I described him in the Guardian once as writing the English of Shakespeare, Milton, Macaulay and Dame Edna Everage; Hughes enjoyed the description. His prose was lithe, muscular and fast as a bunch of fives. He was incapable of writing the jargon of the art world, and consequently was treated by its mandarins with fear and loathing. Much he cared.
It's so sad that Robert Hughes is no longer with us.
His The Fatal Shore is wonderful, for its clarity and the beauty of its language. It's too long since I've read it, I must read it again.




















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