Reflecting on Robert Frost, John F. Kennedy (just three weeks before his assassination) spoke of the corrective power of the arts in times when politics becomes unmoored. From a speech at Amherst College in 1963: When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, […]
JFK on how the artist corrects politics Read More »
[My “Post-postmodern Art” essay was translated into Arabic (text below and PDF version here) by Moin Jaffar Mohammed of Babylon, Iraq, edited by Maha El-Shenhaby, and published in the journal Al-Adeeb Al-Thakafiya. For more of my art-related publications, see my Art page.] فن ما بعد – ما بعد الحدثة كتابة : ستيفن هِكس ترجمة : معين
Arabic translation of my “Post-postmodern Art” essay (updated) Read More »
Recommended. Thanks to Joshua Zader for his recommendation. Here’s the trailer:
Movie: “A Most Violent Year” — business and grit Read More »
Here is a site devoted to Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), the 19th-century German Romantic painter. The feature image is a portrait of Friedrich by Franz Gerhard von Kugelgen (1772-1820). [More of my art-related posts.]
Caspar David Friedrich faces the world Read More »
“Philip Ernst, the artist father of the surrealist Max Ernst, was painting a picture of his garden when he omitted a tree that spoiled the composition. Then ‘overcome with remorse’ at his offense against realism, he cut down the tree.” Source: Peter Watson, The German Genius, p. xvii.
Commitment to artistic realism — anecdote Read More »
“But what more oft in Nations grown corrupt, And by thir vices brought to servitude, Then to love Bondage more then Liberty, Bondage with ease then strenuous liberty”. John Milton, Samson Agonistes (1671), lines 268-71
“But what more oft in Nations grown corrupt … Read More »
Por Stephen R.C. Hicks Traducido al Español por Alejandro Espinoza (Título original, Why Art Became Ugly) Durante mucho tiempo, los críticos del arte moderno y postmoderno han dependido de la estrategia de “Acaso no es aquello repugnante.” Me refiero con esto a la estrategia de señalar que ciertas obras de arte son feas, triviales o de
¿Por qué el arte se volvió feo? Read More »
A striking pairing of quotations from Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes by Lynn Garafola (Oxford University Press, 1989). First, on the innovativeness: “In the History of twentieth-century ballet, no company has had so profound and far-reaching an influence as the Ballets Russes. It existed for only twenty years—from 1909 to 1929—but in those two decades it transformed
Innovation in ballet — and market entrepreneurism Read More »