Die Schere #10: Notes

[Rebing@t-online.de (Rebing)]

The ideal critic does exist: he who understands, explains, criticises the master 
adequately and perfectly. A weak critic, though having the best intentions, may 
actually harm the reputation of the master. EJ, however, prefers to the labour of 
critics the selective effect of works of art being handed down from generation to 
generation and continuously reconsidered and revalued. 
So far, these are the arguments and the tone of a sober theorist of art and 
literature, like, say, T.S. Eliot. But at this point EJ again unfolds powerful 
poetic imagery from the mere rhetoric metaphor of important and less important 
works of art being (like) stars of different magnitudes. It is EJ's conviction of 
the divine origin of art which is the driving force behind this unfolding of the 
image: those works of art which are disregarded or forgotten return to the 
"glory" from where they originated. "Glory" (Herrlichkeit) introduces a new 
emphatic, or poetic, tone and a different idea. It is the idea first touched upon 
in ##1 and 2 of DIE SCHERE: art and religion are of the same origin. 
The second paragraph elaborates both this idea and the image of the starry sky. 
There is an infinite number of dark stars that do not emit any light, there are 
countless humans that do not produce works of art. Those who did and do, however, 
are revered but might be (at least the Ancients believed so, and EJ obviously 
regards their belief as worth considering) like mere tiny holes pricked into the 
firmament that protects us from the blinding light of the divine.
An image of great beauty indeed –– but why does it suggest that each of us might 
be a genius? From what EJ has said in the previous aphorisms of DIE SCHERE the 
answer must be: it is because only the universally recognised creators of great 
art manage to pass on the light which we all are exposed to but which our 
contemporaries are unable or unwilling to see in the rest of us. 

Günter Rebing