This is my first stab at a mobile Minus Plato post. So it’ll nice ‘n’ short & sweet. Sitting in Anthropologie in the Short North, leafing through the Taschen coffee-table book Matisse Cut-outs, I stumble across some typical art historical Latin etymologizing maneuver. (See the text in the photo below).
I guess my question is: when does such a move become indecent? In other words, when does Latin not fit in with the work the art historian wants it to do for them? And perhaps most importantly, where is Matisse in all this? What if this interpretation of his work The Dance is not fitting for him, but somehow indecent? Finally, does this interpretation distract us from the potential indecency of the work itself?
