Barry: "Do we, in fact, detract from the aesthetic experience of art when talk about it, examine it, justify it and attribute it?"

Well, to begin, I think your question is extremely difficult bordering on impossible to know, for we can never go back in time and evaluate our experience before we talked, examined, justified it. Regardless, I think the question appropriate and prudent.

Mark Twain once said: “We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter." It is an interesting sentiment. I think it happens to be true. I find that I am less awed by the magician whose tricks I fully understand. This is a point that I bring to every literature teacher I have ever had, and this is the very point that is haphazardly dismissed by every literature teacher I have ever had.

So yes, Barry, I do think that our analysis of art detracts from our aesthetic experience, but I am not sure if this means we ought to not analyze it anyway. Perhaps we do a disservice to the artist if we do not.

Question: To what purpose, if any, does the quintessential art critic serve?