Best Paper Ever

This might seem surprising, but art historians are huge snobs. They are a stodgy bunch, set in their ways and generally uppity about it. Academic art--that is, 19th c. art from the big art academies in France and England--is the pariah of the art history world.

Scene: Paris, many years ago.

BEAUX-ARTS: Good art has to have at least one naked butt in it.

MONET: Well, me and my douchey friends are going to paint outside.

And everyone loved them. Eventually.

I'm working on a huge research paper on representations of the harem in art, a favorite subject of the academics like Jean-Leon Gerome here. I've spent the last three weeks looking at pictures of naked ladies and only naked ladies.

Livin' the art history dream, baby.