Huck, I don't know how interested you are in reading about these things, but in Smee's The Art of Rivalry, he talks about the dynamic that existed between some of your favorites: Freud & Bacon, Pollock & de Kooning, Manet & Degas, and Picasso & Matisse. Like Jerry Saltz and Robert Hughes, Smee's approaches and style are some that I find enlightening and easily accessible.huckelberry wrote: ↑Sat Jun 14, 2025 8:05 pm
Sounds like that could be an interesting book. One might say seeing an existential dimension to impressionism's search for an immediacy of the moment.
edit to add: I also really like Michael Kimmelman's The Accidental Masterpiece. It mentions pieces, and employs a perspective on art, that I would never have considered otherwise.