The critic, instead of identifying himself with the artist, identifies himself with the spectator. Public criticism, as the name implies, is addressed to the general public. “Are you sure you’re not trying to be too intellectual?” “Do you realise that the effect of this is horrific rather than tragic?” If Studio criticism is ever concerned with questioning aims, it is so only in direct relation to the artist’s personality. “The drawing of that hand is first rate”. The critic accepts the artist’s aims and concerns himself to commenting upon his methods. It is – if one uses the word in its broadest sense – technical criticism. Studio criticism really amounts to a form of art-teaching (if painters will excuse the impertinence of that phrase) in which the critic is only concerned with advising the artist. Two quite different types of criticism are frequently confused: Studio criticism and Public criticism.

More than sixty years on, Berger’s forthright position still resonates today. In his contribution (titled ‘Critics Credo’) Berger reflects on the nature of ‘public’ criticism, on the difference between interpretation and judgement, and on what makes criticism more than a merely subjective activity. During 1955, Art News and Review (as ArtReview was then called) published a series of opinion pieces – under the common title ‘Critics Creed’ – by art critics on how they understood the role of criticism.

John bergers