Jocelyn Wang, quoting Brendan Behan:

>"Critcs are like eunuchs in a harem.  They're there every night, they see
>it done every night, they see how it should be done every night, but they
>can't do it themselves."

This is a commonplace about art criticism, but I've always wondered where
does it comes from.  There's hardly something so sensitive for a composer
(even for the worst one) than an opinion about his work.  This is obvious,
but there are some social constraints that works in order to soften or to
hide this.  Many artists exhibits a polite but conspicuous poker face in
Front of a bad criticism, but I have the suspect that all of them feels
it like a sort of agression.  A bad criticism on a work of a composer (no
matter how constructive may it intended to be) is just like saying to a
mother: "ma'am, your daughter is ugly and a bit stupid".  The reaction
can't be spontaneosuly objective.  It takes a great matureness (or a great
training) to ignore criticisms and critics, both either bad or good.  Let's
imagine our ex girlfriends writing in the newspapers about the reasons
because they once loved us, or about the reasons because they broke up
with us.  They may be right or wrong but....brrr!!!...our first reaction
would be asking: "what about you?.  Why don't you tell the readers about
your part in this story?".  That may be one of the reasons because art
criticism have always had such bad press.

Pablo Massa
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