The essential task of the critic is not to like or dislike the arts or to push bromides, such as to celebrate the “power of reading.” Despite some troublesome modifications, Lionel Trilling carries on the mission of E.A. Poe and Henry James: he articulates the value of the serious act of judgment in a culture hostile to it.
arts-criticism
Book Commentary: The Agony and the Ecstasy of Jonathan Lethem’s Influences
For all of his claims to being a subversive termite, Jonathan Lethem the puffy white elephant appears more often in this collection, trudging down a much safer, much happier road — leave the negativity to the snotty aristocrats.
Fuse Commentary: The End (?) of Ignoring the Death of Arts Criticism
Essentially, Kaiser’s plaint about the vanishing critic is useless because he, and so many other cultural kingpins worried about the end of professional criticism, offer no solutions.
Visual Arts Review: The Last Gesture Succeeds, Despite Cognitive Slurry
The ostensible theme of the exhibit “The Last Gesture” might be best regarded, then disregarded, as critic Charlie Finch’s attempt to channel his roiling cognitive slurry. The work itself doesn’t need it.
Welcome to the Newly Upholstered Arts Fuse!
The Arts Fuse began as my blog after the untimely end of NPR/WBUR Arts Online. But, as more writers and critics wanted to make their voices heard, the blog became a magazine. So, I decided to make it a New England focused magazine modeled on other pioneering efforts to cover the news online, such as […]
The Judicial Review — What Is It?
There is now an eighth Judicial Review, with the panel deliberating on the Boston University College of Fine Arts production of the 1990 Stephen Sondheim/John Weidman musical “Assassins,” which looks at the lives and sensibilities of men and women who attempted (successfully or otherwise) to kill the President of the United States. Below: background on […]
Great News For the ‘Fuse — Support for the Judicial Review
I am not sure that men at present think more profoundly than half a century ago, but beyond question they think with more rapidity, with more skill, with more tact, with more method and less of excrescence in the thought. Besides all this, they have a vast increase in the thinking material; they have more […]
Arts Commentary: “The Boston Globe” Has Nothing to Worry About …
Who cares how the chairs are arranged or even who sits on them on the deck of the Titanic-“Globe”? As the popularity of online publications and blogs grows, the “Globe”’s tepid cultural coverage has become increasingly superfluous.
Fuse Commentary: Book Review Blues
Bloggers are concerned about the fate of book reviews, so raising questions about the quality of book commentary online, especially asking how it can become better, is worth the effort. But any discussion about the future of reviews must be based in reality rather in wishful thinking or defensive delusion. By Bill Marx In an […]
Arts Commentary: Squandered Tears for Criticism?
By Bill Marx Criticism of the fine arts is dying in regional newspapers, but don’t waste too much time mourning the loss. Arts blogger and Wall Street Journal theater critic Terry Teachout’s recent article on how arts criticism is vanishing in regional newspapers hits the nail on the head, though he is either too considerate […]
