Connoisseurship in an Age of Distractions

by Samuel Hope

Introduction

Today, "connoisseurship" conjures up images of fusty old men in tweeds arguing over ancient etchings or perhaps the patter of opera buffs as they pass bejeweled into the night, "Callas was much better in that role when I heard her in 1952." Connoisseurship is neither fashionable nor politically correct. It signifies a focus on works of art rather than issues of power and is foreign to a cultural milieu where images are flashed too quickly to be contemplated, where mass culture and the elements thereof produce progressively shorter attention spans.