Joel CarmichaelArt is bad when ‘you see the intent and get put off.’ (Goethe) In Tolstoy one is unaware of the intent, and sees only the thing itself. from the book, On Retranslating A Russian Classic Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
About This Quote
Goethe said to Tolstoy, "Art is bad when 'you see the intent and get put off.'" Tolstoy replied, "Yes, I should have said 'when you see the artist's intentions and get put off.'." This is a great example of an art critique. Tolstoy, in this instance, makes a valid point that the audience doesn't always pick up on the artist's intentions; we can miss them if we're not paying attention. This also relates to the concept of the "undesirable effect," or how we can feel like an undesirable effect of an idea or work of art.
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