Robert Hughes 1938 - 2012

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

When he reached a mass audience for the first time in 1980 with his book and television series The Shock of the New, a history of modern art starting with the Eiffel Tower and graced with a title that still resounds in 100 later punning imitations, some of the BBC hierarchy greeted the proposal that Hughes should do the series with ill-favoured disdain. "Why a journalist?" they asked, remembering the urbanity of Lord Clark of Civilisation.

He gave them their answer with the best series of programmes about modern art yet made for television, low on theory, high on the the kind of epigrammatic judgment that condenses deep truths. Van Gogh, he said, "was the hinge on which 19th-century romanticism finally swung into 20th-century expressionism". Jackson Pollock "evoked that peculiarly American landscape experience, Whitman's 'vast Something', which was part of his natural heritage as a boy in Cody, Wyoming". And his description of the cubism of Picasso and Braque still stands as the most coherent 10-page summary in the literature.

graun


i watched it agape breathless and enthused ... and all his work had such quality ...

[amateur51]

I've always enjoyed his written and TV work because he always shook things up, made me, an enthusiast but certainly not a scholar, look at things afresh or for the first time - lots of "I never realised that..!" moments.But he also had an eye for the second- or even third-rate and was not afraid to say so. And if you disagreed with him, so what? It was the debate that mattered.

He'll be missed.

[Richard Tarleton]

graun


i watched it agape breathless and enthused ... and all his work had such quality ...

Likewise his book and programme on Goya - great writer, mind and human being.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

He was, as Ammie says, a superb communicator, thought-provocateur and enthusiast and, as Richard says "great writer, mind and human being". I always looked forward to his programmes on Art and his history of the early settlement of Australia, The Fatal Shore is simply magnificent.

[Belgrove]

Robert Hughes RIP

The death of Robert Hughes was announced today. He never made a complete recovery from an appalling road accident, which left him in a coma for some time during which his shattered legs were surgically reconstructed. Ironically it was this terrible accident which spurred Hughes to write his magisterial biography of Goya, in which he relates the shade of the artist goading him in to writing the book he had been planning for the best part of a lifetime, but which he always found excuses to put off. The resulting work is a masterpiece.

But so too are Hughes’ other works, and not just confined to the written word. His TV essays on post impressionist art – The Shock of the New, have a visual style and vitality quite distinct from the more stately Civilization. It was these programmes that inculcated in me an interest in visual art. Later came American Visions, which surveyed the entirety of American art, whose huge span was encompassed and described in his beautifully crafted prose. There is no-one who could capture an image like Hughes – he always had something fresh to say about even the most familiar of works. And he was not afraid to point when the emperor wore no clothes, often with a refreshingly no-nonsense, droll and pugnacious turn of phrase.

The Fatal Shore about the foundation of modern Australia through the penal colony is another masterpiece. I have his last book, on Rome no less, still to read.

He was a hugely cultured, opinionated and undoubtedly difficult man, but one whose enthusiasms and tastes were communicated through different media, all with success and panache. His writing style is accessible and vigorous – even `plain’, but it has a concision and elegance that makes it literature of the highest order. We can but hope for a repeat showing of his TV work as a fitting tribute.

[amateur51]

The death of Robert Hughes was announced today. He never made a complete recovery from an appalling road accident, which left him in a coma for some time during which his shattered legs were surgically reconstructed. Ironically it was this terrible accident which spurred Hughes to write his magisterial biography of Goya, in which he relates the shade of the artist goading him in to writing the book he had been planning for the best part of a lifetime, but which he always found excuses to put off. The resulting work is a masterpiece.

But so too are Hughes’ other works, and not just confined to the written word. His TV essays on post impressionist art – The Shock of the New, have a visual style and vitality quite distinct from the more stately Civilization. It was these programmes that inculcated in me an interest in visual art. Later came American Visions, which surveyed the entirety of American art, whose huge span was encompassed and described in his beautifully crafted prose. There is no-one who could capture an image like Hughes – he always had something fresh to say about even the most familiar of works. And he was not afraid to point when the emperor wore no clothes, often with a refreshingly no-nonsense, droll and pugnacious turn of phrase.

The Fatal Shore about the foundation of modern Australia through the penal colony is another masterpiece. I have his last book, on Rome no less, still to read.

He was a hugely cultured, opinionated and undoubtedly difficult man, but one whose enthusiasms and tastes were communicated through different media, all with success and panache. His writing style is accessible and vigorous – even `plain’, but it has a concision and elegance that makes it literature of the highest order. We can but hope for a repeat showing of his TV work as a fitting tribute.

An excellent summation, imho Belgrove

There's an earlier thread here & perhaps the powers that be can blend them? Thanks

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?5969-Robert-Hughes-1938-2012

[Belgrove]

It would seem that The Shock of the New is being shown on BBC 4 at 11 pm from next Monday.

[amateur51]

It would seem that The Shock of the New is being shown on BBC 4 at 11 pm from next Monday.

Great news, Belgrove - many thanks

[Serial_Apologist]

I saw the series, but am I right in thinking Hughes was a bit of an artistic conservative, who, like me, didn't find much to inspire or enlighten in art, post-Abstract Expressionism? He didn't help guide me, in that respect.

[vinteuil]

He didn't help guide me...

... well, he certainly helped guide me.

But then, prior to his series, my understanding probably stopped with Corot... .

[johnb]

"Robert Hughes on Goya: Crazy like a Genius" is being broadcast on BBC Four this Thursday at 22:50.

Definitely worth watching (and recording).