Édouard Manet, Chez Tortoni, ca. 1878-80,
Stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990
Recent links of note:
In Defense of Difficulty
Steve Wasserman, The American Conservative
“When did “difficulty” become suspect in American culture, widely derided as anti-democratic and contemptuously dismissed as evidence of so-called elitism? […] We should mark such an argument’s cognitive consequences. A culture filled with smooth and familiar consumptions produces in people rigid mental habits and stultified conceptions.”
The Infinite Spanking of Jerry Saltz
Nicole Levy, Capital New York
Suspended from Facebook, excoriated by James Panero, Saltz still bestrides the art world like… well, no one’s entirely sure what.
Why Are Art Heists So Fascinating?
Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic
To begin with, they’re so much more tasteful than run-of-the-mill bank robberies.
The Downside to Digging Up Cervantes
Ilan Stavans, The New Yorker
R.I.P…. or not.
Why Are the Humanities Deteriorating?
Mark Bauerlein, First Things
Or, how not to defend a discipline.
From our pages:
Monet’s magpie in the snow
Jeffrey Meyers
A new interpretation of Monet’s great work.