Utter rubbish. Perhaps you should write trashy romance novels. And not rip off photographs that belong to others. Why on Earth would you invent such nonsense about John Singer Sargent and the Burckhardt family – something you so clearly know nothing about?
I assume you’re unhappy about this post:
I don’t get as many anonymous asks these days as I used to; I wonder sometimes why that is. Even when I got more of them I rarely got this kind. It’s possible you came to my post via a search engine results page, and wanted to give me a piece of your mind without going to the trouble of entering more fully into Tumblrdom by creating an account; I know that happens. But if you *are* an active Tumblr user choosing this means of responding to the post then maybe this is an intentional, rather than an accidental, example of the “anon hate” genre. The distinction probably shouldn’t matter to me. But I’m a little curious which it was.
I guess part of the curiosity comes from my wondering how likely it is you’ll see this response. You went to the trouble of sharing your thoughts, so it seems like you might be inclined to check to see if I replied. But I think the chances of that will be lower if this is a case of drive-by criticism from someone not into the whole Tumblr thing.
Mostly, though, I think my curiosity comes from wanting to properly categorize your ask, to better understand it as a phenomenon.
It’s a thing I do.
I know at times I take it to an unusual degree. I did that in the post in question, what with all that speculation about the personal relationships between long-dead people based on such flimsy evidence: a few paintings, a passage from a book that might not have hewn to a very high standard of scholarship, a scrap of a letter.
When I wrote that post three years ago I didn’t anticipate it making anyone upset. I wasn’t consciously trying to be annoying. But I obviously was, at least in your case.
Looking back at the post now, trying to see where I rubbed you the wrong way, I wonder if it was the bit about Louise at the end that went too far. At least for me, that’s the bit that feels the most unkind, that I’d probably take out, or at least soften, if I could go back and rewrite the post today. If that’s the part of the post that made you upset I apologize for provoking that feeling. I’ll try to do better in the future.
You don’t say that that part bothered you specifically, so maybe I’m off-base about that. The things you do criticize – writing something akin to “trashy” romance, and “ripping off” others’ photographs – aren’t actually things I’m prepared to apologize for, at least at this point. I’m not a good enough writer to write romance novels, but I know enough about the genre to know that it includes works that mean a lot to some people, and doesn’t cause those who denigrate it as trash any visible harm that I can see. Likewise with my use of the images of the five Sargent paintings atop the post, I don’t think my action in posting the small versions of them and linking to larger versions elsewhere injured any legitimate rights holders. If you’re willing to explain in more detail what you think I did wrong there I’m certainly willing to listen.
If I had to guess I’d say you might be a descendant of the Burckhardts, or a friend of such a descendent, and view it as unseemly and rude that I’d do all that speculating about people I have no personal knowledge of, especially speculation that doesn’t paint them in the best light. Which, if that’s the case; yeah. That’s a fair point. My only defense, I guess, would be to say that the Burckhardts sat for those portraits, that they and their heirs made those paintings available for people to look at and respond to, and that such looking and responding in a sense is the whole point of art like that.
It’s equally true, though, that in making my post I was inviting your own looking and responding, and that you had every bit as much right to proclaim my post rubbish as I had to make it in the first place. So thank you for taking the trouble to read and respond to it.
Reposted from http://ift.tt/2nceyfs.
