Reader's Digest: December 8, 2022

If a theme has emerged in my reading over the past few weeks, it is criticism—literary, auditory, visual, even gustatory—a feast for (almost) all the senses. (There should be more tactile art.)

When the New Yorker’s Peter Schjeldahl died two months ago, I resolved to read his catalogue more methodically, with the help of Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light. The man could write. His prose swings; its personality is big.

On Willem de Kooning in the Village Voice, 1994:

Like the bus in the thriller Speed, this masterpieces-only retrospective never slows down and thus is hard to board. … The effect was like a plane taking off, when the acceleration presses you against the seat. … If something similar doesn’t happen to you at the Met, either you are distracted by personal woes or the art of painting is wasted on you.

On Henri Matisse the same year:

The Matisse show at the Museum of Modern Art is a controlled orgy. It will let you know how much pleasure you can stand.

When Schjeldahl moved to the New Yorker