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The shock of the new

Posted by Baceseras on November 26, 2010 at 15:55

In Reply to: The shock of the new posted by Ian on November 25, 2010 at 11:07:

: Who first used the expression 'the shock of the new'?

[It was the title of a television series tracing the history of modern art, developed for PBS in 1980 by Robert Hughes and others. Hughes, the art critic for Time magazine, expanded his contribution to the series into a well received book published in 1981 under the same title. That book remains a standard popular history of the subject. The phrase may have been used earlier by Harold Rosenberg - or indeed by anyone else - but it was Hughes' book that fixed the phrase for our time. - Baceseras.]

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