By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
Reading reviews of art exhibitions in distant metropolises can evoke envy for pleasures and excitements that are impossible to share because the locations are too far away. So a collection of exhibition reviews could seem frustrating rather than enticing, especially when the once-assembled pictures have returned to their homes. But it's excitement rather than frustration that seizes the reader of "Always Looking: Essays on Art" by the late John Updike because these reviews are so intelligent, well-informed and beautifully written.
After traveling to four venues over the past two years, the Corcoran Gallery of Art's masterpieces have returned in an expanded exhibition playing to their strengths. "The American Evolution" only runs through July but suggests a more permanent way of displaying these treasures within Ernest Flagg's beaux-arts building.
"They are, as it were, two-and-a-half dimensional," he writes.
