IF WE CONFUSE CULTURE WITH THE CULT OF THE ARTS, then, yes, Manet, together with all his art historical brethren, is of primary importance. But if we take culture to mean the entire web of aspirations, goals, achievements, and values of a people—their conscience; their taste in ethics—penicillin counts for more than any artist. I was reminded of this by Tracy Quan’s recent article in The Daily. Ms. Quan, author of Diary of a Jetsetting Call Girl [“available on your Kindle in under a minute”] is the doyenne of the half-hooker economy. Continue Reading

Roger Scruton’s Olympia

Maureen Mullarkey

March 1, 2011

ROGER SCRUTON’S HANDBOOK OF ESSAYS, Beauty (2009), is more appealing in its parts than in the overarching thrust of his argument. His insistence that beauty—the quest for and recognition of it—is a function of the rational mind rings off key. Few of us are unfamiliar with the experience of being overwhelmed by beauty of some kind. At the same time, what moves one of us, however deeply, does not necessarily move another, equally rational, fellow. But setting argument aside for the moment, Beauty, like everything else Scruton writes, is worth reading, worth owning. Continue Reading

Women & The New Moon, Still

Maureen Mullarkey

January 25, 2011

WALPURGIS NIGHT IS STILL A WAYS AWAY, but already the witches are out. Some weeks back, I mentioned an exhibition in a community art center in the Berkshires. My reward for that is to have been placed on the mailing list of an organization that calls itself Gathered Resources of Women (GROW). // // To herald the January new moon. a broadcast arrived announcing the advent something called Red Tent Temple, scheduled to land in Pittsfield on January 8th. It was for all women, ages 13 and up. Continue Reading

Michael Fried & Caravaggio

Maureen Mullarkey

January 5, 2011

DOES MICHAEL FRIED LIKE ART? Anyone who has dragged themselves through his Absorption and Theatricality has to wonder. It is tempting to push the question a bit further and ask just what it is that he sees when he looks at art. Too often, it seems as though he sees only himself and his own position as a disciple of Clement Greenberg. Fried is the celebrity art historian at Johns Hopkins University and director of its Humanities Center. His latest text, The Moment of Caravaggio, is here on my desk. Continue Reading