The Met is not only the finest encyclopedic museum of art in the United States; it is arguably the finest anywhere.

I have a soft spot for art that, in terms of subject matter and material, is in bad taste.

Art is a self-replicating force.

First let me report that the art in the Barnes Collection has never looked better. My trips to the old Barnes were always amazing, but except on the sunniest days, you could barely see the art. The building always felt pushed beyond its capacity.

Mark Grotjahn's large new paintings abound with torrents of ropy impasto, laid down in thickets, cascading waves, and bundles that swell, braid around, or overlap one another.

The forties, seventies, and the nineties, when money was scarce, were great periods, when the art world retracted but it was also reborn.

These days, newish art can be priced between $10,000 and $25,000. When I tell artists that a new painting by a newish artist should go for around $1,200, they look at me like I'm a flesh-eating virus.