It is nearly impossible to convey the original impact an artist from the past had on his contemporaries. What matters is his artworks’ impression in the here-and-now. But art and artists don’t exist in a vacuum. A painter’s worth can be entangled, complicated, multifarious. Through hindsight, he can become more—or less—estimable; and the value of his initial reception may outweigh that of his oeuvre.
