Bend it Like the The Times: Its Flawed Kick at Beck

Beck is ba-a-a-ack!

Always shoot-from-the-hip controversial, James Beck invariably raises the eyebrows and the ire of the art establishment that he so often inveighs against. He often undercuts his own credibility with hyperbole.

So when Beck challenged the attribution to Duccio of the Metropolitan Museum's recently acquired, very costly Madonna and Child, the NY Times tapped the big man in Duccio scholarship, Luciano Bellosi of the University of Siena, to debunk the Columbia art history professor's latest screed.

"I have never doubted that it was a masterpiece by Duccio," Bellosi told Robin Pogrebin in a phone interview.

There's only one problem, unmentioned by Pogrebin: Luciano Bellosi has never---not even once---set eyes on that Duccio!

No, unfortunately I didn't see it with my own eyes, only by photographs....I know it is a very important question. It is always necessary to see the works of art in reality to be sure what they are....Art historians like Keith Christiansen and Everett Fahy [of the Met] are very capable to judge the works of art with their eyes. I know their capacity. I trust in them for that.

And when I watched a television documentary about the cleaning of Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling, I cringed as I saw subtle modeling and muscular definition being swabbed away, leaving behind flat, garish patches of color. (Beck waged a long, losing battle against that project.)

So, suspending Met-induced disbelief, I have read with interest an advance copy of the entire chapter from Beck's forthcoming book that questions the attribution of the museum's much praised acquisition.

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