Some years ago in an article, ‘Sir Herbert Read and the Power Bequest’ (Meanjin Quarterly 1/1964), Professor Bernard Smith pointed to the shortcomings of modern art criticism. Sir Herbert, he thought, had to bear a large measure of responsibility for ‘the gobbledygook, the verbal molasses, to which art criticism has been debased in recent years’. Not that Sir Herbert’s prose was ‘anything but felicitous’, but that the Grand Old Man of popular art writing had ‘no real use for criticism’.

There is no doubt about the existence of ‘gobbledygook’ in contemporary art criticism. It even comes from critics of impeccable taste. For example, Bryan Robertson, of the Whitechapel Art Gallery, has an outstanding record as a critic who has ‘discovered’ great and original talent among young, unrecognized artists. Yet he can describe the painting style of Sidney Nolan as ‘sweet, muscular lyricism’ and give the following interpretation of one of the famous Ned Kelly series: