NOTHING IF NOT CRITICAL

A timeline of artistic endeavour from the formal resources of the past to the boom and bust media hype of a postmodern age In these celebrated essays Robert Hughes explores the lives and works of more than 80 artists from Hans Holbein to Andy Warhol and beyond assessing their achievements or lack of them and how they altered the history of art for better or for worse Castigating the excesses of the 1980s New York art scene with its manufactured celebrity and inflated prices he argues for the real values of art and outlines the way ahead for a new generation of artists