{"id":82987,"date":"2012-05-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/article\/what-a-mentor\/"},"modified":"2024-03-22T08:51:59","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T12:51:59","slug":"what-a-mentor","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/article\/what-a-mentor\/","title":{"rendered":"What a mentor"},"content":{"rendered":"

I <\/font> first \u201cmet\u201d Hilton in the summer of 1972, just before starting college, when I read his review of the great Henry Moore retrospective in Florence. I had already seen enough art writing to recognize Hilton\u2019s prose for the breath of fresh air it was. I took away the lesson that art criticism could\u2014and should\u2014be engaging and individual, not just informative.<\/p>\n

In college I read Hilton regularly, ever more avidly and closely as thoughts of a career as a critic took hold. Each piece was an education, seemingly more the work of an exceptionally literate college professor than a member of the Fourth Estate.<\/p>\n

Soon enough, I encountered Hilton the Impaler. Having been brought up to politely overlook, rather than loudly point out, any elephants in the room, I was dumbfounded. Could one really say such things in public? But as I read Hilton more, I came to understand that his critical posture derived from something larger than contentiousness, or even, in a way, taste. To be a critic was to stoutly defend a set of aesthetic and cultural values, whatever the cost. Another lesson.<\/p>\n

Then there was that writing. Each of Hilton\u2019s articles was an argument, one as tautly constructed and watertight as an oceangoing vessel. Yet his prose was supple enough to limn the particulars of an artist\u2019s style or\u2014rare in criticism and more difficult\u2014to unsentimentally evoke the emotion an artwork engendered. I am thinking especially of his account of a visit to Louise Nevelson\u2019s studio in the 1950s. All this became something to emulate.<\/p>\n

For five years in the 1980s, I had the privilege of publishing regular exhibition reviews in The New Criterion<\/i>. To say that I was green at the outset would be pure self-flattery. The magazine became my graduate school, its editors my tutors. Month after month, I strove to understand and internalize the reasoning behind the many changes they made to my copy, and labored over pieces until, or so I hoped, they needed no editing.<\/p>\n

It was a high standard to aspire to\u2014the highest. And there was no mercy when you fell short. One day I called Hilton for advice on an upcoming lecture. He heard out my proposed topic\u2014then recommended another, one he termed \u201cmore intellectually respectable.\u201d Ouch. I didn\u2019t mind, though. Such rebukes formed part of the excitement of working in that milieu. By his own example and the force of his personality, Hilton compelled you to reach deep, and not be satisfied until you had pulled out your best work. What a mentor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From \u201cRemembering Hilton Kramer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1312,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tags":[635],"department_id":[563],"issue":[2987],"section":[],"acf":{"participants":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":null,"value":null,"field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_65fd9fbaa0408","label":"Authors","name":"participants","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"user","value":null,"menu_order":0,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":"group_647e2b3c6941d","wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"role":"","return_format":"array","multiple":1,"allow_null":0,"bidirectional":0,"bidirectional_target":[],"_name":"participants","_valid":1}},"page_number":{"simple_value_formatted":25,"value_formatted":25,"value":"25","field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_647e2bc0c860c","label":"Page 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