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The essence of connoisseurship lies in disinterested and informed appraisal (“Is AI killing the art connoisseur?”, Collecting, Life & Arts, November 29). The devil, however, is in the word “informed”.
Snobbish connoisseurs of the old “One Instinctively Knows” school are self-disqualifying. However, a schism also exists between those who “know” what’s what — through reading and looking — and those who know through “doing” and looking. That is to say, the divide between academic and artist scholars.
John Ruskin, cited by Julian Spalding (“Ruskin put ‘seeing’ ahead of talking and thinking”, Letters, December 20), certainly saw clearly and talked plainly but he did so as an artist and nothing requires more attentive, disciplined looking than making art and/or copying the art of others.
It might be argued that artists make or are, necessarily, the finest connoisseurs.
Who after all acquired better collections of drawings than Rubens and Rembrandt?
And who bettered Sir Joshua Reynolds (who collected Rubens and Rembrandt) as a connoisseur/theorist/collector?
Michael Daley
Director, ArtWatch UK, London EN4, UK
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