What has our culture lost in 1980 that the avant-garde had in 1890? Ebullience, idealism, confidence, the belief that there was plenty of territory to explore, and above all the sense that art, in the most disinterested and noble way,… — Robert Hughes Copy Share Image
“Most of the time they buy what other people buy. They move in great schools, like bluefish, all identical. There is safety in numbers.… — Robert Hughes Copy Share Image
The basic project of art is always to make the world whole and comprehensible, to restore it to us in all its glory and… — Robert Hughes Copy Share Image
A Gustave Courbet portrait of a trout has more death in it than Rubens could get in a whole Crucifixion. — Robert Hughes Copy Share Image
“In one sense, (Duchamp's) “The Large Glass” is a glimpse into Hell; a peculiarly modernist Hell of repetition and loneliness.” — Robert Hughes Copy Share Image
“Indeed, the idea that doubt can be heroic, if it is locked into a structure as grand as that of the paintings of Cezanne's… — Robert Hughes Copy Share Image
One thing is sure: the Sagrada Familia is the first Catholic temple whose bacon was ever saved by Shinto tourism. Not even Gaudi, who… — Robert Hughes Copy Share Image
What strip mining is to nature the art market has become to culture. — Robert Hughes Copy Share Image
For the machine meant the conquest of horizontal space. It also meant a sense of that space which few people had experienced before –… — Robert Hughes Copy Share Image
“The World's Fair audience tended to think of the machine as unqualifiedly good, strong, stupid and obedient. They thought of it as a giant… — Robert Hughes Copy Share Image