art criticism summary

Learn about the origins of art criticism and some prominent art critics

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Below is the article summary. For the full article, see art criticism.

Nicolas Poussin: St. John on Patmos — Nicolas Poussin: *St. John on Patmos*
Poussinists in the 17th century advocated the classical restraint of Nicolas Poussin, as seen in his oil painting *St. John on Patmos*, 1645–50; in the Art Institute of Chicago. 100.3 × 136.4 cm.

art criticism, Description, interpretation, and evaluation of works of art, manifested in journal reviews, books, and patronage. Art criticism encompasses a wide variety of approaches, from critical commentary to more subjective emotional reactions inspired by viewing works of art. Art criticism as a distinct discipline developed parallel to Western aesthetic theory, beginning with antecedents in ancient Greece and fully taking form in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the 20th century perceptive critics became champions of new artistic movements. Beginning in the 20th and continuing into the 21st century, many critics used social and linguistic, rather than aesthetic, theoretical models. Prominent art critics include Roger Fry, Clive Bell, Clement Greenberg, Harold Rosenblum, Lawrence Alloway, Rosalind Krauss, and Donald Kuspit. See also aesthetics.

Tom Stoppard Summary

Tom Stoppard is a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter whose work is marked by verbal brilliance, ingenious action, and structural dexterity. Stoppard’s father was working in Singapore in the late 1930s. After the Japanese invasion, his father stayed on and was killed, but Stoppard’s

Milton Babbitt Summary

Milton Babbitt was an American composer and theorist known as a leading proponent of total serialism—i.e., musical composition based on prior arrangements not only of all 12 pitches of the chromatic scale (as in 12-tone music) but also of dynamics, duration, timbre (tone colour), and register.

David Mamet Summary

David Mamet American playwright, director, and screenwriter noted for his often desperate working-class characters and for his distinctive, colloquial, and frequently profane dialogue. Mamet began writing plays while attending Goddard College, Plainfield, Vermont (B.A. 1969). Returning to Chicago,

Wyndham Lewis Summary

Wyndham Lewis was an English artist and writer who founded the Vorticist movement, which sought to relate art and literature to the industrial process. About 1893 Lewis moved to London with his mother after his parents separated. At age 16 he won a scholarship to London’s Slade School of Fine Art,