Bob Ross and the art historical canon
If we take Henri Matisse’s famous assertion that art should be something like a good armchair in which to rest from physical fatigue at face value, we might end up with something approaching the “happy [x]” philosophy of Bob Ross, whose message was perfectly suited for television—the medium which help to spread it. I discuss the Bob Ross phenomenon, and its implications for today’s American culture, in my latest article for The New Criterion.