Barry Schwabsky at The Nation:
It’s true that Caravaggio’s reputation as a revolutionary force in Italian art remains unmatched, but Artemisia Gentileschi now overshadows all the other artists who drew on his influence. Édouard Manet, likewise, may still be seen as the key figure in the emergence of modernism in 19th-century Paris, but among those who recognized and built on his achievement, Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot appear far more important today than they did 50 years ago; the specific qualities of their work, unshared by their contemporaries, have come into focus. Paula Modersohn-Becker outshines most of her German Expressionist colleagues. And while Jackson Pollock remains the Abstract Expressionist par excellence, Lee Krasner and Joan Mitchell are now better appreciated than some of the male painters who were once accounted as his near-equals—Franz Kline, for example. Is just plain old “great” not great enough without the “supremely” added like a cherry on top?
I’m as happy as anyone can be for the chance to enjoy the work of a great artist, or a supremely great one, or even just an almost great one.
more here.