Fit to be Tried

Roger Kimball’ s incisive essays examine the art world from a fresh, skeptical perspective.From Gauguin and the Pre-Raphaelites to the latest exercises in artistic absurdity, Kimball’ skeen eye and lucid prose makes for bracing, entertaining reading. He sets himself dead against theshallow rhetoric and celebrity/money culture of the contemporary art world, breathing new excitementinto debates over what we value in art and why. "Art’ s Prospect is savage and hilarious indebunking chalatanism, but at the same time informed and insightful in revealing the best ofcontemporary art.

Whether he is meditating on the concept of kitsch in the Pre-Raphaelites, thecultural pathology that has led critics to compare Gilbert and George’ s preposterous images withthe Isenheim altarpiece, or the genius of such disparate painters as Paul Gauguin and RichardDiebenkorn, Kimball proves himself to be one of the liveliest critical minds in the art worldtoday.