Nothing If Not Critical

A generous selection of forthright essays on art and artists. Hughes tackles the lives and works of over 80 artists, from the old masters to our contemporaries, exploring their achievement (or lack of it) and how they altered the history of art for better or worse. A timeline of artistic endeavour from the formal resources of the past to the boom-and-bust media hype of a postmodern age.In these celebrated essays Robert Hughes explores the lives and works of more than 80 artists, from Hans Holbein to Andy Warhol and beyond, assessing their achievements (or lack of them) and how they altered the history of art for better or for worse. Castigating the excesses of the 1980s New York art scene, with its manufactured celebrity and inflated prices, he argues for the real values of art and outlines the way ahead for a new generation of artists.