Quotes for All
I started my professional life as a philosopher of language and for several years took the orthodox line that meaning is an essentially linguistic phenomenon. Whether as a result of simply listening to everyday talk about meaning, or reading books of anthropology, sociology and art history, it dawned on me that there is nothing at … Read more
Mary O’Neal used to say that I was teaching her course in disguise, as she said in cultural disguise. What she meant was that this really was a very fervent kind of civil rights art course, not altogether art history. It wasn’t altogether theory. She called it an action course. David C. Driskell
Every art critic and every writer doesn’t have a frame to start off from. If I made a statement saying, This is Abstract Expressionism, they could go, Well, he failed miserably, or, Fantastic, this is a new genius! But in art history, I don’t see any of the artists I like spewing bullshit. I don’t … Read more
I studied anthropology and art history, as I have always been captivated by living traditions. Cosima Spender
You know, the way art history is taught, often there’s nothing that tells you why the painting is great. The description of a lousy painting and the description of a great painting will very much sound the same. Chuck Close
The term ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ is in danger of becoming one of the most misused tags in art history Christopher Wood
I went to college to be a jock and to play on the baseball team. And then, I got cut and realized that that was it for that. I was really small. The other guys were really big, on that team. I was a bit of a theater nerd, and I was an art history … Read more
Lacan is a tyrant who must be driven from our shores. Narrowly trained English professors who know nothing of art history or popular culture think they can just wade in with Lacan and trash everything in sight. Camille Paglia
The visual is sorely undervalued in modern scholarship. Art history has attained only a fraction of the conceptual sophistication of literary criticism. Drunk with self-love, criticism has hugely overestimated the centrality of language to western culture. It has failed to see the electrifying sign language of images. Camille Paglia
I come from an art history background. I studied at a master’s degree level; I chose to dork out on art for much of my adult life. A lot of my heroes are artists and a lot of my musical heroes have an artistic side. Black Francis