Writing my opening letter of the school year, I quoted from Mark Twain's early piece Old Times on the Mississippi that originally appeared in, I think, The Atlantic Monthly. In reflecting on a reading of it long ago, I associated Twain's main character in Old Times with Tom Sawyer. However, I realize upon further reflection and research that it was in fact more autobiographical. The main character's identity is not so clear, but it's probably Twain himself. My apology for the error.
Yesterday evening, independent scholar and critic Michelle Marder Kamhi ( www.mmkamhi.com ), co-editor with husband Louis Torres of Aristos , an online review of arts; author of Who Says That's Art? A Commonsense View of the Visual Arts ; and grandmother of two Saint David's boys, gave a thought provoking talk on art for our grandparent community. An advocate of objective standards in arts scholarship and criticism, Ms. Kamhi focused her talk on the ways in which art critics such as Clement Greenberg promoted the shift from representational art to abstraction. Kamhi argues that the abstract and post-modern art prevalent today, which often requires explanation by docents in order to be understood, goes against art's purpose. Taking issue with Greenberg's contention that representation is an expendable convention of painting, she quoted the late art critic John Canaday: "Art is the tangible expression of the intangible values that men live by." ...
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