“A critic should always strive to recapture the sense of wonder and surprise with which he first beheld a now-familiar work of art.” ShouldFirstsArtWonderSurpriseCriticsStriveFamiliarWorks Of ArtSense Of Wonder Author:Terry Teachout
“I'm especially interested in what I call practitioner criticism, which is when people who practice an art form start writing about it on blogs. I think that's an immensely important development. I want to see much, much more of that. People who make music who are verbally articulate. And not all musicians are verbally articulate. But those who are should be encouraged to write about what they do and their perception of what other people do. It makes the discourse smarter.” PeopleThinkingWritingArtImportantPerceptionMusicianCriticismBe Encouraged Author:Terry Teachout
“Direction is the most invisible part of the theatrical art. It's not like the conductor in the symphony orchestra performance because he's standing in front of you waiving his arms. You now what he's doing. You don't know what the director is doing unless you know a lot about theater and even then you can only deduce it. You know it when you go to rehearsal. You really know it when they are rehearsing something of yours. I learned more in the rehearsals for The Letter than I have ever dreamed of know in the theater as a critic. If it doesn't make me a better critic, I'm an idiot.” ArtCriticsInvisibleIdiotTheatricalConductor Author:Terry Teachout
“Virgil Thomson, the great classical music critic, who was also a composer, but said that criticism was the only antidote he knew to pay publicity. Critics at their best are independent voices people take seriously their responsibility to see as many things as they can see, put them in the widest possible perspective, educate their readers, I really do think of myself as a teacher. Newspapers that don't carry arts criticism at all while not fulfill this function. And probably their arts journalism will be deprived as a result.” PeopleThinkingArtResponsibilityTeacherPerspectiveCriticismIndependentCriticsJournalismEducateComposerClassical Music Author:Terry Teachout
“Your regional newspaper, and I like to use this example, in your local museum buys a Picasso, that's news especially if they've spent $10 million for it. But if you don't have a credit on your staff then you don't have anybody who's confident to say whether or not it was a good Picasso, might even be aware of the fact that there are bad Picassos. Arts journalists who don't have the experience of criticism, the skill of criticism, don't think in terms of critical evaluation are not going to be as good a journalist as they might be.” ThinkingArtTermCriticismJournalist Author:Terry Teachout
