[0509] The Artist
└ posted on Monday, 9 September 2013, by Novil
- Submission: Lake in summer | by ~the-fire-girl | Aug 31, 2013 | Lake close to my hometown, oil on canvas.
- Comment: ~plusreflection | Aug 31, 2013 | wow, i love your talents. keep up the good work!
- Comment: ~annaballo | Aug 31, 2013 | Iwish I could paint like that!
- Comment: ~DruidDoubleForce | Aug 31, 2013 | This is amazing! Very good job!
- Comment: ^KazumiRC | Aug 31, 2013 | Gorgeous. The light and shadows look amazing.
- Comment: ~seacatz | Sep 01, 2013 | I think this is very nice you even have the reflection of the trees right ^_^ very good job keep it up
- Comment: ~mixxxtrope | Sep 01, 2013 | meh, that’s pretty boring.. And the trees look kinda artificial
- Comment: ~salla-chin | Sep 01, 2013 | wow! that’s a awesome landscape picture! <newline> keep up the good work!
- Larisa: I’ll never draw a picture again.
![[0509] The Artist](/comics/2013-09-09-0509-the-artist.png "[0509] The Artist")
Every person who makes an effort to create stuff and put it before other people has got to be prepared to receive critique. Heck, that’s most of the reason why you hang it out there, isn’t it?
Moreover, the “Ooh, I love it!” stuff does you no good, especially if the person making the comment says nothing about what it is that he admires, or doesn’t suggest other stuff that might be done differently, or along the same lines.
I write. I pay more attention to perceptive negative comments than I do to unaccompanied “Attaboy!” messages, and I pay special attention to “Have you tried this-or-that?” and “Have you seen this guy’s stuff?” indications of dissatisfaction.
Sure, critics are like eunuchs at a gang bang. But anybody willing to go beyond “You suck, and you’re a racist!” is worth half-a-listen, right?
Tucci78 wrote:
“Meh, that’s pretty boring” isn’t critique, though. It’s certainly nicer than “you suck, and you’re a racist!”, but it’s not critiquing the picture as it offers no suggestion on how to make it better. Had he said something along the lines of: “You could have made it more dynamic” or offered some suggestions on how to make better trees, then it’d be a critique.
“Meh, that’s boring” is just as unhelpful as “Awesome drawing!”, and slightly down-putting.
Larisa is being overly sensitive here, I think.
This message contains two separate kinds of critique: conceptual and technical. Tree looking unnatural is something Larisa should pay attention to and attempt to do better, calling this part a troll is just stupid. Critique of concept aka “boring” is more stupid, but it’s even more stupid to pay attention to it. No work of art is ever going to be interesting to everyone, it’s obvious.
That is not to say it doesn’t hurt. It does, especially if two types are mixed together. But saying you will never draw anymore? Either Larisa has gotten too used to positive feedback and actually needed to be knocked down a peg, or she’s being a drama queen – I vote for the latter.
One’s opinion of one’s own work can fall into two general categories:
The complacent one: My work is good, and there isn’t much (or anything) I need to do to improve it.
The self-critical one: My work may or may not be passable, but I’m aware of a lot of flaws, which I’m working on, and there may be other flaws I’m unaware of.
Of course, in reality, there’s no such thing as perfect, only better and worse (and sometimes it’s difficult to compare those when it comes to something as subjective as art). So the self-critical artist is always unsatisfied, but always striving to improve, whereas the complacent artist is always certain of perfection, which means they’re not improving.
It’s far too easy for self-critical artists to focus on the negative comments. Positive comments are gratifying — they’re glad people like their work, flawed as it is — but they don’t really believe them. But they believe negative comments instantly, because they confirm their inner beliefs — that their work is flawed and they have so much more to learn.
Complacent artists agree wholeheartedly with positive comments — of course their work is good. They reject or even attack negative comments, though, because clearly this person has the audacity to attack perfection.
It’s hard to walk the tightrope, believing that one’s art is good enough to keep going for now while still striving for better.
I am glad to see that most of the commenters understand the difference between someone offering feedback that may not be particularly useful or well-directed, and a genuine troll. Having been on the Internet and its predecessors since 1984 and seen the development of this culture of invincible anonymity that we take for granted today, it’s refreshing to see that people are still able to differentiate, mostly, between “I am not thrilled by this and I am having trouble effectively telling you why not” and “I want to hurt you”.
One of the most interesting experiments I ever saw in this regard was an outgrowth of an argument on one of the early USENET music newsgroups, where people were insulting and trolling one another. Sometime in the late 1980s, I think it was. Someone stood up and said, “I don’t think you would talk to me this way if we were face to face, and I’m willing to prove it. I’m coming to meet you in person.” And he crisscrossed the country meeting various musicians in various places and getting to know them. As an outgrowth of this, several of them got together and recorded at least one album.
Even better, the music didn’t entirely suck. 😉
@ Ezhik:
We must not ever forget, art can be a very mental thing sometimes. Whenever we draw weather it be on a canvas or a tablet, it’s like we’re putting our hearts and souls into what we do to express ourselves at times, only for something so rude to be said to put you down. However, as a tough artist, one should simply brush such a comment off and keep at it. This particular person seems more like a hater / troll rather than a critic because there is nothing but dissing in the picture. Not following the proper guidelines of a critique at all. I’m quite shocked to see her so down about it as well being who she was and all, but hey, even the toughest has their weak points I suppose.
@ ekimmak:
you want a RL example of how terrible such comments can effect?
read up on Karen Carpenter (of the country singing duo “The Carpenters”).
At one of the earliest additions of her singing career, a critic couldn’t find anything wrong with the music, so she said Karen was ‘chubby’ in her article.
Karen became a glaring example of the anexetic/bulimic eating disorders. She died of them.
Honestly, Larisa is overreacting a bit. I wrote a few stories, and would kill for some honest feedback including faults I made. Getting 20+ “Great, Awesome, More!” don’t help in the slightest, and after a while they all sound like background noises you’ll always get on the Internet…
And that critique was pretty tame.
Amberfox wrote:
While I agree with the tenor of your comment, one note is off. Picasso himself admitted that his art bad; being made to cater to his patrons’ decadent tastes. I couldn’t find the original quote so I copied this digest from a web forum:
He consciously downgraded the quality of his art to fit the requirements of the tiny public which initially favoured the decadent anti-art movement. He knew he was overrated but went along with the game.
… Honestly, all of those comments are needless.
Six of them are just sycophantic butt-licking… and the one highlighted was irredeemably vague.
Plus the highlighting of the “negative” comment is simply a product of modern society’s obsession with prioritising positivity over honesty or practicality.
… v_v; … Then again, I tend to go too far in the other direction.
I remember one time I tried to do some fan-art for another comic. Had a few people pointing out things I’d done wrong. I was cool with that. I even had a few people who seemed to be trying to compliment it… and THAT I took issue with. I didn’t make a scene or anything, but it felt like they were patronising me… and I didn’t like it.
Wait, didn’t Ivan tell Landon that she hates blind praise anyway? And why is she getting so bent out of shape about such a mild criticism? I wouldn’t have expected that of her; “sensitive” is one of the last things I would expect of Larisa.
Meh, the only critics worth listening to are the ones who tell you what you might do better; and without being super-vague about it. Because it’s far too easy to write a comment like that one without thinking about it.
Abel Undercity wrote:
Even this person deserves mercy. Let Larisa save her flamethrower’s ammo. I’ll handle the problem.????????????????