Ananias or the False Artist

by Walter Pach

1928. Walter Pach, artist and author, begins Ananias: Question anyone, quite literally anyone, who takes an active pleasure in works of art, and you will find that he has a Dark Past. He formerly liked pictures-in magazines, exhibitions, and museums-that he now sees to be insipid or false. Go through any museum containing the art of the modern period, and you find that it has a Dark Past. On the walls are pictures that nobody believes to have the least value, and the cellars are crammed with the ones already discarded. I am not speaking of conditions in America alone, for the art-lovers and the modern museums of Europe bear out my statements quite as well. If the question were simply that of a Dark Past, if the simulacrum of art that fooled us thirty years ago had no successor today, this book would be superfluous, even objectionably superfluous, for there would be no reason to stir up unpleasant memories.

281 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1928

About the author

Walter Pach (July 1, 1883 – November 27, 1958) was an American artist, critic, lecturer, art adviser, and art historian who wrote extensively about modern art and championed its cause.

Pach's fluency in French, German, and Spanish made it possible for him to understand and interpret the avant-garde ideas developing in Europe and translate them for the English-speaking audience.