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Quote by Robert Hughes

“In America, nostalgia for things is apt to set in before they go.”

Quote by Robert Hughes

Book:The Spectacle of Skill: New and Selected Writings of Robert Hughes

Work

The Spectacle of Skill: New and Selected Writings of Robert Hughes

This volume compiles a selection of Robert Hughes' writings, showcasing his insights into art, culture, and history. Hughes, known for his vivid prose and critical acumen, offers readers a diverse array of perspectives on various subjects. more

Author

Robert Hughes (July 28, 1938 – August 6, 2012) was an Australian-born art critic, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He served as the art critic for Time magazine from 1971 to 2001, known for his sharp, passionate, and insightful commentary. Hughes authored influential books such as 'The Shock of the New,' which explored modern art history. His work often intertwined art with social and political contexts, making him one of the most prominent art critics of the 20th century. more

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“The desire to be primitive was very much a function of fin-de-siècle imperialism; it appealed to strong egos and domineering minds.”

Mind Desire Strong Ego Function Primitive Imperialism Fins

Book:The Spectacle of Skill: New and Selected Writings of Robert Hughes

Source: The Spectacle of Skill: New and Selected Writings of Robert Hughes

“When I have a creative insight, there is a high. I think back in the day, I made music as much as I did because it made me feel so good. I think you could argue that there is a creative addiction - but, you know, the healthy kind.”

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“Far from affording artists continuous inspiration, mass-media sources for art have become a dead end. They have combined with the abstractness of institutional art teaching to produce a fine-arts culture given over to information and not experience. This faithfully echoes the drain of concreteness from modern existence- the reign of mere unassimilated data instead of events that gain meaning by being absorbed into the fabric of imaginative life.”

Source: The Spectacle of Skill: New and Selected Writings of Robert Hughes

“Perhaps the rhinos and she-crocodiles whose gyrations between Mortimer's and East Hampton gives us our vision of social eminence today are content to entrust their faces to Andy Warhol's mingily cosmetic Polaroidising, but one would bet they would rather go to Sargent.”

Giving Today Faces Social Vision East Cosmetics Crocodiles Warhol Eminence Hamptons Rhinos

Author:Robert Hughes

“It was van Gogh's madness that prevented him from working; the paintings themselves are ineffably sane, if sanity is to be defined in terms of exact judgment of ends and means and the power of visual analysis.”

Ifs Mean Ends Term Painting Judgment Madness Defined Analysis Visuals Sanity Sane Vans Ends And Means

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“It is the nature of carnivores to get power and then, having disposed of their enemies, to deploy the emollient powers of Great Art to make themselves look like herbivores.”

Looks Art Enemy Great Art Carnivores

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“The hallmark of the minor artist is to be obsessed with style as an end in itself.”

Ends Artist Style Obsessed Minors Hallmark

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“Everything that would be said against the Eixample's heirs, from Le Corbusier's 'ville radieuse' to Oscar Niemeyer's Brasilia, was already said, with far less justice, about the Eixample itself. And all its critics concurred that the basic mistake was to have left the planning of a city in the hands of a socialist.”

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“One thing is sure: the Sagrada Familia is the first Catholic temple whose bacon was ever saved by Shinto tourism. Not even Gaudi, who believed in miracles, could have forseen that.”

Firsts One Thing Miracle Catholic Saved Temples Tourism Familia Gaudi

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“Without the right attitude, a business with everything going for it will fail.”

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