From the Publisher

By Elizabeth Valk Long

Last month our art critic, Robert Hughes, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a group founded in 1780 by John Adams, the country's second President, to allow people of "genius and learning to cultivate the arts and sciences in the new nation." Considered one of the most prestigious scholarly institutions, its membership is heavily academic. Along with Hughes, only 15 people in the fine-arts fields were elected this year -- among them cellist Yo Yo Ma, choreographer Jerome Robbins and sculptor Richard Serra.

Since 1970, Hughes has filled our magazine's pages with vigorous commentary written at a high intellectual pitch. Yet he never fails to make his subjects appealing and accessible -- with humor, apt social context and, more than occasionally, a rude remark.

Still, an art critic can seem like a remote figure. Christopher Porterfield, senior editor for the Art section, knows better. "He's an inveterate phoner," says Porterfield. "I'm used to hearing from him early -- Bob is often writing at 5 -- and he gives me a declamatory reading of new work, chuckling with pleasure. His enthusiasm is great. Especially after 8 a.m."

The essence of Bob's approach can be summarized in what might be called Hughes' Laws, informal but very emphatic:

1. Art is pretty concrete stuff, it's not metaphysical perfume. So be concrete.

2. Don't talk down to readers, and using jargon always means talking down.

3. Art does not carry ideas the way a truck carries coal. We shouldn't try to retrofit the art of 300 years ago with our moral attitudes. The past is a very foreign place.

4. Above all, never pretend to have sensations from a work of art that you haven't had. It's the greatest lie of all.

Hughes' new book of essays, Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America (Oxford University Press), has just been published. Next he'll write and narrate an eight-hour TV series on American art, called American Visions. Working on it, he became fascinated by how little Americans know about their early art and its role in the nation's life. He recalls Adams' contemporary, Thomas Jefferson, admiring the Maison Carree at Nimes in France. Moved by its classical structure, he decided it should be the model for the new capitol in Richmond, Virginia. "Noble, astringent, eloquent," remarks Hughes, "just what the new republic stood for." That's a series we'll tune in to.