Interview with Sebastian Smee, Art Critic, The Washington Post

Tamar Avishai: Sebastian Smee. Welcome to the Lonely Palette. Thank you so much for joining me.

Sebastian Smee: Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

Tamar Avishai: You are the art critic for The Washington Post, but you've had a few other posts along the way that have brought you to this place. And I just want you to, you know, if you could give kind of a quick and dirty summary of what brought you into this field and what brought you to where you are right now.

Sebastian Smee: Right. Well, yeah, it is, it is a bit messy, a bit dirty. I joined the post in 2018, but prior to that I'd been at the Boston Globe. Uh, the editor of the globe, Marty Baron, brought me over from Australia in 2008. So I had a wonderful time at the globe. Um, uh, spent a year back in Australia in 2017, which is where I'm from. And uh, and then joined the globe. Sorry. Joined the Washington Post from there. Um, yeah. Prior to all that, prior to coming to the States, uh, I'd been an art critic starting at the age of 23, uh, in Australia at the Sydney Morning Herald and later on at The Australian, which is the national, uh, national newspaper there. And in between those two, I had four years living in London, where I worked basically as a freelancer. Um, but mostly for the Daily Telegraph, uh, as a kind of second string art critic there. And I wrote for The Guardian, The Independent, uh, the Ft, The times and a bunch of, you know, magazines and art magazines specifically. Uh, so, yeah, I've had a great time. I feel incredibly lucky to have been writing art criticism, you know, all this time.

Tamar Avishai: What got you excited about this stuff in the first place? How does anybody become a critic? And how did how did you become a critic specifically?

Sebastian Smee: Right. Well, I mean, I think I just spent a lot of time from my mid-teens on reading criticism, and it didn't necessarily have to be about art. Often it was about film or books or, uh, music, whatever. And, uh, you know, there are just voices that you read or hear in your head and you think, wow, you know, it's exciting to just just that sort of first person response to things that you feel passionately about, um, was really thrilling. So, you know, there were critics I read, uh, in Australia, there was, uh, you know, uh, Robert Hughes and Germaine Greer and Clive James, that sort of generation of critics. Uh, there was a guy called John MacDonald who helped me get my first job at the Sydney Morning Herald. Um, but I was also reading a lot of things in The New Yorker, you know, which would arrive, you know, in Australia about a week after it came out. And in New York and, you know, in other magazines and in collections. Janet Malcolm, Joan Didion, all these kinds of writers got me excited and, and, uh, I just thought that's something I'd really like to do.

Sebastian Smee: And, you know, I was studying art history at university. Uh, so that was always a possibility, I guess. But I think the first pieces I wrote were on film. Uh, and then, you know, I really needed to sort of get a job in a hurry. And so I reached out to a bunch of editors and a few writers, and one of the writers was this guy I mentioned, John MacDonald, who got back to me and he said, look, you know, not everything you sent is great because I'd send a few, you know, unpublished things. He said, but I see some promise here. And, you know, uh, if you want to meet up for coffee. And I said, sure. And we went around the galleries together. And, you know, I'll always be grateful to him for that because I think, you know, it takes often someone to just give you a bit of encouragement and a bit of a start and then, you know, it's that great privilege, isn't it, of learning on the job. And that's what I feel I'm still doing today.

Tamar Avishai: There's a way that a very specific kind of critic writes, and I think it's the kind of critic who who, you know, really distinguishes themselves above the fray by actually writing in a way that is very readable, is very digestible. When I think about the way that I was taught to write in school and, you know, I understand why, you know, there's there's certainly a convention that, you know, is how academic writing, um, you know, how it's meant to read, how it's meant to be consumed, how it's meant to be, uh, quoted, you know, in, in the next academic paper. And then there are critics. I had a wonderful conversation last year with Lucy Lippard, where it's like the kind of writing that almost becomes a little bit novelistic, you know? A lot of great, well-chosen similes, you know, ways that really kind of bring a larger public, you know, into this work without necessarily alienating them. Kind of speaking the way that that we speak. And I, you know, that's something that I read in your writing. Did you kind of set out to write for the, you know, write about art for the public or was it for kind of yourself? And it just happened to translate?

Sebastian Smee: I think that, you know, I went I went to university at a time when, um, you know, French theory ruled. And, you know, we were all reading often kind of badly translated Derrida and Foucault and Baudrillard and so on. And yeah, you know, I mean, I'm grateful for all that, of course. But, you know, it was incredibly hard to understand. And often you were asked to read these things with very little philosophical or art historical context. And, um, at the same time, I was reading, as I said, these, these essays, these journalistic essays by really stylish and terrific writers. And I feel like there was a bit of a battle going on in those days, uh, a sort of an attempt to salvage language and its connection to reality from this sort of academic trend that was in interesting ways, um, deconstructing those links and making us aware of of power relations within those links and so on. And, you know, all of that was really salutary. But I found myself drawn more and more to the, the journalistic kind of stylists. Maybe it's because I'm just not temperamentally an academic. I you know, and I don't I have enormous respect for scholars and academics, I really do.

Sebastian Smee: Um, but I find the kind of language you have to use and the kind of rules you have to follow stifling. And so when I was reading this other stuff, I found it really liberating. And I got really interested in other writers styles, you know, and I became very thoughtful about that. And then maybe there was a bit of a reaction against that, too. You know, when a writer is too stylized, it can sort of become almost like a toxin. You know, you're more aware of, of the style than of what they're actually writing about. And, you know, in fiction, I would say, you know, my favorite writers are sort of people like Alice Munro and, you know, people who write with a really clear style. They're incredibly artful. But there is this, this it's incredibly accessible. And, uh, and so, look, I, you know, I didn't try to base myself on, on anyone or anything, but I think this was the sort of soup of considerations that was going on in my mind. But, you know, it's still just a struggle. Every sentence you write is still just hard work and, you know, you have limited awareness of what it is you're doing, I find anyway.

Tamar Avishai: Yeah, slicing this in a different way, because I think a lot about about what it means to write about a potentially kind of historically esoteric subject, like art for a lot of people, and to even change its branding a little bit so that people think that they are allowed to relate to it. And you actually one of my I mean, my prized memory of talking to you when you and I met many years back, we were both on the same show. We were both on the same episode of Of Open Source with Christopher Lydon, and we had a nice chat afterwards. And you said something that really, really stuck with me because I was talking about the stress of writing a new episode of The Lonely Palette and, and switching from this movement to that movement to this century to that century and, and feeling like I was always starting at square one and expecting of myself a kind of expertise that, you know, it's like I just isn't automatically there. You have to you have to find it. And you said, you said, look, any good critic is an expert on deadline and that as soon as soon as you hit that deadline, you can let it all fall away and, and focus on the next thing, and you learn how to become, you know, a quote unquote expert very quickly. And also, you know, like that. That in itself is is a muscle, is a skill. And of course you keep some of it and it helps kind of inform this, this broader knowledge. But I first of all, thank you because that actually was a real load off.

Sebastian Smee: Well thank you. I mean, I think I also said either then or later that I think you are absolutely brilliant at, at bringing art. You know, this is, to put it at its simplest, bringing art to a general audience in a way that removes any whiff of pretension, but at the same time never condescends. I mean, you speak so eloquently about it. Thank you. You're brilliant at at getting rid of that intimidation factor that some people seem to feel and which, you know, personally, I don't think art is esoteric. I mean, it can be when you dig into it, but actually it's this incredibly meaningful thing that humans have been doing forever in a million different ways. And it seems to be very core to who we are. So how can that be something that's off to the side and esoteric? It's not. It's central. And my sense is that you grasp that intuitively, and the ways you find of bringing people in are just so, so clever and so, so wonderful.

Tamar Avishai: Thank you. Thank you, I will I will put that in my in my pouch for when I'm on deadline myself and feeling like it's it's always extremely helpful and meaningful to hear that from from somebody whose work I admire.

Sebastian Smee: Well, yeah, I mean, the whole question of expertise is interesting too, isn't it? I mean, I always think of that, that Degas quote, he said, you know, I love the conversation of experts. One understands absolutely nothing. And it's charming. And I just I think, you know, I really hold on to that idea because, you know, we can overrate the idea of expertise. Yes, it's true. We can, you know, be an expert on deadline and then move on to the next deadline. Line. But maybe there's something about disarming that idea of expertise in the first place and finding other ways to connect rather than, you know, let me bring you up to my level of expertise. You know, I don't think it needs to be about that in the end. We're looking at pictures and sculptures and whatever. And, you know, that's something that kids do and can get a lot of meaning from. And I like to just keep a connection with that, that reality.

Tamar Avishai: Yeah. I mean, I think too, there's that muscle that you can build up that is less about necessarily knowing everything about impressionist Paris and being able to to share that information in a way that makes it very clear how much, how much you know, and you know that you have something to contribute to the world to to teach. And the separate muscle of of meeting your audience where they're at and thinking about what they're going to hear that they want to access. You know, we talk about accessibility. It's like, well, how might this actually play a role in in your life, in your cultural moment? And I actually do want to talk about your book, and I wanted to actually kind of identify this liminal space that critics live in between depth and breadth. And right now, it feels like we're talking about breadth. We're talking about being able to tackle any subject in two weeks and get that column out, or get that episode out and, and, you know, reasonably understand what you're talking about and be able to write about it. And, and, you know, we kind of have the infrastructure. We're just filling in the specific bricks. But at the same time, you've just written this book, “Paris In Ruins: Love, War and the Birth of Impressionism,” which is quite about depth.

I mean, you're really, you know, you're getting into some, some very, like a very specific cultural, political moment and how it birthed the art that many people recognize. You know, the average person would recognize Impressionism. They think it's beautiful, you know, like they'll they'll walk into an Impressionist gallery and say, ah, you know, this is beautiful. It's famous. I don't entirely know why, but I know it matters, quote unquote, you know, so it's worth my spending time in, you know, and then maybe the next level will have a sense of, of how different this art was than what had come before it and, and how that's meaningful. But then you, you know, you really sink your teeth into it. And I actually before we even talk about the book, I'm curious kind of you almost code switch a little bit between the way that you would write for a newspaper column, and the way that you would really dive into a book like this. And I'm curious kind of how do you approach the writing process for both differently?

Sebastian Smee: Yeah, I mean, I, I'm conscious that a lot of the book is less about art than about kind of social and military history. And one thing for sure, I know I'm not and that is a military historian, but I felt, you know, I sort of had to tell that part of the story. And, you know, as you dig into subjects, they become more and more interesting. You know, I think my I wasn't particularly aware of kind of code switching, but I do feel like, you know, when there is a lot of complexity to convey, you kind of just have to dig in and get it down. And, you know, you're not in those moments talking in the same way that you would talk or write when you're analyzing a work of art in The Washington Post or something like that. So, yeah, I mean, I guess it it probably does read a little differently. Um, but, you know, my main concern in writing this was really just because I was in love with not so much the idea of explaining Impressionism in a new way, even though that's in the title. But I really fell in love with the two leading characters, you know, Edouard Manet and Morisot. And, uh, when I became aware of what they went through in 1870 and 1871 with the siege of Paris and the commune, um, you know, this is something that's mentioned when, you know, you read about the beginnings of Impressionism, but it tends to be skipped over in a paragraph or maybe a page or two or a room in an exhibition.

Sebastian Smee: But to me, you know, when you understand how that unfolded on a day by day basis over, you know, four and a half months for the siege and then a couple of months for the commune which followed. You know, you get a sense of how incredibly Tumultuous and stressful. And for those two and especially for but moreso traumatic, those events were and you know, once I grasped that, it felt really important to put the two things together to put their art historical story together with the actual historical story of what was happening to Paris and its citizens during that period. And, you know, to me, it was really about telling that story almost in a kind of novelistic way, as much as I could, sticking to the facts than it was to come up with a whole new thesis about Impressionism, because I don't think I really break any terribly new ground there. Um, it's that wasn't the idea of it for me. It was just to mesh these two things together and get a sense of of what these two characters went through, because I found that incredibly moving.

Tamar Avishai: How did this transpire? What brought you to this subject to write this book?

Sebastian Smee: Well, my very first experience and you'll relate to this, I think, um, of spending more than, let's say, two minutes in front of a work of art was when my professor of art history at Sydney University, where I studied, uh, took us to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, uh, and stood us in front of a single painting for 40 minutes. And you can relate, right? So, um, that was something I'd never done before. And, uh, the painting was on loan to Gallery, and it was by Bette Morrisseau. And I knew nothing about her then. Um, but it was wonderful. It was, you know, she was one of the world's leading experts on Claude Monet. My professor. Her name was Virginia Speight. Uh, and, uh, she was a wonderful professor. But what stands out in my mind is that she stood us in front of the painting and didn't say much. And when she did speak, she just asked really simple questions like, so what color do you think she put on first? And I'd never thought about that kind of question, you know? It seems so silly, but it really made a big impact. Anyway, um, fast forward a long time writing about, um, uh, I read while I was at college. I also read man's letters that he wrote during the siege of Paris, letters that were sent by balloon out of Paris, um, to his wife. And so, you know, that made me interested.

Sebastian Smee: I thought, wow, what was actually going on during the siege of Paris? And then I read a book all about the siege. Um, and this was still in my early 20s. It was called the The Fall of Paris by Alistair Horne. Um, and then years and years later, I wrote a book called the Art of rivalry. And it was about, um, Manet and Degas, uh, one of the chapters. Anyway, it was about money and Degas, but moreso played a leading role in that. And then, you know, a couple of years after the publication of that, I went and saw a Bette, bit moreso retrospective. I went up to Quebec City and saw that. And in preparing to write about that show for the post, uh, I, um, I, I really got interested in what I realized was a kind of, you know, really defining moment in her career, you know, going through that period, you know, the terrible year, as Victor Hugo called it, uh, has such a huge impact on her. And it's what it's what gave her the kind of resolve to become a professional painter, to really commit herself to making a career from art, uh, which was not at all the expectation for someone, you know, for of her gender and from her social background. So, yeah, that's a long answer to what got me interested in it. But it was a series of steps.

Tamar Avishai: Now I'm I'm so glad to see more. So start to get her due. I feel like that Quebec City exhibition was a real stepping stone towards that. It feels like. It feels like people are starting to realize that she really was one of the very best impressionists.

Sebastian Smee: Oh, there's no question in my mind that that's the case. The show traveled from there to a few other venues, and so yeah, I think it had a big impact. I was it went to the Barnes in Philadelphia, and then it went to Dallas, and I was in Dallas just yesterday, speaking to one of the curators who worked on the show and contributed to the catalog. And, you know, she was saying that, um, you know, a few years ago, they felt like there was a bit of a morrisseau revival going on. But then it seemed to it seemed to sort of die out. When I say a few years, maybe 20 years ago. Um, but she's feeling more hopeful. Um, in this period, because I think there's been a series of morrisseau exhibitions and just a lot more attention paid to her.

Tamar Avishai: Did you find that in the process of writing this book, because you do talk about how how much of a kind of cultural and military political history. It is, and the art kind of emerges from that. But it's also I have personally always been really drawn to, you know, I don't like to think in unifying theories, but if I were to label myself as a specific kind of art historian, I'm not a formalist. I mean, I've never really stayed inside the frame. I've always been much more interested in how everything that's outside the frame, you know, kind of ends up in the frame. But that too, I think, is really helpful for how to bring people into the frame with you, because we're always surrounded by these larger cultural moments. And it's like these people were too. And here is some, some evidence of that. And I've always worried that that made me not kind of appropriately respectful of the object itself. Um, do you find that you you are more of a an outside the frame critic than an inside the frame critic or or how would you kind of how would you correct my characterization of of how we should be thinking about this?

Sebastian Smee: I wouldn't correct it. I mean, I think, you know, they're they're completely interconnected. And I love the idea of, of the frame kind of dissolving. Um, not so that the, the image that we're looking at dissolves. I love the idea that the image has its own kind of autonomy, almost this sort of imperious, um, you know, objective quality that is separate from biography. Uh, and in some ways is kind of inviolable. Um, I do cherish that idea. But in the end, what interests me is the way art connects with life. And because otherwise, you know, I don't quite understand what it's for. Um, and so not that I want to make art. I up. I don't want to instrumentalize art, but I do. I do feel that in my own life. It's about how it connects. When I'm looking at art, I'm interested in how it makes me feel, how I understand the world better after seeing it. You know, we've all had that experience, haven't we? After looking at at art, you go out and the world looks a little different because of what you've just been looking at. That's what interests me. And so once you make that step, I think all bets are off.

And all the different ways in which art connects with with life and with history and with other fields of knowledge and other artistic forms, you know, they all become interesting and and even important. And, you know, so I'm really I'm really cautious about the conclusions we draw when we put biography together with art and art together with, with social history. But at the same time, I think it's think it's important that we recognize that those connections are there. And it's it's fruitful to wonder about the nature of those connections, so long as we admit that they're often very complex. You know, it's not like, you know, just because you're living through a war, all the art that you make is going to be sort of anti-war or somehow expressive of war. You know, it's much more like the workings of of the mind, right? You know, it's often about diversion and suppression and projection. And so it can be incredibly nuanced. And I think you have to tread carefully into that territory, but it doesn't mean that you shouldn't tread into it. I think it's really it's really worth doing so.

Tamar Avishai: When I kind of personally found my own footing, I guess, and certainly my own professional interest in German interwar art. That was an incredible epiphany for me about art that wasn't just made by who. History is kind of deemed morally correct and and fighting oppression with art, but instead that was a part of it. And then propaganda was always also really interesting to me. You know what? What it means to use art and film and, you know, any kind of constructed, visual way of speaking to people for whatever means you want. And I started seeing that all over the place. And, you know, I think we have this sense that artistic genius always somehow kind of ends up on the right side of history. And I, I am very drawn to why people do what they do and, and what they're being, what they're being told and how they're interpreting that and what, you know, then the actions that they take. And art can play a pretty prominent role there, too.

Sebastian Smee: Yeah. That's so interesting. The idea of artistic genius ending up on the right side of history. I mean, it's I think it's something that we all All instinctively fall into that, that idea. But there are so many premises there that need questioning. Right. What is the right side of history and.

Tamar Avishai: What is artistic genius?

Sebastian Smee: What is artistic genius, exactly? Um, and so, you know, I mean, when we think of art in the modern era, um, we think of it being produced out of a sort of rolling state of crisis, don't we? And certainly, you know, that's what I think was going on in France in 1870 and 71. And so the question is, you know, what is the artistic response to crisis? And, um, can it be is it always going to be, uh, a kind of providing a way out of the crisis? Well, sometimes, and in the case of Impressionism, you know, you could say, yeah, in many ways it was it was, it was sort of an art form that was, um, you know, very sympathetic to one side of politics. I mean, all the Impressionists were Left leaning. They were smaller Republicans. They were anti-authoritarian. This is reflected in their art. It's also reflected in their reception. You know, they were they were written about in Republican journals by Republican critics. They were associated with the Communards. But, you know, at the same time, they weren't just trying to carry out, you know, a left wing communard programme by other means in their art.

Sebastian Smee: They were trying to do other things, many of which maybe they weren't entirely conscious of, but it seems to me they were. They were trying to create an art, uh, grounded in the present tense, in a kind of sincerity before the the motive, before the subject matter. Um, and in art, that's, that's sort of took note of every aspect of society. And at the same time celebrated light and colour, which, you know, is the cliche about impressionism, but that's worth sort of lingering on, because what is it about Latin culture they were celebrating? To me, one of the main things I get from it is, apart from the beauty of it, is a sense of transience and of flux and and of the fragility of things. When you think of Monet painting, you know, Rouen Cathedral, this, this centuries old structure, this seemingly immovable structure, how does he paint it? Well, it's kind of tilting and it's made up of, of sort of encrustations of blurry, blurry brushstrokes in different colors and in a sense, these.

Tamar Avishai: Little light particles.

Sebastian Smee: Exactly. And in a sense, he's not so much painting the building itself, but the envelope of atmosphere around it. And so there's this incredible sense of even the things that you think were the most solid, the most secure, the most lasting and permanent actually are fragile and ephemeral. And we know that that's true once we understand the deeper context of of life and physics and everything else. But it was also true of that political context in France at the time. Everything that had seemed lasting and strong and enduring, uh, turned out to be incredibly fragile. And Paris, you know, was on fire and literally reduced to ruins, uh, because of everything that was going on. And so having lived through that, I can't help but feel that the Impressionists had a particularly strong and acute sense of that fragility. And so the way that they embraced flux and transience and the movements of light, I think, you know, must be connected, even if indirectly, to what they live through.

Tamar Avishai: Well, and you you write in your intro this incredible sentence, you say that that the events of 1870 to 71 put under tremendous strain the quote unquote, innocence of political clarity. And I hear you talking about Paris during that time, the kind of the of the questioning of institutions in the work and and how political clarity itself is actually something that people wrestle with all the time that I, I like the idea of that being a very innocent idea.

Sebastian Smee: Right?

Tamar Avishai: That there can be this kind of moral clarity, political clarity. And, I mean, did you find yourself thinking about our current moment as you were writing this history, or did it kind of change the way you see our moment today?

Sebastian Smee: Yeah. I mean, yeah, of course I did find myself thinking about it a lot. I mean, I wrote a lot of the book through the pandemic, for instance. Um, and the feeling of being sort of shut down and isolated really resonated with what I was learning about how money and Morrazo felt and all the other residents of Paris during the siege. I mean, they were profoundly cut off from the rest of the world and in many in many cases from one another, because the whole city was turned into a kind of giant barracks with, you know, 400,000 men enlisting in the army and women finding so many different roles that they weren't accustomed to. So, you know. Yeah. And then there was George Floyd and Black Lives Matter and Trump and all this stuff, and the sense of this society that you live in, kind of not just being polarized, but kind of falling apart. And so that was what they went through too. But when you dig into what they went through, you realize that their political moment had no clarity. I mean, you know, there were there were five main political groups and many subdivisions even within that. But you had the Radical Republicans, you had the moderate Republicans, you had the Bonapartists, you know, who who, um, supported Napoleon the Third and then you had two kinds of royalists.

Sebastian Smee: A kind of constitutional monarchy, you know, based on the English model. Um, and then, uh, and then the more absolute royalists, the Bourbons. So, you know, getting your head around all that was like, wow, this is this is really this is really complex. I'm not sure I'm up for this. Um, but it made me realize that, yeah, we think in terms of it's like watching a sports match. You know, one team versus another. And often the choice, you know, seems mercifully clear. But when you look at issues and what really affects the world, you realize that it's not clear. There are so many sort of options and old divisions, old markers between the different sides of politics have broken down profoundly. I mean, you know, many of the people who are voting for Trump, for instance, um, were always a safe bet for Democrats. Um, and that's changed now. And the Democrats, you know, in this country, the Democrats are more associated with sort of urban elites and so on. You know, you can see how it's constantly changing and and is complex. So. Yeah. Political clarity, its innocence is sometimes a nice way to put it. It's more often a kind of naivety. And yet we need to be clear about moral issues when they profoundly affect us. Of course.

Tamar Avishai: Yeah. No, I just really appreciated that framing, because I feel like there is an impulse to identify, you know, to find the places of clarity and say, okay, well, this this feels this feels clear, this feels obvious, this feels, you know, simple in the best way and be kind of carried away by that, you know, even in moments that feel like there is a clear kind of moral answer. And I think we all have our issues where we feel like that is the case. But I really just liked the description of, of kind of recognizing that this idea of, of the innocence of that kind of clarity is under strain in this moment. And maybe this is an opportunity to think, you know, this is not just people in the past painting beautiful paintings, but wrestling with the same ideas that we wrestle with in our present all the time and and always will in every present.

Sebastian Smee: I think that's exactly right. Yeah. You know, and yeah, and especially through periods of crisis and, you know, money is a great example here. Money was a very political artist, and he made many pictures that were very critical of Napoleon's regime. He was an ardent Republican. And, uh, and then he lived through this year, and that included the commune, this left wing insurrection and, you know, Courbet, who had been a big influence on money and all the Impressionists, was part of the commune. He had a leadership position within the commune, and he wanted to draw money and all the others in. But Monet was clearly thinking to himself, look, I'm sympathetic to you guys, but this is crazy. This can't stand. You can't have a separate government in Paris, the great city of Paris, the capital of the 19th century, as Walter Benjamin put it, you know, you can't have a separate entity here that's going to last. It's just not realistic. And so he distanced himself from it. And, you know, then he watched it all unravel horrifically and was so sort of stunned by that. I think that he kind of I don't know, it was it was a moment of, of having to sober up and say, look, you know, he didn't change his political convictions, but I think he stopped making art. That was that was openly political with only 1 or 2 exceptions. And, you know, I think that's because he was repelled by what he'd seen, by what happens when a society, truly, because of its divisions, unravels. And, you know, that's a really interesting moment, uh, because it shows what can happen to convictions when reality kind of overtakes them.

Tamar Avishai: Yeah. God, I kind of feel like that's the story of my last five years.

Sebastian Smee: Oh, God. That's right.

Tamar Avishai: Um, no, in a good way. In a good way.

Sebastian Smee: Tell me more. What do you mean?

Tamar Avishai: Oh, just, um. I think I worry a lot that I. That I lack conviction because I've been so put off by the lack of complexity in the conversation. Right. It makes me worry that, you know what? What do I stand for? And I think I stand for nuance. Right? You know, it just doesn't fit on a picket sign. But that's, you know, that's that's hard to put in a tweet, you know, to, to signal in social media. Um, so I just kind of back off of the conversation. But that also is a is a signal. Um, yeah. And that's been an interesting, I guess, process for me.

Sebastian Smee: Yeah, I know, I totally hear you. I mean, it's all I would say is I think so many more people feel like you and than you than you perhaps realize. Um, and and it's why you're attracted to art. Because, you know, art is a place where complexity and nuance are not just welcomed, but kind of activated as a force in our lives. And I think by becoming more and more conscious of that, Um, we just live more richly and with with more, more understanding and compassion for others. Um, and if we feel frustrated by the lack of kind of clarity politically, maybe there's solace in in the compassion that we then feel for others, you know, that that can become more activating, you know, like instead of waving the the placard or tweeting the tweet, you know, we might be drawn to act in other people's lives, even just people close to us, around us in a more in a more meaningful way. That's, you know, gosh, I don't know. I'm not sure if I live this out, but that's my hope anyway.

Tamar Avishai: Yeah. No. Mine too, on the best days.

Sebastian Smee: Right?

Tamar Avishai: I wanted to ask too. So you have written quite a bit on Lucian Freud.

Sebastian Smee: Yeah.

Tamar Avishai: His work incredibly psychologically loaded. How, first of all, do you go from Freud to the Impressionists. You know that. That also, to me is an interesting story of of getting a little bit back to the, to the breadth in order to jump to something so different.

Sebastian Smee: Yeah. Well, um, first of all, I mean, I think that Freud is connected to the Impressionists and, and especially probably to Cézanne, who was one, one person he admired tremendously. Also to, to Van Gogh, who he adored. Uh, and going further back to Courbet, um, and, you know, you could keep going. He also loved Rembrandt, obviously. But, you know, if you look at the way he broke up planes, you know, uh, in space, it's it's got a lot of connections with with Cézanne, for instance. Um, but yeah, the only I mean, look, I was a big fan of Lucien Freud after I saw a big exhibition of his in Sydney when I when I was still very young. And, you know, it was one of those epiphanies, I think, that art love, you know, is generated by, you know, if you really fall in love with art, it usually comes out of a few early experiences. And for me, that was definitely one of them. And then I moved to London, and then I met him and we got to know each other pretty well. And, uh, I spent a fair bit of time with him, and over the next period he through often through, you know, other people, um, invited me to write essays for 5 or 6 books on his work. So, you know, there was no sort of plan behind that, that just. It just turned out that way. Um, and I found it hard. You know, each time I wrote something, I said to myself, that will be the last, because I've got nothing else to say. Um, but, you know, I just still find him a really powerful artist. And, uh, it's funny seeing his reputation here in the US, it's really quite different to his reputation in Europe and Europe and Britain, where he's really revered in a way that he's not here. And so I'm always interested in in why that is. And is there something in the American sensibility, if you can speak so generally, that just finds his work too off putting? Um, whereas in, in Britain people are more accepting of that. I don't know.

Tamar Avishai: Does that theory bear out? Do you think that Americans just kind of can't handle him?

Sebastian Smee: I mean, I attach no judgment to that. I can see it's easy for me to see why people find his work a little bit. Sort of revolting, maybe. Or, you know, he he relishes too much the side of the body that is kind of visceral and and and ugly. Um, most people are used to depictions of the body that, uh, unless they're wildly expressive, um, and distorted in that way, which try to kind of idealize the body. And so when we see an artist who's really not interested in idealizing at all, but interested in something else. We might assume that he's there's a cruel sort of side to his personality or to his aesthetic. I don't think that's the case with Freud. I don't think, um, there is any of that cruelty or loathing. I think it's just a deep interest in, in the body and, and in the ways that paint can be made to, to show the body. And I think he did things there that were related to things that had been done by artists before him. But I think he did it in new ways and newly powerful ways that seemed to fit with the modern era in interesting ways to.

Tamar Avishai: I feel like he he tried to do with skin what Monet was trying to do with light reflecting off of the cathedral or, or off of, you know, I mean, it's just like every possible dimension and environment and it's like, how can skin be Represented in in just any, you know, it's like you almost need many, many Freud's together in the same way to kind of see the progression, the way you could see the progression.

Sebastian Smee: Of, yeah, that's a really good way to put it.

Tamar Avishai: But it is revolting. I mean, I think, I think being surrounded by that many Freud's would, would. Yeah. Be be tough to swallow.

Sebastian Smee: Yeah. I mean I totally understand that, but it's not. Yeah. It's not how I felt. I found it quite beautiful and moving to be honest. It just felt that when you get that kind of sincerity before the subject matter that you're painting and a willingness to see it, um, so freshly and so devoid of of sentimental or other cliches, um, I find that kind of weirdly liberating and, uh, and yeah, I think it's, you know, you mentioned skin and that's absolutely right. I think he was interested in all the the conditions of our skin. And if someone had a little eczema or. You know, a rash of some kind then he would put that in. But there was also the deeper sense of, of, um, you know, the living body and all the sort of, you know, the surging fluids and, and, uh, muscles and fat and all these things that are there in each of us and, um, which we sort of tried to repress because we're so focused on the skin. But actually, when you think about what's going on underneath all the time, it's bone, muscle, fat, sinews, it's so rich and so amazing. And, uh, I think that's what interested him, in the same way that, you know, an artist might be interested in landscape and all its, all its idiosyncrasies.

Tamar Avishai: So you have this series in The Washington Post, this great Works in Focus series, where you explore your favorite works in in permanent collections around the US, and the only descriptor is they are things that move me, and part of the fun is trying to find out why. I mean, this is basically why I started the Lonely Palette, almost word for word. Um, not necessarily an object that moved me, but it always does by the end. You know, it's it's like the process of, okay, move me. You know, if either it's something that I'm really interested in or something that I, I go out of my way to challenge myself because I'm not interested in it, and I really want to know why or how I could be brought in.

Sebastian Smee: Yeah, that's a really great way to frame it. Absolutely. Yeah.

Tamar Avishai: How first of all, how did this series come about?

Sebastian Smee: Well, I was doing I did a series at the Boston Globe, um, for, gee, you know, probably six years, uh, called frame by frame. So I guess that was the was the starting point. I think it came from just being blown away by the quality of the permanent collections in the New England area. That was my beat. You know, Boston and New England generally was my beat for the Boston Globe. And I used to just love so much driving around, you know, out to the Berkshires up to, you know, the great college museums in Maine at Colby and Bowdoin and the Portland Museum of Art and, you know, on and on down south and and then all the great museums in Boston and, and you generally, as a critic, you go to review exhibitions. So, you know, you're dependent on the calendar and when these shows are going to open. But, you know, I would always spend at least as much time in the permanent collections of the museums. And I just thought, wow, I mean, the range of things on offer. Yeah, the quality of what's on offer is amazing. And I really felt like I wanted to, bring this to the attention of audiences, because I felt that it was almost if people didn't realize what was, what was there on, you know, on display, often for free every day of the week. And, you know, you didn't have to wait for an exhibition that sounded interesting to have a good excuse to go to a museum.

Tamar Avishai: So I was going to do something really cruel and ask, which was your favorite piece? Or actually, as a writer, which article did you feel kind of captured your experience with that piece the most? I will leave that open, but I will also jump to the next question if if that's just too unkind.

Sebastian Smee: Oh, it's not unkind. It's very generous, but I just I just nothing is coming to my mind, you know?

Tamar Avishai: Um, no, it's the worst question in the world. Any artist asking an art historian what their favorite painting is, people should just know. Don't do it.

Sebastian Smee: Well, sometimes, you know, one of the things about the column that I liked was that I wasn't sort of limited to writing about works that were like great works, like masterpieces. I just in choosing what to write about, I was really always just following my own whim. And sometimes it would be an amazing work by a famous artist, but often it would be a minor work by a relatively unknown artist. And, uh, and yet it might, you know, it would stimulate something I wanted to say. And in many ways, I think of them as exercises for writing. I'm not there to educate people and, you know, make them much better informed about art. You know, that's that's not my responsibility. That's up to them if they want that. It's not what matters to me in the writing of these pieces. What matters is finding a way through writing to help create a connection between art and life. Um, and, and to sort of, you know, express That's why. You know why that connection matters. Like in all the different forking paths that can take, you know, which one or which few are going to be most interesting right now in response to this specific work. And you know the answers to those questions if you're open. Hope are going to be always surprising. And, you know, that's definitely the feeling I've always had listening to to to your podcast. And you know, when you're focused on.

Tamar Avishai: It always is it always is a surprise. Yeah. And and I should expect it by now. But for me knowing, just knowing something more about the piece, it's like it's like getting to know a person, you know, suddenly you've had a really good coffee with somebody, and you, you like them, you care about them.

Sebastian Smee: Right. Yeah.

Tamar Avishai: Um, so I was going through your archives and I was thinking, okay, like, what's a really good one to pick? And so this is going to sound super lazy, but the one that I really wanted to talk about is about is the most recent one. Oh, great. Because I know it's, you know, it's good for both of us. But, uh. Giorgio de Chirico is an artist who I, you know, when you describe this is something that moved me. Part of the fun is just to figure out why he was an artist that I was drawn to as a kid. And I remember I asked my mom, we had been to a museum, and I asked her to get me all the postcards of his work. And she was like, really? Why? And I was like, I don't know. I don't know. I just know that this is something about these long shadows. I just, I need this hanging in my locker. And I wanted to ask you, you know, like, let's let's have that fun. What drew you to that painting? And maybe you can help explain to me why, you know, I mean, this is an artist. You even say so. I love this line. You talk about how it's hanging in a gallery that's thick with abandonment? You know, this is not an artist who gets much attention, even though he's always hung alongside the big boys. And yet he is so compelling. Yeah. And I wanted to kind of understand, like, can you put into words what what I couldn't when I was younger.

Sebastian Smee: I doubt it, but I mean, I think I would have written about De Chirico earlier if, if, if I'd felt confident of being able to find the words, you know, because I've always loved him like you. And, uh. Yeah. You know, there is definitely a feeling of hauntedness and emptiness in his works. And, you know, obviously this juxtaposition of things that don't quite fit together, but and this weird sort of deep space, but also an unusual treatment of space, this, this kind of, um, it looks like it should be just traditional Renaissance style, you know, perspective, single point perspective, space. But actually he takes a lot of liberties with space. And it's funkier and more interesting than than you than you at first think. Um, but all these are ways of sort of talking around the kind of feeling you get from him, which is I get a great sense of space of sort of, you know, mental space opening up, but not quite fitting together. The things in that space not quite matching and that in turn creating a great kind of I don't know if loneliness is the right word, but a kind of solitude, um, and a sense that, you know, whatever threads there might be connecting these things have maybe been snapped, you know, and I can't put it together. Uh, and yet here I am in this fictional space. You know, you really feel very convinced by spaces. So. Yeah, it's really it's really complex, really confusing. I love the titles I find very evocative. You know, the enigma of arrival and the melancholy of departure and stuff like that. So, you know, he was, of course, a sort of proto surrealist and was a huge influence on all the other surrealists. But I feel that I prefer his work to almost everything by the other surrealists, because, um, you know, there is something about them that feels a bit forced and willed.

Tamar Avishai: Whereas I was about to say he wasn't trying as hard.

Sebastian Smee: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Tamar Avishai: Yeah. And and I like I feel like this is a good subject to end on because it brings us back full circle to even critics don't know why they're drawn to something oftentimes and struggle to find the words to express it. And just because this is the job of a critic to try to express it to the to the greater public. I think that that search within ourselves to try to identify a kind of emotional pull or a familiarity or unexpected accessibility to something and trying to find the words for that. It's a universal feeling.

Sebastian Smee: Yeah. And it's, you know, it's exactly also why I write rather than speak. You know, you can hear from me now, like, I really it's very hard to sort of find the words immediately. They're so elusive. And so what's the solution to that problem? Well, let me sit down and try and write it, you know. Let me try and construct sentences that follow, you know, ideas flow from one another. And maybe you can get a little bit of beauty or something in there. But it's it takes time and it takes work. And and yet it's such a privilege. It's it's such a, you know, my my experience of art is so much deeper for having this crazy job, this, this ridiculous job of of being asked to put the experience into words. You know, the very act of trying to put it into words is what has deepened my love of art. And, you know, anyone who says it's the other way around doesn't, you know, perhaps quite understand how enriching it can be to, to, you know, to have the privilege of just having the time to think about this stuff and then forming thoughts about it in words. I mean, it's it's, um, it's the most absurd thing to be doing, but it's it's just such a pleasure. It's so enriching. I feel so lucky, honestly, to have the job that I've had all this time.

Tamar Avishai: Well, Sebastian, thank you so much for your time and for this conversation. It's been such a pleasure.

Sebastian Smee: Thank you so much. Honestly, it's thank you for indulging me. And it's such a pleasure to talk with you always. Thank you.