Prior to the first meeting of the art history group, Dick asked us to write a brief comparison of the two works above. Here is how Curtis Cost responded:

Two definitions of art…

On the left, as described in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, art defined as a skill set developed over the course of 10,000 hours.

On the right, Analytic Cubism. Art as described in Tom Wolfe’s The Painted Word, defined intellectually, explained by theory, prompting N.Y. Times Art Critic Hilton Kramer to write “These days, without a theory to go with it, I can’t see a painting.”