Letters

Leonardo, Vol. 10, pp. 175-176. Pergamon Press 1977. Printed in Great Britain. LETTERS Readers’comments are welcomed on texts published in Leonardo. The Editors reserve the right to shorten lettersfor reasons o f space. Letters should be written in English or in French. ON THE CHARACTER OF WRITINGS BY ARTISTS ON THEIR WORK The appearance of Warren Padula’s and my attempt to explain what his sculpture is about [Leonardo 9, 235 (1976) ] and Rita Nolan’s article [Leonardo9,231 (1976)1in the same issuestruck me as a fortuitous juxtaposition. Some of Nolan’s conclusions, which I regard as philosophy of art done farsightedly, 1 would like to challenge. Nolan, in being concerned with describing whether a statement by an artist about his work (or that by another artist) iscriticism or philosophy, makes, it seemsto me, a major logical error. Criticism need not be valid in order to be criticism; a hypothesis need not be true in order to be a hypothesis. In other words, the evaluotion of either hypotheses or criticisms of art is an issue separate from the description of a particular statement [cf. David W. Ecker, Justifying Aesthetic Judgments. Art Education (May, 1967)1. There are other underlying assumptions I believeNolan makes that I reject: (I) Philosophy of art written by non-artists is generallynon-opaque. (2) In order for a statement about a work of art to be described as art criticism, it must deal with and only with the observable external properties of a work of art and not with its incept (to borrow Monroe C. Beardsley’s term) or its motivation or its coming into being. (3)Artists are different from art critics and art theoreticians in that, if artists perform a critical or theoretical function, they will perform it inadequately. (4) The artistic act is uniquelydifferent both from the act ofcriticism and of theorizing about art. Louise A. DeSalvo 1045 Oakland Court Teaneck, NJ 07666. U.S.A. It appears that I have been misunderstood to be urging an elitist view that artistsare incompetent theoreticians. This view is by no means mine. I am indebted to Louise DeSalvo for pointing out this potential misunderstanding in her letter above[Leonardo10, 175(1977)1. I do not argue that an artist cannot be an excellent critic, theoretician or philosopher. To suggest that certain works constitute a hitherto unrecognized genre is to say that somethingvaluable about them is obscured by assimilating them under old categories, that our conception of the other genres inadequately represents important features of these works. It is no more denigrating of the new genre suggested than of the other genres, in the present instance, criticism, art theory, philosophy of art. The fact that ‘TheResistibleRise of Arturo Ui’is a bad classicaltragedy is not a fault of Brecht’s play. The works in question may have features common to works in the genres with which they are contrasted. A work may, indeed, belong to several genres and exemplify them all excellently. To suggesta new genre is not to embrace sharp distinctions. Genres are not like zoological species. I agree that questions of evaluation are distinct from questions of description. However, there are important relations between description and evaluation. Categorizing a work by assigning it to a genre serves to call attention to certain features, those associated with the genre, as the features of the work that are valuable, important, to be appreciated; in short, as features in terms of which the work is to be evaluated. I, too, reject all four of DeSalvo’s final propositions. In suggesting that the statements that I consider should be described as belonging to a different genre, I do not intend that they are unique-onstitute a classby itself.To say that would be to say that they are not characterizable in general terms and do not admit of theoretical study. But, to the contrary, I have urged acknowledgment of a new genrein order to account theoretically and in a general way for the important cognitive and creative features of the particular works that I discuss. Rita Nolan Dept. of Philosophy Univ. of North Carolina Chapel Hill, NC 27514, U.S.A. CONSTRUCTIONS BASED ON CURVED...