Yes, Some Do Hate Impressionism

Re Christopher Knight’s Aug. 12 commentary, “Lasting Favorable Impressions”:

Yes, Mr. Knight, there is someone who loathes the Impressionists. I hate the bright colors that look like they are straight out of the tube, I hate the childish, unfinished look, I hate the myopic fuzziness, I hate what Impressionism developed into in the 20th Century. But most of all I hate the media dictators of the last 40 years who have made the Impressionists into everlasting images of the “avant-garde” and untouchable cultural icons. Well, I’m an iconoclast!

How can one decide what his favorite art is when the options presented are so limited? People do not know that they are kept from non-approved art because they have never been allowed to see for themselves, or they have been told this is what the Impressionists were revolting against and therefore it must be bad art.

When I mention the names of the artists I think are great, I am met with two responses: (1) “I never heard of them--how good could they be?” or (2) “They’re trash, because that is what everybody believes.” The names: Ingres, Ama-Tadema, Tissot, Winterhalter, Parrish (yes, Maxfield Parrish!). The artists I revere could take reality and better it--they could make the casual observer see what he frequently missed in nature.

Millions of art-conscious people believe as they’ve been taught--that it isn’t art if it isn’t fuzzy and indistinct. There are a tiny few of us who think for ourselves.

ROBYN FRISCH

New York