Poetry and Art

Early Wittgenstein did say we should not talk about things which should not be talked about, but his list is so long that philosophers talked about very little in a very technical way for a very long time. Then, he broke with his own earlier idea and wrote Philosophical Investigations and his later note books wire published. I never enjoyed either Ayer [the high priest of early Wittgenstein] or Wittgenstein's earlier works. The late one, is the one I was referring to. I also referred to his followers who began to talk about impossible things like Sigmund Freud's constructs for understanding "Mind" [the title of Ryle's book].

One of the major differences between the criticism of poetry and the criticism or explication of painting is that most of the major critics of poetry are not only writing about something written in their medium, but they, themselves are poets. That seems to me as great a difference as the first one. Most of the writers about art are not even flawed practitioners. They are people who never seriously tried to be artists, people who do not understand, intimately, as practitioners, what is involved in making art.  So, in some way poets are closer to artists than are trained specialists.  The finest criticism written about contemporary art in the 19th century was written by Baudelaire.  Not only was Baudelaire a poet, his poetry related to movements and developments in the art world. His goals in poetry had similarities to the goals of some of his more radical contemporaries. For examples, he was almost the only writer about contemporary art who accepted both Delacroix and Ingres, rather than seeing them as poles apart and  finding one OK and the other unacceptable.

The reason for recommending R. P.  Blackmur is that one of his major insights into poetry follows its insight into imagery in relation to the metaphoric content of a poem. When imagery in painting is not precise and obvious, then the thinkings of a poet who cares expressly about such things, become valuable. So, I do advise picking him up in preparation for my next piece of writing which will be a criticism of a specific piece of contemporary art writing.

Love,
Gabriel