"To read Tynan is to be thrilled into paying better and closer attention - which, in short, is the point of criticism in the first place."

Anthony Quinn, on "Theatre Writings" by Kenneth Tynan in Telegraph Review 3rd Feb. 2007

 

Kant on Beauty by Steve Eddy

"Kant's contribution to the understanding of art was the reverse of the approach of former philosophers who had asked 'why are some objects beautiful?' (eg. a warthog and a gazelle; a peacock and an ostrich; John Prescott and Julia Roberts). Kant asked, given that we organise our world in perceiving it, what is it about us that makes us perceive some things as beautiful and some things as ugly?"

Steve Eddy, lecture "'But is it art? The philosophy of aesthetics." unpublished 2005.

Brian Sewell on amateur artists

"Many painters would have been appalled at how little time we took, (to select for the annual portrait award at the National Portrait Gallery 2005 AW) their hours or days or weeks of labour dismissed in seconds - but, truth to tell, bad paintings do not improve with longer looking...I fell to wondering, yet again, at the vanity of painters incapable of even rudimenatary self-criticism and at the boundless conceit of amateurs."

Brian Sewell in the Evening Standard 17th June 2005.