{"id":173464,"date":"2026-04-24T10:00:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T14:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=173464"},"modified":"2026-04-23T16:12:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T20:12:23","slug":"the-ignorant-art-historian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ignorant Art Historian: An Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Grahamdubya, CC BY-SA 3.0,<\/a> via Wikimedia Commons.<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

This is the introduction to a four-part series by the art critic and historian Hal Foster, resulting from a kind of ritual he devised with a friend during their regular visits to museums. Here, he explains the premise of this game and its parameters. The next four installments are short studies, each centered around a single artwork. The first will be published next week, with the other three to follow over the course of May.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Many of us look at art in the company of others; I have done so with a close friend, off and on, for five decades. We meet at a museum, wander around, settle on a painting (or, rather, it settles on us), look, talk, look more, talk more. We attend to the work and to each other; we enter its world together. Only recently and rarely have we written up our reactions, which we do individually. A testament to our friendship, this writing is also a tribute to the art, to the discursivity that informs it and the sociability that it allows.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Paintings call out to us in myriad ways. My friend and I are most drawn to pictures that are reflexive about looking, that anticipate it, that sharpen it, that alter our habits of seeing. This may be a Modernist criterion, but it hardly disqualifies older art; we have ranged as far back as Early Netherlandish painting. In this selection, though, I focus on pictures that date from the past hundred and fifty years. (For better or worse, that\u2019s also my academic field.)\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My aim in this exercise isn\u2019t to tease out context, which is almost too present in wall texts today. Immediacy may be a mirage, but I try to come to my chosen works as directly as possible. It\u2019s not that I ignore the texts on the walls; I just don\u2019t get stuck there. I don\u2019t pretend to see with a \u201cperiod eye,\u201d as Michael Baxandall called the attempt to perceive as historical viewers may have. Contextual information may often be necessary, but I keep it at a useful minimum. And though I sometimes get speculative, that\u2019s part of the fun. In fact, one purpose of these studies is to be loosened from my scholarly superego (which isn\u2019t very strong, in any case). I want to demystify the viewing of art a little, not to deskill it exactly, but to suggest that anyone can do it. Ignorant Art History is a big tent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking at a painting is a welcome respite from scanning a screen. In that sense, this exercise is reactive: I labor in the small cottage industry of attention that has sprouted up in the cracks of the massive complex of distraction all around us. A phenomenological turn often occurs at times of intensive mediation, but the point is not simply to have our perceptions mirrored back to us. T.<\/span> J. Clark has put the aim nicely: \u201cWhen I am in front of a picture the thing I most want is to enter the <\/span>picture<\/span><\/i>\u2019s world: it is the possibility of doing so that makes pictures worth looking at for me.\u201d To look at a painting is also to exit our world for a while, and then to return to it cast in a different\u2014distant\u2014light. The time travel is often wonderful, and almost free.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hal Foster is an art critic and art historian. He teaches at Princeton University.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cOne purpose of these studies is to be loosened from my scholarly superego (which isn\u2019t very strong, in any case).\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32024],"tags":[35,67827,4490,1234,10211,3231],"class_list":["post-173464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-art","tag-art","tag-featured","tag-hal-foster","tag-metropolitan-museum-of-art","tag-miniseries","tag-museum-of-modern-art"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Ignorant Art Historian: An Introduction by Hal Foster<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"April 24, 2026 \u2013 \u201cOne purpose of these studies is to be loosened from my scholarly superego (which isn\u2019t very strong, in any case).\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Ignorant Art Historian: An Introduction by Hal Foster\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"April 24, 2026 \u2013 \u201cOne purpose of these studies is to be loosened from my scholarly superego (which isn\u2019t very strong, in any case).\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-04-24T14:00:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1280px-hal-foster-2.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Hal Foster\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Hal Foster\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Hal Foster\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5e3c1197ba556a1cb1058b1c48bf657b\"},\"headline\":\"The Ignorant Art Historian: An Introduction\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-04-24T14:00:54+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/\"},\"wordCount\":599,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1280px-hal-foster-2-1024x768.jpeg\",\"keywords\":[\"art\",\"Featured\",\"Hal Foster\",\"Metropolitan Museum of Art\",\"miniseries\",\"Museum of Modern Art\"],\"articleSection\":[\"On Art\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/\",\"name\":\"The Ignorant Art Historian: An Introduction by Hal Foster\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1280px-hal-foster-2-1024x768.jpeg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-04-24T14:00:54+00:00\",\"description\":\"April 24, 2026 \u2013 \u201cOne purpose of these studies is to be loosened from my scholarly superego (which isn\u2019t very strong, in any case).\u201d\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1280px-hal-foster-2.jpeg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1280px-hal-foster-2.jpeg\",\"width\":1280,\"height\":960,\"caption\":\"Grahamdubya, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Ignorant Art Historian: An Introduction\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5e3c1197ba556a1cb1058b1c48bf657b\",\"name\":\"Hal Foster\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a0a1f52fa56905de68c414085dd5c570ac1e22ad90ab9593fc4f210a4d5b2149?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a0a1f52fa56905de68c414085dd5c570ac1e22ad90ab9593fc4f210a4d5b2149?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Hal Foster\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/halfoster\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Ignorant Art Historian: An Introduction by Hal Foster","description":"April 24, 2026 \u2013 \u201cOne purpose of these studies is to be loosened from my scholarly superego (which isn\u2019t very strong, in any case).\u201d","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Ignorant Art Historian: An Introduction by Hal Foster","og_description":"April 24, 2026 \u2013 \u201cOne purpose of these studies is to be loosened from my scholarly superego (which isn\u2019t very strong, in any case).\u201d","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2026-04-24T14:00:54+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1280,"height":960,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1280px-hal-foster-2.jpeg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Hal Foster","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Hal Foster","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/"},"author":{"name":"Hal Foster","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5e3c1197ba556a1cb1058b1c48bf657b"},"headline":"The Ignorant Art Historian: An Introduction","datePublished":"2026-04-24T14:00:54+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/"},"wordCount":599,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1280px-hal-foster-2-1024x768.jpeg","keywords":["art","Featured","Hal Foster","Metropolitan Museum of Art","miniseries","Museum of Modern Art"],"articleSection":["On Art"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/","name":"The Ignorant Art Historian: An Introduction by Hal Foster","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1280px-hal-foster-2-1024x768.jpeg","datePublished":"2026-04-24T14:00:54+00:00","description":"April 24, 2026 \u2013 \u201cOne purpose of these studies is to be loosened from my scholarly superego (which isn\u2019t very strong, in any case).\u201d","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1280px-hal-foster-2.jpeg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1280px-hal-foster-2.jpeg","width":1280,"height":960,"caption":"Grahamdubya, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/the-ignorant-art-historian\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Ignorant Art Historian: An Introduction"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5e3c1197ba556a1cb1058b1c48bf657b","name":"Hal Foster","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a0a1f52fa56905de68c414085dd5c570ac1e22ad90ab9593fc4f210a4d5b2149?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a0a1f52fa56905de68c414085dd5c570ac1e22ad90ab9593fc4f210a4d5b2149?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Hal Foster"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/halfoster\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173464"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173481,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173464\/revisions\/173481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}