The Importance Of Criticism

If there’s one thing that all artists share in common, irrespective of the discipline they work in, it’s their craving for appreciation. It’s something that we live for, something that fuels the engine of our creativity; we love to be praised and to be commended for our work. Human nature is such that it always seeks validation and when it comes to artists, that quest for validation goes up a notch higher because we are constantly putting pieces of ourselves out there for our audience to consume and without their approval and praise the whole experience of creation feels shallow and pointless.

However, the coin of appreciation also has another equally important side to it – criticism. Whenever we say the word criticism, it impresses a feeling of negativity upon us. Anything that disapproves or dismisses someone’s hard work cannot be good, right? Wrong. Criticism, although negative on the surface, isn’t so negative if one learns to dissect it and reach its layers. When somebody is criticizing our work, they are providing us with the most valuable of feedbacks. They are pointing out the flaws in our creation, something that we, as creators, might be oblivious to. It’s difficult for a parent to always recognize any shortcomings that their child might have because a parent is often blinded by love for their child. It’s the same thing with creators and their creations. We blindly love what we make, we are proud of it, and we want to protect and defend it, for it is an extension of our own selves and any shortcomings in it translates to a shortcoming in us. So naturally, we tend to become defensive when confronted with criticism or feel dejected and discouraged by it. However, if we learn to detach ourselves from the emotional connect we have with our work for a while and look at it through the critical eyes of a third person then it may give us a completely new perspective of it.

I’ll give an example of my own. One person in his review of my recent short story collection wrote that a flaw he found in the book was that some of the stories were too short, that they ended just as he was getting into them. So, I went back and re-read the stories from his perspective and realized that a couple of stories were indeed very short and, if I wanted, I easily could have played them out a little more. It was a mistake on my part and because this person pointed it out to me, I will make sure not to repeat it in the next collection I write. See the point? Had I been too obstinate with my creation, too defensive about it, had I not seen the constructive nature of his criticism, I never would have realized this little flaw and therefore wouldn’t have made a note to rectify it in the future.

Yes, it has to be taken into consideration that any form of art is subjective. Sometimes the artist’s interpretation can vastly differ from that of the audience as can the interpretation of two different members of the same audience, but it is from different opinions that we learn different little things about how we can improve ourselves and our work when we put it all together in one cohesive block.

If you’re in any field of creativity, you should be constantly driven by a desire to improve. Nothing is perfect and no one knows everything. An interesting thing comes to mind here that Lata Mangeshkar, arguably one of the best and most accomplished singers of India and the world for more than sixty years, told in an interview when she was in her eighties that she’s still learning music and striving to improve herself at her craft. This just goes to show that there’s no limit to learning and one must never, no matter how successful or experienced one is, stop the pursuit of getting better.

But, let’s be honest, you can’t really learn much from appreciation. It may make you feel good, may give you the impetus to keep producing more work (which is very important, mind you), but it’s also an exercise in vanity. It can create a delusional bubble around you of superiority in your craft and stop you from recognizing the chinks in your armour. Criticism gives you that opportunity. It makes you aware of your weaknesses because somebody else, someone with an unemotional and unbiased perspective, is pointing it out to you. All you have to do is put your ego aside, not get defensive, and take their opinion constructively.

Yes, there will always be unfair criticism too. Someone with perhaps a score to settle, or a jealous mind, or just somebody who cannot stand the sight of your face, will perhaps criticize your work for no solid reason whatsoever, and it’s here that you have to be judicious as to which criticism to listen to and which to ignore. The idea is not to mindlessly download every bit of feedback that comes your way but to sift through them, segregate them, and pick the correct ones to learn from. It’s a skill, alright, and it takes time and experience to master but once you’ve made the effort and have allowed yourself to be humble and receptive towards the criticism you get, you’ll find that it will only help you to polish the rough edges and get better at your own craft because, after all, the point of creativity is not to stagnate at one level but to always aspire to reach the next.

(c) Niladri Mitra 2020