Page 33 - Studio International - December 1969

of criticism refuses to engage in the expres-
sion of his feelings only because that critic
himself has a deep hatred for the act of
creation, for the artist's preoccupation with
creation. To hide this hatred, he builds his
facade of higher learning. That is why I call it
hypocriticism. Only passionate criticism is
honest criticism.
Now what about the passionate? By passio-
nate, I do not mean that kind of passion that
reads as if it were written by lawyers and
priests. These dictators of taste who write
these legal briefs and high-pitched homiletics
are practising not passion but zeal. Somehow
they know that nothing impresses the bour-
geois and the Philistine like the zealot.
I know. I grew up suffering zealots and I know
how beguiling and how dangerous they can
be. The worst of them was Albert C. Barnes,
who refused to let me or anybody else see his
collection unless I and they believed in him.
Although the Barnes Foundation is now open
to me, I have never been there. I am afraid
his ghost would interfere with my seeing.
Then there was Thomas Craven, whose zeal
succeeded in blanketing a country and a
decade, not to mention the Bloomsbury set.
What is tragic today is that so many of our
young critics are confusing the passionate with
zeal. The more objective and dispassionate,
the greater the zeal. They don't even care
whether you like their favourites. You must like
them for the 'right' reasons, that is their
reasons. The ghost of Barnes is rising again.
The passionate that I ask for is that felt ex-
perience on the part of the critic that brings,
because of its sensitivity and intensity, new
poetic insights into the living quality of a work
of art and by means of the vibration of life
that the critic brings to it himself, reveals not Are we celebrating Baudelaire's taste? For fundamental of all the problems of a painter,
only the critic's living sensibility but also re- Delacroix, certainly—but how about his ne- the problem every painter has, no matter
veals the artist who is its subject. glect of Courbet? And his hostility to Manet? what his style, namely—what to paint. This
Instead of an act of hatred by a 'scientific' And how about all the bad 'epic' picture- ability of Baudelaire to sense that this is the
critic, such criticism becomes an act of love as makers he adored? How about Ingres? And main issue is impressive indeed. Baudelaire
part of a man's feelings. As Baudelaire said, 'A then, how about his preoccupation with the didn't care about being right. He cared only
point of view that opens up the widest hori- cartoonist Guys? It is not much of a record. about being himself. The 'scientific' critic
zons.' As Stendhal said, 'Il faut sentir et non What is also interesting is that in spite of his lives in constant fear that he will make a
savoir.' And as St. Augustine said (Baude- love of high art, he was also preoccupied with mistake.
laire quotes him), Amabam amare.' fashion and fashion-plates, with the identifica- I realize the desperate nature of my plea.
What I am asking from the art critic is not tion of modern life with the street, with an in- After all, it is more than 15 years since I said
that he create a work of science or even a terest in the dandy, the courtesan, the crowd, then that as far as I am concerned it really
work of art, but that each time he writes, he the bizarre and the herd. Were Baudelaire doesn't matter. I said then, that esthetics is
create himself. As Baudelaire said: 'What is alive today, I suppose he would be today's for me like the study of ornithology must be
the modern conception of pure art? It is to greatest critic of Pop art. for the birds. I don't need it. But I am now
create a suggestive magic which contains He would have loved the Pop art of today, but asking for passionate criticism because any-
both subject and object, the external world he did not neglect Op art either. Baudelaire thing else fills me with a sense of humiliation.
and the artist himself.' As I said, I do not wish says, Tor a long time, I lived opposite a I am tired of having the zealots write as if
to defend the passionate. I only wish to ask for drinking shop (today we call it a saloon or a they were addressing me. Why are they al-
more of it. bar) which was crudely striped in red and ways talking to me ? Do they think I am in
After all, what are we celebrating ? Are we green. It afforded my eyes a delicious pain.' their classroom? Why don't they face up to
celebrating Baudelaire's ideas ? Remarkable What we are celebrating is not these things, themselves ? Perhaps if they began talking
as many of them are, it would be difficult to but his enormous courage to be passionate to themselves and looking at themselves,
celebrate even the good ideas for their singu- about everything that interested him, the passionate criticism could once again be
larity or their originality. Many of the good things he saw, the things he thought about, achieved. Instead of worrying about making
ideas come from Delacroix or from Stendhal. the things he felt. It is this act of courage mistakes and teaching me, they might worry
And did Baudelaire know that Stendhal got towards his own passionate nature that made about their own feelings. As James Joyce
his ideas from the Abbé Dubos ? it possible for him to understand the most said, 'First we feel, then we fall'.