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It was van Gogh's madness that prevented him from working; the paintings themselves are ineffably sane, if sanity is to be defined in terms of exact judgment of ends and means and the power of visual analysis.

— Robert Hughes Nothing If Not Critical (1991)

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More quotes by Robert Hughes

The sense of not having the whole story that comes from living close up to traumatic events.

Nothing If Not Critical (1991)

The hallmark of the minor artist is to be obsessed with style as an end in itself.

Nothing If Not Critical (1991)

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt; perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.

Time magazine (1996)

What strip-mining is to nature, the art market has become to culture.

Nothing If Not Critical (1991)

It is the nature of carnivores to get power and then, having disposed of their enemies, to deploy the emollient powers of Great Art to make themselves look like herbivores.

Nothing If Not Critical (1991)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Robert Hughes (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.