They Cried. They Gasped. But No One Fainted.

They Cried. They Gasped. But No One Fainted.

How Critics and Curators Respond to Memorable Works of Art In a recent issue of The New Yorker, actress Allison Janney reported of her first encounter with Wassily Kandinsky’s Black Lines (1913) in the Guggenheim Museum: “I felt an energy go through my chest.” I...
First Love and Irresistible Impulses

First Love and Irresistible Impulses

First Love and Irresistible Impulses Or the man who licked the Vermeer My first boyfriend, in college, always smelled of Ivory soap. It was a clean, innocent scent, like baby powder or shampoo, and therefore perhaps appropriate for young love. For years after we broke...