Well [Spoken] Wednesdays: Dr Bushey edition

Thank you, Dr Bushey, for teaching me a thing or two about art history. Namely, that it is not boring. And that, as you said, everything connects to everything. 

In your class I gained knowledge that allows me to understand approximately 25% more of the allusions in British and American literature. I also discovered John Singer Sargent, finally figured out who Titian was, and laughed a lot.

I may have entered your classroom under duress-- art history! a core curriculum requirement! so dull!-- but I left it with regret: much better for the experience, and with a new interest in how people express themselves and their culture through visible art.

Behold, the marginalia of Dr Barbara Bushey.

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Art History: Renaissance to Modern 

“One thing art historians love to do is generate vocabulary words.”

“It’s what Romans do: they win a battle, they build an arch. They’re marvelous.”

“The clergy didn’t want everyone to go out and joyously sin.”

“Quick, someone throw me a noun!”

“Here’s another example of everything connecting to everything.”

“How would you appreciate the summer if you didn’t have to suffer through THIS?”

“I’m not as old a fogey as I first appear.”

“And someone said, let’s put a naked lady over here!”

“There is an excess of gravity in this room.”

“He’s got more money than age or brains.”

“I need a new mouth!”

“This is not a terribly ovoid oval.”

“I can’t think of anything funnier than a room full of blindfolded, beer-drinking students.”

“Fascism is government by beating people up.”

“A hundred years will do wonders for your artistic reputation.”

“That usually never happens.”

“Gravity is really not our friend.”

“Clothing someone doesn’t keep them from being lascivious.”

“Sugar came to Europe and everyone’s teeth started rotting out of their heads.”

“Trees don’t grow on trees, buddy!”

“Beethoven was a smallpox-scarred runt.”

“One doesn’t like to advertise that one’s wife is cuckolding oneself.”

“Her husband was very rich but not very bright.”

“And the kiss makes her immortal. Isn’t that nice?”

“He’s completely out of his mind, but he’s very entertaining.”