Reclaiming Art as It Is

Byline: Carol Herman, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

At its core, Roger Kimball's "The Rape of the Masters" is an anger-making book. In it, Mr. Kimball, manag

ing editor of the New Criterion and a noted art critic, shows that the academic study of art history today is plagued in no small way by the misapprehensions and whims of political correctness.

By focusing on seven famous works of art, Mr. Kimball methodically demonstrates how prominent academicians have scrutinized some of Western civilization's most stunning canvases and seen therein not art but sex, subjugation of women, racism, more sex and even more sex of the most perverted kind. Mr. Kimball's aim in this book is to refocus attention on the works of art themselves and rout out the "rot," the specious, self-referencing hyperbole that passes itself off as art criticism.

In the book, the formula Mr. Kimball employs to make his case is a simple one. Each artist is introduced - Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), Mark Rothko (1903-1970), John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), …

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Publication information: Article title: Reclaiming Art as It Is. Contributors: Not available. Newspaper title: The Washington Times (Washington, DC). Publication date: October 3, 2004. Page number: B06. © 2009 The Washington Times LLC. COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group.

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