Tag: literature

It is always dangerous for the artist to balance the need for comprehensiveness with the need not to stray too far from the essential. The first is necessary because it delimits, whether one likes it or not, the dimension of the artist himself, whose work will be considered short-sighted or vicious if it does not possess, if not a balance, a variety that brings it reasonably close to what life and the real world consist of. This is why some, determined to overcome this problem, end up losing themselves in works that add less and more mischaracterize the author’s identity. There is no sure measure. What is certain is that, just as insistence on obsessions that we do not possess may seem tiresome, it is discouraging when we come across works in which we find no trace of an artist we thought we knew.

In short, we give more value to works that, from an entirely subjective perspective, generate a greater impact. This is the only parameter that really matters to us. It also seems to be the fairest, since it is independent of our predispositions. We cannot control what a work is capable of generating in us, and from this we realize that we can do nothing about its power. So, in the last instance, all that is needed in our judgment is sincerity to admit how much a work has been able to transform us.

There are lines that, even if they seem full of absurdities, lead our thoughts to very interesting and sometimes unexplored areas. For this reason, it is good that we encourage the exploration of the nonsense: from it we occasionally extract the unprecedented and unexpected, and we may reach surprising destinations, even if this was not the intention of the author in our company. Does it make a difference? Apparently not…

One avoids much frustration by remembering that art is also mostly made up of mediocre men, with mediocre inclinations, who learned artistic technique as they would learn to fly a kite or play Sudoku. Thus, the majority distinguish themselves only superficially, when in essence they have nothing superior. So to expect, in each work, the discovery of an extraordinary spirit is simply unreasonable. It is precisely because they are rare that great artists deserve special appreciation.