Last Thursday, Sebastian Smee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic for The Boston Globe, spoke on "The Not-so-Fine Art of Art Criticism" to a packed house in the Lee Gallery of the Rose Art Museum. His presentation was part of the Brandeis Arts Council Lecture Series and was supplemented with a round-table discussion facilitated by Prof. Nancy Scott (FA) and Dabney Hailey, the director of Academic Programs at the Rose.

Smee is relatively new to the Boston area, having moved here in May 2008. He grew up in Australia and attended the University of Sydney. He has previously worked in London, writing for the Art Newspaper and the Daily Telegraph, and freelancing for the likes of the Financial Times, The Guardian and the Independent. Prior to working at the Boston Globe, he was a national art critic for the Australian. Smee has also penned Side By Side: Picasso v. Matisse, a book on the relationship between the two painters, as well as several books on the artist Lucian Freud.

Scott touched upon the revitalization of the Rose in her introduction of Smee, saying, "It seems like we're in a new place, and we really owe Sebastian a great round of thanks for this fresh regard." Indeed, Smee recently wrote a piece about the Rose's 50th anniversary, reckoning that "we can at last get back to looking at art." He also wrote about the Bruce Connor film triptych "EVE-RAY-FOREVER (1965/2006)," which is currently on display at the Rose. Scott's warm introduction certainly established the event as a continuation of the celebration of the Rose's new chapter.

Once he took to the podium, Smee immediately encouraged audience participation, stating that he would "welcome any questions about the strange and odd business of being an art critic." Smee's talk centered largely around connections he has drawn between artists, as well as connections he has found among the current exhibitions of the contemporary art scene in Boston that he described as "so vibrant and so alive."

He began by talking about the British figurative artist Lucian Freud (the grandson of Sigmund Freud), who passed away in July. Smee said that he was lucky to get to know Freud over the course of about 10 years and form a bond with him. Shortly after Freud passed away, Smee wrote an "unusually personal" piece about him for the Globe. In the vein of making connections, Smee said that thinking about Freud, which is "still a difficult subject [for him]," prompted him to think about the American artist Cy Twombly, who also passed away in July. From there, he admitted that he started thinking about all of the connections that could be made between these two great talents.

Behind Smee was a slide presentation of some of Freud's and Twombly's works. First, Smee brought up the image of Freud's painting "Double Portrait" (1985-6), which portrays a woman lying down and a dog sleeping next to her. Then he showed images of the collection of four paintings made up of abstract splotches and strokes of color and text that comprise Twombly's "The Four Seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter" (1993-4). Smee laughingly acknowledged that he knows at first it seems hard to find a connection or common theme among these works, and he decided he would touch upon an unconventional theme that connects the artists' work, "a theme which is very dear to [my] heart: doing nothing." This statement was understandably met with laughter from the audience.

Smee described his feelings from his first encounter with Lucian Freud's paintings when he was in his early 20s and discovering art, the sense of "the luxury and the sensuality of indolence" he got when looking at the works. However, he went on to explain that this feeling was "double-edged" because Freud's work also gave him a simultaneous sense of discomfort in thinking about how difficult it is "to occupy a body without moving much for long periods of time." Freud is known for the length of time it took him to paint his subjects, who would sometimes sit for him on a regular basis over months or even years. Smee said that he was also attracted to works by artists other than Freud, from which he could "feel a struggle, a restless twitching, aching for repose."

This attraction led him to think about the marks that compose a work, citing the example of Titian's late work, how "one comes across whole passages of paint that describe nothing, that are just slathered on and yet which somehow become the most emotionally precise ingredients of all." The poetic language Smee used to discuss the artwork in his presentation indicated his immense passion for the visual arts.

The discussion returned to the theme of indolence in relation to Twombly's and Freud's works. Smee spoke of the way Twombly's pieces, with their "childish-looking marks" give the sense that "civilization itself might be drifting off into sleep, twitching and dreaming as it fade[s] out." He culminated his rumination on this unexpected, connecting theme by reasoning that both artists' works are "as beautiful and as poignant as a ruin in a landscape," despite their drastically different styles.

The rest of the evening was left open for audience questions. When asked about his process of looking at artwork, Smee referred to a transformative experience he had as an art student in a small class; when his professor had him observe a Morisot painting for half an hour and describe all that he saw in that work within that span of time. Of his job, Smee most loves the "luxury" he has of "taking art in, in [his] own time, in [his] own way," adding that he rarely attends openings because they do not allow for such a manner of looking at art.

Another audience member even asked Smee about his thoughts on the wall plaques at art museums, drawing from his own frustrating experiences of seeing a multitude of typos on these plaques at various museums. Smee agreed with the audience member, calling the scenario "dismaying" and arguing that the dull and patronizing tones of some plaques he has seen before make him "feel like a five year old."

The evening's discussion ended on an inspirational note, with a student in the audience asking if being an art critic is Smee's "dream job." Smee humbly confirmed this sentiment and recalled how he had taken a year off of his studies and was down to his last few hundred dollars. He described writing to more than 20 different editors and writers at different publications, finally hearing back from John McDonald, an art critic at The Sydney Morning Herald at the time, who mentored him and eventually let him write his own column. Smee emphasized that the combination of his "persistence" and "a lot of luck" led him to secure a job that he loves, and he conveyed to the students in the audience that it is indeed possible to do so.

Smee's talk was made more engaging because of the ample time allowed for students' questions. The event and contributed to a continued celebration of the Rose's anniversary. Bringing Smee, who exhibited such an immense passion for his profession and the visual arts, to campus was exemplary of the University's commitment to the arts.