We visited the Great Wall of China in the spring of 2010. The Wall has magnificent sweeps that have been beautifully restored, and project strong to the max. Those are the parts you see as background for visiting swells. What astonished me when I saw the actual thing was not hugeness or grandeur, but the […]

I draw a broad distinction between self-portraits intended to function as monuments, as statements about who the artist is, by golly, and those which are more in the nature of  self-exploration. It’s the difference between a declaration and an inquiry. The first category can be more productive of laughs— self-portrait as David – Johann Zoffany […]