Voltaire wrote, "I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it." No doubt, the Lord has already made the "tenured radicals" of postmodern academia ridiculous, but it takes a master of ridicule, like Voltaire or Roger Kimball, to make their ridiculousness evident to the rest of us. And this Kimball does with rare wit, humor, charm, and those great enemies of the ridiculous: reason, logic, and common sense. In this book Kimball takes several masterpieces by artists as diverse as Rothko and Rubens, and then cites the critiques of these works by highly respected authorities within the postmodern academy. We then see how these postmodern "experts" totally ignore the picture itself, the historical context, the intent of the artist, and anything related to common sense observation, while launching into theoretical nonsense that does nothing more than display their own "politically correct" ideologies, psychological preferences, prejudices, and solipsistic obsessions. Thus, we see that these academic "rapists" reveal much about themselves, but nothing about the artist, or the work of art itself, which is reduced to nothing more than a backdrop to better display the "art historian's" ego, and to score points with his or her like-minded academic peers.
This book is brilliant, captivating, and delightful to read, and includes a nice color plate of each masterpiece referenced. It is a page turner, with a laugh, or at least a wry smile of recognition, on each and every page. I highly recommend it.
