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The Rape of the Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art (Paperback)

~ (Author) "HAMLET: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?..." (more)
Key Phrases: art history today, noa noa, study art history, Professor Lubin, Professor Fried, Professor Moxey (more...)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

Roger Kimball's brilliant book sets out to repair the damage inflicted on art history...in short, a restoration project. -- Philippe de Montebello, Director, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description

Exposes the charlatanry that fuels much academic art history today and leaks into the art world generally.

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Product Details

Paperback: 186 pages
Publisher: Encounter Books (November 25, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1594031215
ISBN-13: 978-1594031212
Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #227,655 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
HAMLET: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel? Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
art history today, noa noa, study art history

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Professor Lubin, Professor Fried, Professor Moxey, Professor Alpers, Professor Pollock, New York, Winslow Homer, Professor Chave, Drunken Silenus, Henry James, Clement Greenberg, Mark Rothko, Michael Fried, Svetlana Alpers, The Making of Rubens, Edward Boit, Griselda Pollock, Peter Selz, Professor Boime, Professor Wood, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, Female Child, Gayatri Spivak, Lord Copper, Museum of Modern Art

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 67 books:

Winslow Homer by Nicolai Cikovsky Jr. on 6 pages
Mark Rothko (Museum of Modern Art) by Peter Howard Selz on 6 pages
The Making of Rubens by Professor Svetlana Alpers on 5 pages
Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews by Michael Fried on 5 pages
Noa Noa: The Tahiti Journal of Paul Gauguin by Paul Gauguin on 4 pages

See all 67 books this book cites

1 book cites this book:

Lengthened Shadows: America and Its Institutions in the Twenty-First Century by Roger Kimball in Back Matter

Books on Related Topics (learn more)

Critical Terms for Art History by Robert S. Nelson

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Art History by Jonathan Harris

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Customer Reviews

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119 of 133 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scathing, Scary, But Hilarious, July 31, 2004

By	L. Young "palmtree2000" (West Orange, NJ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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This review is from: The Rape of the Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art (Hardcover)

This is a brilliant and scathing look at how our post-modernist art historians are engaged in the de-civilization of Western art. Kimball skewers the current trend of viewing all Western art (as well as Western literature) solely through the prism of sex, gender, and class. What results is a ludicrous but scary disfigurement of Western art.

Kimball takes seven well known paintings by seven different artists, and shows us the absurdity of those art elites in the academic world who are blinded by their politically correct madness. The chapter on John Singer Sargent's 1882 painting, "The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit" gave me belly laughs galore as leading Sargent expert Professor David M. Lubin of Wake University, subjects a painting of four upper crust little girls at the turn of the century into a critique of sexual oppression and perversion. Playing on the French version of Mr. Boit's name ( i.e. boite, meaning box) Professor Lubin contends 'the Female Child is enclosed within [an]ideological and biological box'. If this is not absurd enough, Kimball shows us how Lubin's reasoning in analyzing the painting in sexual/gender terms depends upon such things as the circumflexed 'i' in 'boite' (remember the Frenchified version of the girls' father's name) as a receptacle into which the 'i' phallus plunges. In addition the word 'boite' the good Professor tells us also means 'house of prostitution'. From this he concludes that the little girls represent the father's (remember Dad doesn't appear in Sargent's picture) harem.

One could laugh one's head off if it wasn't so frightening to consider this is what young people are subjected to in universities across America. 'Bravo' to Roger Kimball for showing us the 'Theater of the Absurd' that goes on behind those ivy covered walls. My daughter is an art major. I'll be sure to remember Mr. Kimball's book next time her university telephones asking for a charitable donation.

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94 of 105 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Fine Art of Ridicule, August 27, 2004

By	Gary H. Inbinder (Woodland Hills, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Rape of the Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art (Hardcover)

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.

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54 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An important and entertaining work, June 12, 2005

By	smoothsoul (New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rape of the Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art (Hardcover)

My main reason for writing is to add my voice to the chorus of praise - and to challenge its politically correct critics. It worries me that readers might see the negative reviews and avoid this work. It's an important book, for good arts criticism is increasingly hard to find in universities, and here's why. Kimball does an excellent job of showing up what shoddy scholarship gets written in the academy nowadays. You can free associate with Lacan and Derrida - to paraphrase Camille Paglia - and get away with sheer nonsense. And as Paglia also said, they're destroying people's appreciation of beauty in the process.

It's really stunning that the writers Kimball picks on are taken seriously; but jargon and cant are the order of the day in the modern university. If you're obscure, you can get away with such nonsense. Well, not with clear and cutting thinkers like Kimball on the case. Kimball believes in art, beauty, and logical argument, and his work is searing and convincing. And as several others have pointed out, it's also incredibly funny. You have to read this book just to see what people are getting away with.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious
Having been through graduate school in art history, this book made me laugh until I cried. I have studied, written papers, and given presentations on a number of the subjects... Read more

Published 27 days ago by C. Yearwood

1.0 out of 5 stars Oh, Please
If you are of any discernible intelligence and conscience, the chances are good you haven't heard of Roger Kimball. Read more

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5.0 out of 5 stars The PC Battle Shifts to Art
In THE RAPE OF THE MASTERS, Roger Kimball, a conservative critic of art and literature, takes to task the entire spectrum of political correctness that he sees as ultimately... Read more

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5.0 out of 5 stars Exposes "Theory" As An Intellectual Sewer
The "theory" people (deconstructionism, postmodernism, poststructuralism, ad infinitum, ad nauseum) have had their way with our intellectual life. Read more

Published on July 13, 2007 by T. Daneliuk

3.0 out of 5 stars Less Manners, More Teeth..Please
Most people by now are familiar with the term "artspeak", which refers to the dissembling, pompous form of obfuscation which is used, purposefully, to hoodwink people who would... Read more

Published on June 20, 2007 by Peter Baklava

5.0 out of 5 stars Killing of Art
Amazing. Similar to the "Killing of History," showing how similar tactics are applied in the art world. Read more

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4.0 out of 5 stars You Might Need A Dictionary
Great subject, good insight. Some impressive vocabulary words as well! I read this while traveling and wished several times for a dictionary, but overall I enjoyed the author's... Read more

Published on March 14, 2007 by Burgundy Damsel

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential for critics of a PC crazed academic world
During my years in art history graduate school (Columbia and Penn) I was constantly baffled by theory crazed professors and peers who were wildly enthusiastic about what I... Read more

Published on September 7, 2006 by Robert Torchia

1.0 out of 5 stars Anti-theory ad absurdum
Purchase this book (used, if possible), tear out the title page, then give the book to a friend and pay her to read it. Read more

Published on March 27, 2005 by Stephanie Murg

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