The piece challenges the idea of the traditional art critic as well as a critic’s motivations and qualifications for deciding what is fashionable or acceptable art.
The Faith Healers
This is a painting by George Grosz. Also known as "Fit for Active Service", it depicts a doctor inspecting a skeleton with an ear trumpet, pronouncing him "KV" which is short for kriegsverwendungsfahig, or "fit for combat". This scene refers to the desperate recall of discharged soldiers towards the end of the war, after the German forces suffered heavy losses.
The Funeral: A tribute to Oskar Panizza
Dedicated to the writer and psychiatrist Oskar Panizza, who was known for his witty criticisms against the state, A Funeral is a statement of Grosz's feelings of disgust and frustration toward German society during the tumult that followed World War I.
Germany: A Winter's Tale (c. 1917)
Germany: A Winter's Tale, is close in style and composition to A Funeral: Tribute to Oskar Panizza(1917-18), which was created in the same time period. Both reference the shattered space of Cubism and the motion of Futurism. Grosz utilizes allegory throughout in order to maximize the impact of each figure and object within the tumultuous space of the painting. The three figures at the bottom represent the church, state, and school, all of which spoon-feed their ideals to the receptive man. Those in control studiously ignore the resulting chaos, represented by figures such as the sailor, who Grosz declared to be a symbol of revolution.
Mr. and Mrs. Andrews
Mr and Mrs Andrews is an oil on canvas portrait of about 1750 by Thomas Gainsborough, now in the National Gallery, London. [more]
Flatford Mill
Flatford Mill (Scene on a Navigable River) is an oil painting by English artist John Constable, painted in 1816. It is Constable's largest exhibition canvas to be painted mainly outdoors, the first of his large "six-foot" paintings [more]
The Fighting Temeraire
The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838 is an oil painting by the English artist J. M. W. Turner. HMS Temeraire was one of the last second-rate ships of the line to have played a distinguished role in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. [more]
Liberty Leading the People
Liberty Leading the People is a painting by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X of France. [more]
Ophelia
Ophelia is a painting by British artist Sir John Everett Millais, completed between 1851 and 1852. It depicts Ophelia, a character from Hamlet, singing before she drowns in a river in Denmark. [more]
The Music Lesson
The Music Lesson or Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman by Jan Vermeer, is a painting of young female pupil receiving the titular music lesson. [more]
