossible to reach outside
of the range of family and close friends, and not receive criticism.
And few are the artists who are so sure of themselves that don't
take it to heart, and sometimes have problems with it. The most basic point to remember is that while the cruder points
of technique may be objective, the essential part of art will
always be personal and subjective. Perhaps even more important to remember is that even the worst
work of art ever produced is a good work of art. I will repeat that: Even the worst work of art ever produced is a good work of art. Please notice that I am not saying "even the worst work of art
ever produced has a little good in it". Or that is "has some merit".
I mean what I say: "Even the worst work of art ever produced is
a good work of art." There are people who are very fond of making harsh criticism.
Some of these are even very good artists themselves (though I
suspect it is very unhealthy for one's own creativity to be habitually
a hard critic). These people often believe that most of the art
in the world should not even exist. That the world would be better
off without all the crap art that we are drowning in. To those
people I can only say one thing: Grow up. Get some humility, all
right? One thing we could all learn a lot better is humility in the face
of the Act Of Creation. It is doubtful if we have readily available on the face of the
Earth anything that is closer to the actual divine than creation.
I would use the word "holy" if it had not been misused so badly
and often. (To me, something holy is something that should get
the highest respect and admiration, but not something that is
Untouchable at all.) Further more, the act of creation, by its very nature, cannot
be destructive. This sounds redundant when put that way, but one
can see people fighting violently for the censorship of some work
of art or another, due to its "evil" nature. An ACTION can be
evil, but a creation cannot. Here we have a long scale of good only, not one of positive and
negative.
About Criticism