Why Is Art Hard? If It’s Not, It Ain’t
July 12, 2006
Why Is Art Hard?
“According to current wisdom, listening to music, reading poetry [or novel or short story, watching a movie], or contemplating a painting should not be thought of as work, least of all as hard work. Works of art that demand serious attention, time, and effort are treated with suspicion because they might not appeal to a significant section of the population. The official politics of culture of our time stigmatizes such art for not being inclusive.” That’s the insight of cultural critic Frank Furedi in his Telegraph essay “Music Matters Too Much to Be Made Easy.” He quotes composer James MacMillan: When we are challenged, we must “give something up, something of our humanity, something of our precious time.” By doing so—in rare moments—we “transcend the chasm that usually separates the cerebral from the sensual.”
Furedi misleads, though. Art is not difficult—no piece of art is. Understanding its aesthetics—the logic system that defines its beauty and possibly its truth—challenges our reasonable, rational selves, and like anything new and challenging, it requires work to understand. It’s akin to learning a new language. There’s also a part of us that distrusts individuals who don’t speak “our” language in public. That same distrust arises when a painting, novel, poem, or symphony challenges our sense of aesthetics because in essence it says that we’re not as smart as we thought . There’s the challenge and the rub. That’s the task of art–to challenge our sense of ourselves through our more human, sensual side, as Furedi notes so well.
Who’s Stefan Zwieg? People Once Knew
“In the 1920s and 1930s, Stefan Zweig was an immensely popular writer, a man who had to barricade himself in his house in Salzburg in order to avoid the fans lurking around his property in the hope of waylaying him.” That’s how Joan Acocella starts her essay about the once famous German writer.
So Why Open an Independent Bookstore?
Independent bookstores are closing. Some individuals question their ability to survive. So did Nic Bottomley, his wife Julliette, and his brother-in-law Harvey quit their lucrative white-collar jobs and open Mr. B’s Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath. He explains why and notes that he will maintain a blog in the Guardian.
How about an Original Script?
Euripides apparently was on the cutting edge of drama, even if that edge was more than two millennia ago. In the New York Review of Books, there’s an excellent essay about his contribution to drama and poet Anne Carson’s new translation of four Euripides’ plays.
