An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogues and on websites. Some of today's art critics use and other online platforms in order to connect with a wider audience and expand debate.
Opinions
Differently from
art history, there is not commonly an institutionalized training for art critics. Art critics come from different backgrounds and they may or may not be university trained.
[James Elkins, What happened to art criticism, Prickley Paradigm Press, 2003, p. 8.] Professional art critics are expected to have a keen eye for art and a thorough knowledge of
art history. Typically the art critic views art at
art exhibition,
art gallery,
or
'
and they can be members of the International Association of Art Critics which has national sections.
Very rarely art critics earn their living from writing criticism.
The opinions of art critics have the potential to stir debate on art-related topics. Due to this the viewpoints of art critics writing for art publications and newspapers adds to public discourse concerning art and culture. and patrons often rely on the advice of such as a way to enhance their appreciation of the art they are viewing. Many now-famous and celebrated artists were not recognized by the art critics of their time, often because their art was in a style not yet understood or favored. Conversely, some critics have become particularly important helping to explain and promote new – Roger Fry with the Post-Impressionist movement and Lawrence Alloway with pop art as examples.
Controversies
According to James Elkins
[James Elkins, "Introduction" in Is Art History Global?, dir. James Elkins, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2007, pp. 5–15.] there is a distinction between art criticism and art history based on institutional, contextual, and commercial criteria; the history of
art criticism is taught in universities, but the practice of art criticism is excluded institutionally from academia. An experience-related article is Agnieszka Gratza.
Always according to James Elkins in smaller and developing countries, newspaper art criticism normally serves as art history. James Elkins's perspective portraits his personal link to
art history and
art historians and in
What happened to art criticism he furthermore highlights the gap between art historians and art critics by suggesting that the first rarely cite the second as a source and that the second miss an academic discipline to refer to.
[James Elkins, What Happened to Art Criticism, Prickley Paradigm Press, 2003, pp. 4–5, 9.]
Gallery
File:Denisdiderot.jpg|Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Portrait of Denis Diderot, 1769, Louvre, Paris. His art criticism was highly influential. His Essais sur la peinture was described by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, as "a magnificent work, which speaks even more helpfully to the poet than to the painter, though to the painter too it is as a blazing torch." Diderot's favorite painter was Jean-Baptiste Greuze.[Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, French Eighteenth-Century Painters. Cornell Paperbacks, 1981, pp. 222–225. ]
File:John Neal by Sarah Miriam Peale 1823 Portland Museum of Art.jpg|Portrait of John Neal by Sarah Miriam Peale, 1823. Neal is regarded as the first American art critic[Joanna Richardson, Baudelaire, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1994, p. 191, .]
File:Portrait of Zacharie Astruc (1866) - Edouard Manet (Kunsthalle Bremen).jpg|Édouard Manet, Portrait of Zacharie Astruc 1866, Kunsthalle Bremen. He was a strong defender of Gustave Courbet, and was one of the first to recognize the talent of Édouard Manet. He also defended Claude Monet, James McNeill Whistler, Carolus-Duran, Fantin-Latour, and Alphonse Legros.
File:Manet, Edouard - Portrait of Emile Zola.jpg|Édouard Manet, Portrait of Émile Zola, 1868, Musée d'Orsay. Émile Zola (1840-1902) was an influential French writer, and art critic. He was a major figure in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus.[//fr.wikisource.org/wiki/J’accuse…! at French wikisource]
File:Aurier, Albert, BNF Gallica.jpg|Albert Aurier, c. 1890, Wrote about Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin.[[1], Refurbished Reputation for a Nervy Painter.] Larry Rivers, delivered one of the eulogies, along with Bill Berkson, Edwin Denby, and René d'Harnoncourt.[From "A Short Chronology", in Donald Allen: The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara.]
File:Arthur Danto, 2012.jpg|Arthur Danto, (1924-2013), Danto laid the groundwork for an institutional definition of art[This theory has been described as an "influential theory about the nature of art", according to Philosophy Now, November 2013]
File:John Berger-2009 (6).jpg|John Berger, (1926-2017),
Notable art critics
External links
