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Don’t ask what Frederic Church’s massive, immersive landscapes mean. Just look. By Susan Tallman “We know of nothing,” Henry James observed in 1875, “that is a better proof of the essential impotence of criticism, in the last resort, than Mr. Church’s pictures.” James wasn’t (in this instance) being spiteful. He was trying to sort out a real problem: What did the work of America’s preeminent painter actually mean? Serious art is supposed to mean something— that’s a given— but really, what is there to say about Frederic Church’s Valley of Santa Ysabel, New Granada? …
摘自《大西洋月刊》(The Atlantic)第338卷 第1期 · 2026年7月7日,Susan Tallman。仅引用开头一小段供了解文章,版权归原刊所有,全文请阅读原刊。