Article: The art of influence: exhibitions in Santa Monica and Los Angeles--one comparing Guston and de Chirico, the other showing the impact of Magritte on recent artists--demonstrated a range of creative responses to previously under-appreciated forebears.

Art history is a narrative with an unpredictable plot. As Marcel Duchamp's slow rise to preeminence in the past 50 years attests, critical judgments change over the course of time. Works that seem irrelevant today will not necessarily be deemed so tomorrow. One of the most efficacious routes toward reevaluation is through the tastes and enthusiasms of artists--persons not given to conceding to common wisdom or textbook decrees. An acclaimed contemporary artist's allusions or stylistic references to a figure from the past can open previously closed doors, giving viewers a fresh perspective on scorned work or dismissed periods. With the right endorsements, historians and ...

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