The Painted Word

A fresh new voice in art and cultural criticism takes on the day's most pressing questions about representations of violence in art.

In Reason in Art, Santayana explores the social and psychological origins of art. He examines its moral and ideal functions, its lapses into tastelessness, and the distinctive character of music, speech, poetry, and prose. The Spanish-born philosoph...

2005 Audie Award FinalistAmerica's "peerless observer" (People) uncovers college lifea€”from jocks to mutants, dormcest to tailgatinga€”plus race, class, sex, and basketballDupont Universitya€”the Olympian halls of l...

Art scams are today so numerous that the specter of a lawsuit arising from a mistaken attribution has scared a number of experts away from the business of authentication and forgery, and with good reason. Art scams are increasingly convincing and in...

In this series of essays written over the past twenty years, Roger Kimball, managing editor of the New Criterion and an art critic for the London Spectator, illuminates some of the chief spiritual itineraries of modern art. His wide range of subject...

A master class in contemporary art by one of the preeminent painters of our time.

Geoff Dyer has won fans writing about everything from jazz to D. H. Lawrence, from photography to neurotic enlightenment, from Cambodia to Rome. The Missing of the Somme, his remarkable book on the significance of the First World War, is a gem for D...

In this profound and wide-ranging historical survey, Michael Walsh illuminates the ways that the narrative and visual arts both reflect and affect the course of political history, outlining the way forward by arguing for the restoration of the Heroi...

The setting is Atlanta, Georgia — a racially mixed, late-century boomtown full of fresh wealth and wily politicians. The protagonist is Charles Croker, once a college football star, now a late-middle-aged Atlanta conglomerate king whose outsiz...