Don’t you care for my love? she said bitterly. I handed her the mirror, and said: Please address these questions to the proper person! Please make all requests to head-quarters! In all matters of emotional importance please approach the supreme authority direct! — So I handed her the mirror. And she would have broken it […]
“Intimates,” D. H. Lawrence Read More »
Art critic Eric Gibson pronounces: “Objectivity is a cardinal rule in the discipline of art history. Mr. [Paul] Johnson’s book, by contrast, abounds in strong opinions.” (“Bold Strokes, Strong Opinions,” WSJ) But literary critic Tracy Kidder sneers: “As every graduate student knows, only a fool would try to think or bear witness to events objectively
Competing epistemological imperatives in the arts Read More »
I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. My tongue, every atom of my blood, formed from this soil, this
“Song of Myself,” Walt Whitman Read More »
[Re-pinning for this season’s festivities.] We all know the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge. Or do we? Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol has generated an astonishing variety of interpretations, and as with most rich tales the interpretations often tell us as much about the interpreter as the original story. The legend of Robin Hood is a
Ebenezer Scrooge as Aristotelian Hero Read More »
[Below is the text of Richard Wagner’s 1849 essay “Art and Revolution” (and here is a PDF version).] Richard Wagner “Art and Revolution” Almost universal is the outcry raised by artists nowadays against the damage that the Revolution has occasioned them. It is not the battles of the “barricades,” not the sudden mighty shattering of the pillars
Richard Wagner’s “Art and Revolution” text Read More »
Art begins in the mind of a creative individual. The artist takes his significant experiences and thoughts as raw material and creates a perceptual embodiment for them. Each artist makes independent judgments about which of his experiences and thoughts are significant. And to the best of his ability and with his unique style, each artist
Post-Postmodern Art [original text] Read More »
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 »