Better Living Through Criticism

Better Living Through Criticism PDF Author: A. O. Scott
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143109979
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
The New York Times film critic shows why we need criticism now more than ever Few could explain, let alone seek out, a career in criticism. Yet what A.O. Scott shows in Better Living Through Criticism is that we are, in fact, all critics: because critical thinking informs almost every aspect of artistic creation, of civil action, of interpersonal life. With penetrating insight and warm humor, Scott shows that while individual critics--himself included--can make mistakes and find flaws where they shouldn't, criticism as a discipline is one of the noblest, most creative, and urgent activities of modern existence. Using his own film criticism as a starting point--everything from his infamous dismissal of the international blockbuster The Avengers to his intense affection for Pixar's animated Ratatouille--Scott expands outward, easily guiding readers through the complexities of Rilke and Shelley, the origins of Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones, the power of Marina Abramovich and 'Ode on a Grecian Urn.' Drawing on the long tradition of criticism from Aristotle to Susan Sontag, Scott shows that real criticism was and always will be the breath of fresh air that allows true creativity to thrive. "The time for criticism is always now," Scott explains, "because the imperative to think clearly, to insist on the necessary balance of reason and passion, never goes away."

Better Living Through Criticism

Better Living Through Criticism PDF Author: A. O. Scott
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101980869
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
The New York Times film critic shows why we need criticism now more than ever Few could explain, let alone seek out, a career in criticism. Yet what A.O. Scott shows in Better Living Through Criticism is that we are, in fact, all critics: because critical thinking informs almost every aspect of artistic creation, of civil action, of interpersonal life. With penetrating insight and warm humor, Scott shows that while individual critics--himself included--can make mistakes and find flaws where they shouldn't, criticism as a discipline is one of the noblest, most creative, and urgent activities of modern existence. Using his own film criticism as a starting point--everything from his infamous dismissal of the international blockbuster The Avengers to his intense affection for Pixar's animated Ratatouille--Scott expands outward, easily guiding readers through the complexities of Rilke and Shelley, the origins of Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones, the power of Marina Abramovich and 'Ode on a Grecian Urn.' Drawing on the long tradition of criticism from Aristotle to Susan Sontag, Scott shows that real criticism was and always will be the breath of fresh air that allows true creativity to thrive. "The time for criticism is always now," Scott explains, "because the imperative to think clearly, to insist on the necessary balance of reason and passion, never goes away."

Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think about Art, Pleasure, Beauty and Truth

Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think about Art, Pleasure, Beauty and Truth PDF Author: A. O. Scott
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473545935
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
Few could explain, let alone seek out, a career in criticism. Yet what A. O. Scott shows in Better Living Through Criticism is that we are, in fact, all critics: because critical thinking informs almost every aspect of artistic creation, of civil action, of interpersonal life. With penetrating insight and humour, Scott shows that while individual critics – himself included – can make mistakes and find flaws where they shouldn't, criticism as a discipline is one of the noblest, most creative and urgent activities. Using his own film criticism as a starting point – everything from an infamous dismissal of the international blockbuster The Avengers to his intense affection for Pixar's animated Ratatouille – Scott expands outwards, easily guiding readers through the complexities of Rilke and Shelley, the origins of Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones, the power of Marina Abramovic and 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' Scott shows that real criticism was and always will be the breath of fresh air that allows true creativity to thrive. As he puts it: ‘The time for criticism is always now, because the imperative to think clearly, never goes away.’

Listen to This

Listen to This PDF Author: Alex Ross
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429977612
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Book Description
One of The Telegraph's Best Music Books 2011 Alex Ross's award-winning international bestseller, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, has become a contemporary classic, establishing Ross as one of our most popular and acclaimed cultural historians. Listen to This, which takes its title from a beloved 2004 essay in which Ross describes his late-blooming discovery of pop music, showcases the best of his writing from more than a decade at The New Yorker. These pieces, dedicated to classical and popular artists alike, are at once erudite and lively. In a previously unpublished essay, Ross brilliantly retells hundreds of years of music history—from Renaissance dances to Led Zeppelin—through a few iconic bass lines of celebration and lament. He vibrantly sketches canonical composers such as Schubert, Verdi, and Brahms; gives us in-depth interviews with modern pop masters such as Björk and Radiohead; and introduces us to music students at a Newark high school and indie-rock hipsters in Beijing. Whether his subject is Mozart or Bob Dylan, Ross shows how music expresses the full complexity of the human condition. Witty, passionate, and brimming with insight, Listen to This teaches us how to listen more closely.

How to Read a Film

How to Read a Film PDF Author: James Monaco
Publisher: New York : Oxford University Press
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 568

Book Description
Now thoroughly revised and updated, the book discusses recent breakthroughs in media technology, including such exciting advances as video discs and cassettes, two-way television, satellites, cable and much more.

The Sense of an Ending

The Sense of an Ending PDF Author: Julian Barnes
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307957330
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 158

Book Description
BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel that follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning achievement in Julian Barnes's oeuvre. Tony Webster thought he left his past behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.

The Sense of Beauty

The Sense of Beauty PDF Author: George Santayana
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9781412838900
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 302

Book Description
The author of the introduction to this new edition, John McCormick, reminds us that The Sense of Beauty is the first work in aesthetics written in the United States. Santayana was versed in the history of his subject, from Plato and Aristotle to Schopenhauer and Taine in the nineteenth century. Santayana took as his task a complete rethinking of the idea that beauty is embedded in objects. Rather, beauty is an emotion, a value, and a sense of the good. In this aesthetics was unlike ethics: not a correction of evil or pursuit of the virtuous. Rather it is a pleasure that residues in the sense of self. The work is divided into chapters on the materials of beauty, form, and expression. A good many of Santayana's later works are presaged by this early effort. And this volume also anticipates the development of art as a movement as well as a value apart from other aspects of life.

Uncontrollable Beauty

Uncontrollable Beauty PDF Author: David Shapiro
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1621531112
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 654

Book Description
In this acclaimed art anthology, a prestigious group of artists, critics, and literati offer their incisive reflections on the questions of beauty, past, present, and future, and how it has become a domain of multiple perspectives. Here is Meyer Schapiro’s skeptical argument on perfection . . . contributions from artists as profound as Louise Bourgeois and Agnes Martin . . . and reflections of critics, curators, and philosophers on the problems of beauty and relativism. Readers will find fascinating insights from such art theorists and critics as Dave Hickey, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, Donald Kuspit, Carter Ratcliff, and dozens more.

Verity

Verity PDF Author: Colleen Hoover
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 153872474X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 295

Book Description
Whose truth is the lie? Stay up all night reading the sensational psychological thriller that has readers obsessed, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Too Late and It Ends With Us. #1 New York Times Bestseller · USA Today Bestseller · Globe and Mail Bestseller · Publishers Weekly Bestseller Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity’s notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn’t expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of the night her family was forever altered. Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents could devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen’s feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife’s words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue loving her.

Homemade Esthetics

Homemade Esthetics PDF Author: Clement Greenberg
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198031904
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Book Description
Thanks to his unsurpassed eye and his fearless willingness to take a stand, Clement Greenberg (1909 1994) became one of the giants of 20th century art criticism a writer who set the terms of critical discourse from the moment he burst onto the scene with his seminal essays Avant Garde and Kitsch (1939) and Towards a Newer Laocoon (1940). In this work, which gathers previously uncollected essays and a series of seminars delivered at Bennington in 1971, Greenberg provides his most expansive statement of his views on taste and quality in art, arguing for an esthetic that flies in the face of current art world fashions. Greenberg insists despite the attempts from Marcel Duchamp onwards to escape the jurisdiction of taste by producing an art so disjunctive that it cannot be judged that taste is inexorable. He argues that standards of quality in art, the artist's responsibility to seek out the hardest demands of a medium, and the critic's responsibility to discriminate, are essential conditions for great art. The obsession with innovation the epidemic of newness leads, in Greenbergs view, to the boringness of so much avant garde art. He discusses the interplay of expectation and surprise in aesthetic experience, and the exalted consciousness produced by great art. Homemade Esthetics allows us particularly in the transcribed seminar sessions, never before published to watch the critics mind at work, defending (and at times reconsidering) his theories. His views, often controversial, are the record of a lifetime of looking at and thinking about art as intensely as anyone ever has.
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