An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating

art Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to

art criticism Art criticism is the discussion or evaluation of visual art. Art critics usually criticize art in the context of aesthetics or the theory of beauty. A goal of art criticism is the pursuit of a rational basis for art appreciation but it is quest ...

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.

Opinions

Differently from

art history Art history is the study of Work of art, artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Tradit ...

, there is not commonly an institutionalized training for art critics. 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

. Typically the art critic views art at exhibitions, galleries,

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

s or

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

s' studios and they can be members of the

International Association of Art Critics The International Association of Art Critics (French: ''Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art'', AICA) was founded in 1950 to revitalize critical discourse, which suffered under Fascism during World War II. Affiliated with UNESCO AICA wa ...

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

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as Art criticism, art, Literary criticism, literature, Music journalism, music, Film criticism, cinema, Theater criticism, theater, Fas ...

s 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 movement An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific art philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defined ...

s –

Roger Fry Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English painter and art critic, critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent ...

with the Post-Impressionist movement and 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

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

and

art historians The history of art focuses on objects made by humans for any number of spiritual, narrative, philosophical, symbolic, conceptual, documentary, decorative, and even functional and other purposes, but with a primary emphasis on its aesthetics ...

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

File:Denisdiderot.jpg,

Jean-Honoré Fragonard Jean-Honoré Fragonard (; 5 April 1732 (birth/baptism certificate) – 22 August 1806) was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific art ...

, ''Portrait of

Denis Diderot Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominent figure during th ...

,'' 1769,

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. His

was highly influential. His ''Essais sur la peinture'' was described by

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

, as "a magnificent work, which speaks even more helpfully to the poet than to the painter, though to the painter too it is as a blazing torch." Diderot's favorite painter was Jean-Baptiste Greuze. File:John Neal by Sarah Miriam Peale 1823 Portland Museum of Art.jpg, Portrait of

John Neal John Neal (August 25, 1793 – June 20, 1876) was an American writer, critic, editor, lecturer, and activist. Considered both eccentric and influential, he delivered speeches and published essays, novels, poems, and short stories between the 1 ...

by Sarah Miriam Peale, 1823. Neal is regarded as the first American art critic and was also an influential writer and literary critic. File:Charles Baudelaire 1855 Nadar.jpg,

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, translator and art critic. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhythm and rhyme, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics ...

1855, Photo by

Nadar Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (; 5 April 1820 – 20 March 1910), known by the pseudonym Nadar () or Félix Nadar'','' was a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist, balloon (aircraft), balloonist, and proponent of History of avi ...

. Baudelaire is associated with the

Decadent movement The Decadent movement (from the French language, French ''décadence'', ) was a late 19th-century Art movement, artistic and literary movement, literary movement, centered in Western Europe, that followed an aesthetic ideology of excess and artif ...

. His book of poetry ''

Les Fleurs du mal ''Les Fleurs du mal'' (; ) is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. ''Les Fleurs du mal'' includes nearly all Baudelaire's poetry, written from 1840 until his death in August 1867. First published in 1857, it was important in the ...

'' is acknowledged as a classic of

French literature French literature () generally speaking, is literature written in the French language, particularly by French people, French citizens; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of Franc ...

File:Portrait of Zacharie Astruc (1866) - Edouard Manet (Kunsthalle Bremen).jpg,

Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French Modernism, modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism (art movement), R ...

, ''Portrait of Zacharie Astruc'' 1866, Kunsthalle Bremen. He was a strong defender of

Gustave Courbet Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( ; ; ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the ...

, and was one of the first to recognize the talent of

. He also defended

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, ; ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of Impressionism painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his ...

James McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter in oils and watercolor, and printmaker, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral a ...

, Carolus-Duran, Fantin-Latour, and Alphonse Legros. File:Manet, Edouard - Portrait of Emile Zola.jpg,

, ''Portrait of

Émile Zola Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, ; ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of Naturalism (literature), naturalism, and an important contributor to ...

'', 1868,

Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) () is a museum in Paris, France, on the Rive Gauche, Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts railway station built from 1898 to 1900. The museum holds mai ...

. Émile Zola (1840-1902) was an influential French

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles, genres and techniques to communicate ideas, to inspire feelings and emotions, or to entertain. Writers may develop different forms of writing such as novels, short sto ...

, and art critic. He was a major figure in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer

Alfred Dreyfus Alfred Dreyfus (9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935) was a French Army officer best known for his central role in the Dreyfus affair. In 1894, Dreyfus fell victim to a judicial conspiracy that eventually sparked a major political crisis in the Fre ...

. File:Aurier, Albert, BNF Gallica.jpg, Albert Aurier, c. 1890, Wrote about

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...

, and

Paul Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist, and writer, whose work has been primarily associated with the Post-Impressionist and Symbolist movements. He was also an influ ...

. File:Signac - Portrait de Félix Fénéon.jpg, Paul Signac, '' Félix Fénéon,'' 1890. A French

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

and art critic in Paris during the late 1800s. He coined the term " Neo-impressionism" in 1886. File:Clive Bell.jpg, Portrait of Clive Bell (1881-1964), by

(1924 c.) File:Guillaume Apollinaire 1914.jpg,

Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire (; ; born Kostrowicki; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist and art critic of Poland, Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...

(1880–1918), 1914, French poet, writer and art critic he is credited with coining the word

surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

File:Modigliani, Picasso and André Salmon.jpg,

André Salmon André Salmon (4 October 1881, Paris – 12 March 1969, Sanary-sur-Mer) was a French poet, art critic and writer. He was one of the early defenders of Cubism, with Guillaume Apollinaire and Maurice Raynal. Biography André Salmon was born i ...

, Modigliani, and

Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

in Montparnasse (1916), photographed by

Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau ( , ; ; 5 July 1889 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, film director, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost avant-garde artists of the 20th-c ...

File:Roger Fry self-portrait.jpg,

Self-portrait Self-portraits are Portrait painting, portraits artists make of themselves. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, the practice of self-portraiture only gaining momentum in the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century ...

,'' 1928. He was described by

Kenneth Clark Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was a British art historian, museum director and broadcaster. His expertise covered a wide range of artists and periods, but he is particularly associated with Italian Renaissa ...

as "incomparably the greatest influence on taste since Ruskin... In so far as taste can be changed by one man, it was changed by Roger Fry". File:Leo Stein.jpg, Leo Stein (1872–1947), art collector/critic, elder brother of Gertrude Stein. Photo by

Carl Van Vechten Carl Van Vechten (; June 17, 1880December 21, 1964) was an American writer and Fine-art photography, artistic photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary estate, literary executor of Gertrude Stein. He gained fame ...

, November 9, 1937 File:Frank O'Hara (photo portrait).jpg,

Frank O'Hara Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure i ...

(1926-1966),
Refurbished Reputation for a Nervy Painter. Larry Rivers, delivered one of the eulogies, along with Bill Berkson, Edwin Denby, and René d'Harnoncourt. File:Arthur Danto, 2012.jpg, Arthur Danto, (1924-2013), Danto laid the groundwork for an institutional definition of artThis theory has been described as an "influential theory about the nature of art", according t
Philosophy Now, November 2013
/ref> File:John Berger-2009 (6).jpg,

John Berger John Peter Berger ( ; 5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel '' G.'' won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism '' Ways of Seeing'', written as an accompaniment to t ...

, (1926-2017),

Notable art critics

* Christopher Allen * Lawrence Alloway *

* Henriette Arasse * Zacharie Astruc * Albert Aurier *

* Michael Baxandall * Sister Wendy Beckett * Clive Bell * Andrew Berardini * Bernard Berenson *

* Vasily Botkin * John Canaday * Champfleury *

* T. J. Clark * Robert Coates * Clarence Cook * Douglas Cooper * Royal Cortissoz * Thomas Craven * Arthur Danto * G. Roger Denson *

Sergei Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪrˈɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), also known as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario an ...

* John Elderfield * James Elkins * Ticio Escobar * Félix Fénéon * Hal Foster * Peter Frank * Michael Fried * B. H. Friedman *

* Peter Fuller *

Théophile Gautier Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier ( , ; 30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic. While an ardent defender of Romanticism, Gautier's work is difficult to classify and rema ...

* Stepan Gedeonov * Gustave Geffroy * Clement Greenberg * Dmitry Grigorovich * Boris Groys * Ichirō Hariu * Dave Hickey * Robert Hughes * Édouard Jaguer *

Michael Kimmelman Michael Kimmelman (born May 8, 1958) is the Architecture criticism, architecture critic for ''The New York Times'' and has written about public housing and homelessness, public space, landscape architecture, community development and equity, infr ...

* Hilton Kramer * Rosalind E. Krauss *

R. Siva Kumar Raman Siva Kumar (born 3 December 1956), known as R. Siva Kumar, is an Indian contemporary art historian, art critic, and curator. His major research has been in the area of early Indian modernism with special focus on the Santiniketan School. ...

* Donald Kuspit * Julien Leclercq * Louis Leroy * Lucy R. Lippard * Giovanni Lista * George Loukomski * Sergey Makovsky * Nancy Marmer *

Camille Mauclair Séverin Faust (December 29, 1872, Paris – April 23, 1945), better known by his pseudonym Camille Mauclair (), was a French poet, novelist, biographer, travel writer, and art critic. Background Mauclair was a great admirer of Stéphane Mallarm� ...

* Octave Mirbeau * Robert C. Morgan * Suzanne Muchnic *

* Linda Nochlin *

* Saul Ostrow * Jed Perl * Adrian Prakhov * Griselda Pollock * Nikolay Punin * Arlene Raven *

Herbert Read Sir Herbert Edward Read, (; 4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read wa ...

* Pierre Restany *

John Rewald John Rewald (May 12, 1912 – February 2, 1994) was an American academic, author and art historian. He was known as a scholar of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cézanne, Renoir, Pissarro, Seurat, and other French painters of the late 19th cen ...

Rainer Maria Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was an Austrian poet and novelist. Acclaimed as an Idiosyncrasy, idiosyncratic and expressive poet, he is widely recognized as ...

* Daniel Robbins * Barbara Rose * Harold Rosenberg * Robert Rosenblum *

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English polymath a writer, lecturer, art historian, art critic, draughtsman and philanthropist of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as art, architecture, Critique of politic ...

* John Russell *

Frank Rutter Francis Vane Phipson Rutter (17 February 1876 – 18 April 1937)"Rutter, Frank V. P.", ''Who Was Who'', A & C Black, 1920–2007; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007. Retrieved froukwhoswho8 August 2008. was a British art art critic, c ...

Jerry Saltz Jerry Saltz (born February 19, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois) is an American art critic. Since 2006, he has been senior art critic and columnist for ''New York magazine, New York'' magazine. Formerly the senior art critic for ''The Village Voice'', ...

* 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 Tristan Tzara (; ; ; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; – 25 December 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, c ...

* Kirk Varnedoe * Louis Vauxcelles * Boris Vipper * Karen Wilkin *

References

External links

*
Good audio version of symposium on contemporary (2007) art criticism entitled "Empathy and Criticality", sponsored by the Frieze Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Art Critic