The variability of artistic reputation.

There is no immortal, impregnable canon of greatness, and perhaps we do wrong to insist that our children read "the classics": even Shakespeare was considered trash for most of the 17th and 18th centuries. Perhaps the best we ever rise to is a sort of generational consensus, like the frieze of worthies with which the Victorians surrounded the Albert Memorial. Taste is constantly and healthily fluctuating. There are no absolute aesthetic values.

I am with this statement 100 percent.

posted by James Russell | 3:48 PM