“This is not art history, and it is not criticism, nor is it some mixture of the two. It is not, in other words, what people expect me to be doing.”—Svetlana Alpers, Roof Life, “1 Beginning” Svetlana Alpers is one of the most influential art historians of her generation. She
Since you’ve been enjoying our contests and Nigel Warburton’s post on how E.H. Gombrich inspired his new book, we thought we’d try one more challenge for our readers, celebrating the new illustrated edition of A Little History of the World. So it’s not a rewrite, per se, (though the book
“I hate and distrust all art historians, experts, and critics,” Mark Rothko fulminated in 1959. “They are a bunch of parasites, feeding on the body of art. Their work not only is useless, it is misleading. They can say nothing worth listening to about art or the artist, aside from