Buboni, Lost In The Woods, parts 196 - 199

Richard Britell June 2, 2012

196. Buboni's serious difficulties seem to have begun at a dinner party a few days after New Years, two years ago. He was drunk, and his drunken friends were chiding him in an apparently innocent way about never writing any articles about art after 1870.

197. In reaction to this he declared, slurring his words in his drunkenness, "Articles about art history written after 1880, are not art history at all, it is just advertising copy designed to sell garbage to rich idiots."

198. First of all Buboni did not really believe this, and even if he did he should never have said it.  Even if a cow is sacred, it is best to leave it alone, but also, he especially loved some of the Impressionists, although not all of them.

199. His enemies debated what to do with this remark and decided to leak it to a source that could do him the most damage, so they gave it to the editors of the student newspaper who had no trouble extrapolating his remarks into something inflammatory. Their article was titled, "Buboni says Cezanne's paintings are garbage being sold to rich idiots.