Interesting post! I hope the de Young isn't similarly blasé about the sixteenth century tapestries (Battle of Pavia) on loan from Naples. I don't know about Cassatt's process, that does sound a little dull, but the tapestries show is maybe the most exciting one of old European art on view anywhere in the country this fall.
As for telling the story of non-Western art (and the same goes for lesser-known areas of Western art), I haven't seen this collection, but you're right about the random nature of what different museums have acquired over the years. Even the Met can't tell the story of Byzantine art or Russian or Scandinavian art. Smaller museums that aspire to be encyclopedic are pretty much in an impossible position, but it would be considered unseemly to acknowledge this, to have a sign at the entrance to the galleries pointing out weak areas in the collection.
There's a separate problem with Indian art. At the Met at least I think the collection is strong enough to create a coherent narrative, but it's dispersed, half of it is in one wing as 'Asian' and the other half is in another as 'Islamic'. The only way to bring these together would be for a director to carve out a new curatorial department.
The tapestry show is actually good! It's the best thing upstairs.
With the rest I think it's an inherent problem with the fact that…there's just not enough interest at the museum to actually invest the funds and create a coherent story surrounding non-Western art. Which is understandable. I think by segregating the Western and non-Western art in different museums, these two museums did about the best that can be done, but that's exactly what makes this difference in presentation seem so stark!
Now I kind of want to go to the Met and see the Indian art!
Would love to read a post about it, if you do. I think the Indian division wouldn't be a problem if they could have the Islamic and Asian departments in adjacent wings, but to do that they'd have to rearrange the whole museum, impossible.
Recently I was at an "African art" exhibition where sculptures from ancient Egypt and from thr Yoruba were placed next to each other. Its incredibly distracting to have extremely different cultures from time periods thousands of years apart placed in connection simply because they are from the same continent. Maybe there's still a huge lack of art education, but both had small writeups explaining the objects. Curators sometimes just seem to be plain confused.
“The function of the critic is to recommend books to the reading public.”
I pushed back slightly on this in a note and have been thinking about it since as I write some of my own criticism, and I’m wondering about the best way to do that. Basically I’m thinking about the distinction of showing vs. telling. If a critic tells me what books to read, I’m not going to trust that critic, for the same reason I don’t trust a list of the best books of the year, century, etc. If the critic’s main function is to recommend books, why not just have a list, assign a score, and be done with it? It’s curious that in both music and movies, it’s common to have a numerical rating, but you don’t see that as much in individual reviews of books.
Now, if a critic shows me that a book is worth reading through their analysis, then I’m more inclined to check out the book. I guess what I’m saying is I want to be convinced and I need some sort of virtuosic display from the critic to persuade me that the book is worth reading, which they do through interpreting the book, which then helps support their judgement and recommendation.
To be clear, I agree with you that critics should let us know if they think a book is good or bad, but I also think they they need to show us why the book is good or bad, and in a way lead us to that conclusion through their piece. Again, I’m thinking out loud here, working this out for myself and my own writing, and am curious to hear what you think.
That's what rhetoric is for. You make the case that the book is good and worthy of peoples' time.
That process of building credibility with the reader, so they trust your judgement, is the whole job of the critic. That's why you can't just put together a list--it would seem low-effort and would lack credibility. To some extent, a critic should be able to describe why and how they think a book is good. But just to describe the book without reference to quality is a pointless exercise.
I think we largely agree then and after that it becomes a question of balancing these various parts of the review: the rhetoric, the judgement, the description, the summary, etc. Each reviewer has their own personal mix and style, and striking the right balance is key.
Yep, I feel like the notion of The Canon is inherently problematic - and yet The Canon when it comes to traditional western European art is *such* a compelling one it's really difficult not to be at least a little seduced by it in any museum with even a half-decent collection.
In particular, there's something about literally *walking through it* in a way that you can't with, say, the complete works of Shakespeare (obviously). It's an entire narrative you can pass through in an afternoon.
And then, if you ever get to experience a Louvre or Prado on a quiet day with the collection largely to yourself... then it's game over.
Oh my gosh, the presentation of non-western works is such a problem. I think about this every time someone says that they like *sigh* “eastern philosophy.” Like, I’m currently reading, out of perverse curiosity, a guy called Rene Guenon who seems to think that all Asian philosophers practice variants of Advaita Vedanta. “Eastern Philosophy” is an incredibly partial and arbitrary room in a museum.
I guess that when the data available about the world so drastically exceeds our resources for understanding it, it’s comforting to act as if “The East” or even “New Guinea” is a concept that one can know quickly. Making ignorance less painful is, I guess, an important motive that competes with desiring truth.
I'm surprised to hear that Papua New Guinea has more languages than any other country. Off the top of my head I'd have guessed India if you had asked me. Even more so after reading that New Yorker article about Ganesh Devy and his quest to identify as many Indian languages as he can. (The article states that as of 1961, there were 1652.) Papua New Guinea has less than 1% the population of India.
Interesting article. The Tok Pisin pidgin part is intriguing. (And Pikinini for "child" -- obviously cognate with a certain offensive term formerly in use in the US.)
However, it suggests that Papua New Guinea as 850 languages. The New Yorker article I mentioned implied that India may have about twice that many. But a lot of that must depend on definition of "language" vs. "dialect" (vis the old crack "A language is a dialect with a navy.") And whatever -- the linguistic diversity of Papua New Gunea really is pretty spectacular.
I mean this article explicitly claims it has more than India. If you've got a different article that makes a direct comparison let me know! Otherwise, as you say, it's apples to oranges
The closest thing I have is the article I just read in the New Yorker with this quote: "The 1961 census had identified sixteen hundred and fifty-two “mother tongues”—many of them, like Betuli or Khawathlang, with speakers numbering in the single digits. But the 1971 census listed only a hundred and eight; the hundred-and-ninth entry was “all others.”" (Link: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/11/25/should-a-country-speak-a-single-language)
Obviously that's 1961 -- some languages may have died out since then. And we don't know the definition of language. I don't know what the Economist article used as its source for India's total number of languages, either. I suspect in any case that it will be difficult to rule in one direction of the other, precisely because the definition of separate language is hard to pin down.
I don't think it really affects your basic point at all, of course. Papua New Guinea really does have an incredible variety of languages, and so to treat its art as monocultural is silly.
Yes the problem with self-reporting the names of languages is that a lot of the languages people report might actually be the same. Like if you asked three people what language they speak and one said British, one said American, and one said English, and one said “language”
Interesting post! I hope the de Young isn't similarly blasé about the sixteenth century tapestries (Battle of Pavia) on loan from Naples. I don't know about Cassatt's process, that does sound a little dull, but the tapestries show is maybe the most exciting one of old European art on view anywhere in the country this fall.
As for telling the story of non-Western art (and the same goes for lesser-known areas of Western art), I haven't seen this collection, but you're right about the random nature of what different museums have acquired over the years. Even the Met can't tell the story of Byzantine art or Russian or Scandinavian art. Smaller museums that aspire to be encyclopedic are pretty much in an impossible position, but it would be considered unseemly to acknowledge this, to have a sign at the entrance to the galleries pointing out weak areas in the collection.
There's a separate problem with Indian art. At the Met at least I think the collection is strong enough to create a coherent narrative, but it's dispersed, half of it is in one wing as 'Asian' and the other half is in another as 'Islamic'. The only way to bring these together would be for a director to carve out a new curatorial department.
The tapestry show is actually good! It's the best thing upstairs.
With the rest I think it's an inherent problem with the fact that…there's just not enough interest at the museum to actually invest the funds and create a coherent story surrounding non-Western art. Which is understandable. I think by segregating the Western and non-Western art in different museums, these two museums did about the best that can be done, but that's exactly what makes this difference in presentation seem so stark!
Now I kind of want to go to the Met and see the Indian art!
Would love to read a post about it, if you do. I think the Indian division wouldn't be a problem if they could have the Islamic and Asian departments in adjacent wings, but to do that they'd have to rearrange the whole museum, impossible.
Recently I was at an "African art" exhibition where sculptures from ancient Egypt and from thr Yoruba were placed next to each other. Its incredibly distracting to have extremely different cultures from time periods thousands of years apart placed in connection simply because they are from the same continent. Maybe there's still a huge lack of art education, but both had small writeups explaining the objects. Curators sometimes just seem to be plain confused.
“The function of the critic is to recommend books to the reading public.”
I pushed back slightly on this in a note and have been thinking about it since as I write some of my own criticism, and I’m wondering about the best way to do that. Basically I’m thinking about the distinction of showing vs. telling. If a critic tells me what books to read, I’m not going to trust that critic, for the same reason I don’t trust a list of the best books of the year, century, etc. If the critic’s main function is to recommend books, why not just have a list, assign a score, and be done with it? It’s curious that in both music and movies, it’s common to have a numerical rating, but you don’t see that as much in individual reviews of books.
Now, if a critic shows me that a book is worth reading through their analysis, then I’m more inclined to check out the book. I guess what I’m saying is I want to be convinced and I need some sort of virtuosic display from the critic to persuade me that the book is worth reading, which they do through interpreting the book, which then helps support their judgement and recommendation.
To be clear, I agree with you that critics should let us know if they think a book is good or bad, but I also think they they need to show us why the book is good or bad, and in a way lead us to that conclusion through their piece. Again, I’m thinking out loud here, working this out for myself and my own writing, and am curious to hear what you think.
That's what rhetoric is for. You make the case that the book is good and worthy of peoples' time.
That process of building credibility with the reader, so they trust your judgement, is the whole job of the critic. That's why you can't just put together a list--it would seem low-effort and would lack credibility. To some extent, a critic should be able to describe why and how they think a book is good. But just to describe the book without reference to quality is a pointless exercise.
I think we largely agree then and after that it becomes a question of balancing these various parts of the review: the rhetoric, the judgement, the description, the summary, etc. Each reviewer has their own personal mix and style, and striking the right balance is key.
Love this post! You really nailed it here. A very well laid out and inspiring argument. Kudos! 🤙 🔥
Yep, I feel like the notion of The Canon is inherently problematic - and yet The Canon when it comes to traditional western European art is *such* a compelling one it's really difficult not to be at least a little seduced by it in any museum with even a half-decent collection.
In particular, there's something about literally *walking through it* in a way that you can't with, say, the complete works of Shakespeare (obviously). It's an entire narrative you can pass through in an afternoon.
And then, if you ever get to experience a Louvre or Prado on a quiet day with the collection largely to yourself... then it's game over.
I completely agree with this. Great article!
Oh my gosh, the presentation of non-western works is such a problem. I think about this every time someone says that they like *sigh* “eastern philosophy.” Like, I’m currently reading, out of perverse curiosity, a guy called Rene Guenon who seems to think that all Asian philosophers practice variants of Advaita Vedanta. “Eastern Philosophy” is an incredibly partial and arbitrary room in a museum.
I guess that when the data available about the world so drastically exceeds our resources for understanding it, it’s comforting to act as if “The East” or even “New Guinea” is a concept that one can know quickly. Making ignorance less painful is, I guess, an important motive that competes with desiring truth.
Wait....you live in the bay area?
Yep, in SF! Are you local too?
Yeah! Also SF!!
I'm surprised to hear that Papua New Guinea has more languages than any other country. Off the top of my head I'd have guessed India if you had asked me. Even more so after reading that New Yorker article about Ganesh Devy and his quest to identify as many Indian languages as he can. (The article states that as of 1961, there were 1652.) Papua New Guinea has less than 1% the population of India.
I know, the diversity of the island is incredible. This article specifically compares it to India. https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2017/07/20/papua-new-guineas-incredible-linguistic-diversity
Interesting article. The Tok Pisin pidgin part is intriguing. (And Pikinini for "child" -- obviously cognate with a certain offensive term formerly in use in the US.)
However, it suggests that Papua New Guinea as 850 languages. The New Yorker article I mentioned implied that India may have about twice that many. But a lot of that must depend on definition of "language" vs. "dialect" (vis the old crack "A language is a dialect with a navy.") And whatever -- the linguistic diversity of Papua New Gunea really is pretty spectacular.
I mean this article explicitly claims it has more than India. If you've got a different article that makes a direct comparison let me know! Otherwise, as you say, it's apples to oranges
The closest thing I have is the article I just read in the New Yorker with this quote: "The 1961 census had identified sixteen hundred and fifty-two “mother tongues”—many of them, like Betuli or Khawathlang, with speakers numbering in the single digits. But the 1971 census listed only a hundred and eight; the hundred-and-ninth entry was “all others.”" (Link: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/11/25/should-a-country-speak-a-single-language)
Obviously that's 1961 -- some languages may have died out since then. And we don't know the definition of language. I don't know what the Economist article used as its source for India's total number of languages, either. I suspect in any case that it will be difficult to rule in one direction of the other, precisely because the definition of separate language is hard to pin down.
I don't think it really affects your basic point at all, of course. Papua New Guinea really does have an incredible variety of languages, and so to treat its art as monocultural is silly.
Yes the problem with self-reporting the names of languages is that a lot of the languages people report might actually be the same. Like if you asked three people what language they speak and one said British, one said American, and one said English, and one said “language”