Art critic

Art critic
An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogues and on websites. Some of today's art critics use art blogs and other online platforms in order to connect with a wider audience and expand debate about art.
Differently from art history, there is not an institutionalized training for art critics (with only few exceptions); art critics come from different backgrounds and they may or may not be university trained. Professional art critics are expected to have a keen eye for art and a thorough knowledge of art history. Typically the art critic views art at exhibitions, galleries, museums or artists' studios and they can be members of the International Association of Art Critics which has national sections. Very rarely art critics earn their living from writing criticism.
The opinions of art critics have the potential to stir debate on art-related topics. Due to this the viewpoints of art critics writing for art publications and newspapers adds to public discourse concerning art and culture. Art collectors and patrons often rely on the advice of such critics as a way to enhance their appreciation of the art they are viewing. Many now-famous and celebrated artists were not recognized by the art critics of their time, often because their art was in a style not yet understood or favored. Conversely, some critics, have become particularly important helping to explain and promote new art movements – Roger Fry with the Post-Impressionist movement, Lawrence Alloway with pop art as examples.
Controversies
According to James Elkins there is a distinction between art criticism and art history based on institutional, contextual, and commercial criteria; the history of art criticism is taught in universities, but the practice of art criticism is excluded institutionally from academia. An experience-related article is Agnieszka Gratza. Always according to James Elkins in smaller and developing countries, newspaper art criticism normally serves as art history. James Elkins's perspective portraits his personal link to art history and art historians and in What happened to art criticism he furthermore highlights the gap between art historians and art critics by suggesting that the first rarely cite the second as a source and that the second miss an academic discipline to refer to.
Gallery
Notable art critics
Christopher Allen
Lawrence Alloway
Guillaume Apollinaire
Zacharie Astruc
Albert Aurier
Charles Baudelaire
Michael Baxandall
Sister Wendy Beckett
Clive Bell
Andrew Berardini
Bernard Berenson
John Berger
Vasily Botkin
John Canaday
Champfleury
Kenneth Clark
T. J. Clark
Robert Coates
Clarence Cook
Douglas Cooper
Royal Cortissoz
Thomas Craven
Arthur Danto
G. Roger Denson
Sergei Diaghilev
Denis Diderot
John Elderfield
James Elkins
Félix Fénéon
Hal Foster
Peter Frank
Michael Fried
B. H. Friedman
Roger Fry
Peter Fuller
Théophile Gautier
Stepan Gedeonov
Gustave Geffroy
Clement Greenberg
Dmitry Grigorovich
Boris Groys
Ichirō Hariu
Dave Hickey
Robert Hughes
Édouard Jaguer
Michael Kimmelman
Hilton Kramer
Rosalind E. Krauss
R. Siva Kumar
Donald Kuspit
Julien Leclercq
Louis Leroy
Lucy R. Lippard
Giovanni Lista
George Loukomski
Sergey Makovsky
Nancy Marmer
Camille Mauclair
Octave Mirbeau
Robert C. Morgan
Suzanne Muchnic
John Neal
Linda Nochlin
Frank O'Hara
Saul Ostrow
Jed Perl
Adrian Prakhov
Griselda Pollock
Nikolay Punin
Arlene Raven
Herbert Read
Pierre Restany
John Rewald
Rainer Maria Rilke
Daniel Robbins
Barbara Rose
Harold Rosenberg
Robert Rosenblum
John Ruskin
John Russell
Frank Rutter
André Salmon
Jerry Saltz
Irving Sandler
Meyer Schapiro
Peter Schjeldahl
Brian Sewell
Roberta Smith
Rafael Squirru
Vladimir Stasov
Leo Stein
Leo Steinberg
Aleksey Suvorin
Michel Tapié
Théophile Thoré-Bürger
Éric Troncy
Tristan Tzara
Kirk Varnedoe
Louis Vauxcelles
Boris Vipper
Karen Wilkin
Émile Zola
Ticio Escobar
See also
List of art critics
References
External links
Good audio version of symposium on contemporary (2007) art criticism entitled "Empathy and Criticality," sponsored by the Frieze Foundation
critic