His scything painting of a tiny David beheading the massive supine figure of Goliath shows how Caravaggio's incisive realism liberated art.
With unflinching boldness, each of the 28 artists in "Deja Vu" make their incisive statements through art, which results in some of the most thought-provoking propaganda I've seen in years.
What's most notable about the discussion is that, taking off from the film itself, Gray offered, in the span of a few minutes, a remarkably incisive distillation of the art of directing.
As Francisco Goldman describes in his incisive 2007 book, "The Art of Political Murder," about the assassination of Bishop Gerardi, the military and its intelligence operators concocted evidence and witnesses to generate endless hypotheses — it was a robbery, it was a crime of passion — in order to conceal the simple truth that they had murdered him.
As for contemporary art, Rush Arts offers some smart work, including do rags by Derrick Adams outfitted with Mickey Mouse ears -- incisive and witty comments on the marketing of African-American fashion.
Other European heirs to this tradition of the essay include Stefan Zweig and Hugo von Hofmannsthal in Austria and Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht in Germany; their sprightly and incisive essays on the arts can be traced to the 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.
It rejuvenates appropriation art through the incisive use of digital animation, achieving an intensity that rivets the ear and the eye while perturbing the mind.
Women's studies is one of them, and its influence has helped create a type of art exhibition: politically incisive, visually rich but antispectacular, and conceptually expansive.
John Gage, who has died aged 73, was an art historian whose incisive intelligence and deep commitment to exploring the significance of colour in painting made him one of the most original and important figures working in the field.
Thus because some cuts are figuratively as well as literally incisive, any cut can seem wise: austere art is smart art.
