Wilfrid Sheed Quotes

The popular distinction between 'constructive' and 'destructive' criticism is a sentimentality: the mind too weak to perceive in what respects the bad fails is not strong enough to appreciate in what the good succeeds. To be without discrimination is to be unable to praise. The critic who lets you know that he always looks for something to like in works he discusses is not telling you anything about the works or about art; he is saying 'see what a nice person I am.

Nothing touches a work of art so little as words of criticism: they always result in more or less fortunate misunderstandings.

Criticism even should not be without its charms. When quite devoid of all amenities, it is no longer literary.

Nothing, of course, will ever take the place of the good old fashion of 'liking' a work of art or not liking it; the more improved criticism will not abolish that primitive, that ultimate, test.

Being critical of art is a way of showing art respect. No sports writer would say, "Well the Yankees had a great season this year." No food critic would get a bad meal and say, "Oh, it was so lovely." It always strikes me as odd when people say, "Why do you write negatively about any art?" I think that everybody has mixed feelings about everything - even Goya. I mean, I look at Rembrandt sometimes and I hear a voice in my head go, "It's pretty brown."

If the mystical lovers of the arts, who consider all criticism dissection and all dissection destruction of enjoyment, thought logically, an exclamation like "Goodness alive!" would be the best criticism of the most deserving work of art. There are critiques which say nothing but that, only they do so more extensively.

Critics have a job to do. I understand that. It's not just to criticize. They're trying to interpret art for the public.

You open a section of 'The New York Times,' and there's a review or a story on a choreographer or a dancer, and there's an informative, clear image of a dancer. This is, in my view, not an interesting photograph.

The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.

Criticism is fine and conversation is fine, but the person who's criticizing should know what they're saying and whom they're criticizing.

Because I'm a former critic, I view criticism differently than most do. I can take criticism, but if you're going to eviscerate us, be specific.

One way to test a picture's integrity is to turn it upside down - a technique used not only by connoisseurs but also by artists trying to see their work with a fresh eye.

Everybody's an art critic.

One of the most valuable things one of my art teachers said to me was, ‘Don’t get upset by criticism. Value the fact that at least someone noticed what you did.

This man, who for twenty-five years has been reading and writing about art, and in all that time has never understood anything about art, has for twenty-five years been hashing over other people's ideas about realism, naturalism and all that nonsense; for twenty-five years he has been reading and writing about what intelligent people already know and about what stupid people don't want to know--which means that for twenty-five years he's been taking nothing and making nothing out of it. And with it all, what conceit! What pretension!

Nothing touches a work of art so little as criticism.

I find relatively little relationship between the work of art and the immediate critical response it gets.

Either criticism is no good at all (a very defensible position) or else criticism means saying about an author the very things that would have made him jump out of his boots.

A critic is a gong at a railroad crossing clanging loudly and vainly as the train goes by.

The pleasure of criticizing takes away from us the pleasure of being moved by some very fine things.

The greatest honor that can be paid to the work of art, on its pedestal of ritual display, is to describe it with sensory completeness. We need a science of description. Criticism is ceremonial revivification.

Criticism is like champagne, nothing more execrable if bad, nothing more excellent if good.

A true critic ought to dwell rather upon excellencies than imperfections

An important job of the critic is to savage what is mediocre or meretricious.

Critics hang around and wait for others to make mistakes. But the real doers of the world have not time for criticizing others. They are too busy doing, making mistakes, improving, making progress.