"A work of art is one through which the consciousness of the artist is able to give its emotions to anyone who is prepared to receive them. There is no such thing as bad art"
About this Quote
Rukeyser’s claim is a dare disguised as reassurance: art isn’t a quality-control contest, it’s a transmission system. The key phrase is “consciousness of the artist” - not talent, not technique, not prestige. She frames art as an act of mind made shareable, a way of moving private feeling into public space. That choice carries her larger political ethic: if experience can be communicated, it can be recognized, and what’s recognized can’t be so easily ignored.
“Anyone who is prepared to receive them” is where the line turns sharp. Reception is an ethical stance, not a passive one. Preparation implies openness, patience, maybe even humility - the willingness to meet unfamiliar emotions without immediately ranking them. Subtext: the audience has responsibilities too. If you can’t feel what the work offers, that failure might not be the work’s.
Then she drops the provocation: “There is no such thing as bad art.” Taken literally, it sounds like a blanket absolution, the kind that makes critics roll their eyes. But in Rukeyser’s orbit - a poet of witness, drawn to labor, justice, and the lived texture of American life - it reads less like permissiveness than a refusal of gatekeeping. “Bad art” is often shorthand for “art from the wrong people,” “art about the wrong things,” or art that won’t flatter the ruling taste.
She’s not denying craft; she’s relocating the argument. The standard isn’t polish but contact: did a human consciousness make it across the distance? If it did, dismissal starts to look like a cultural habit, not a verdict.
“Anyone who is prepared to receive them” is where the line turns sharp. Reception is an ethical stance, not a passive one. Preparation implies openness, patience, maybe even humility - the willingness to meet unfamiliar emotions without immediately ranking them. Subtext: the audience has responsibilities too. If you can’t feel what the work offers, that failure might not be the work’s.
Then she drops the provocation: “There is no such thing as bad art.” Taken literally, it sounds like a blanket absolution, the kind that makes critics roll their eyes. But in Rukeyser’s orbit - a poet of witness, drawn to labor, justice, and the lived texture of American life - it reads less like permissiveness than a refusal of gatekeeping. “Bad art” is often shorthand for “art from the wrong people,” “art about the wrong things,” or art that won’t flatter the ruling taste.
She’s not denying craft; she’s relocating the argument. The standard isn’t polish but contact: did a human consciousness make it across the distance? If it did, dismissal starts to look like a cultural habit, not a verdict.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
|---|
More Quotes by Muriel
Add to List
