Pioneering Painters: The Glasgow Boys 1880-1900, Royal Academy

While I admire the passion with which David Thompson makes his points, I fear he hasn't read the whole of my review and missed its essential point. He refers to the fact that 'Impressionism was merely one strand and one of the minor ones at that in an incredibly rich and complex period for art.' If he troubled to read the 5th paragraph he would see that I praise the exhibition for not 'pandering to the Impressionism good, everything else bad view of the late 19th century' and 'gives a sense of the sheer complexity of that pivotal moment.' None of that, however, makes Bastien-Lepage a great or even a good artist. His 'Poor Fauvette' is terrible tosh. He may have been rated at the time as a titan beside 'minnows' such as Monet and Renoir, as Mr Thompson claims, but history has reversed that view - and rightly. The history of art is full of figures who had massive reputations in their day but are now little esteemed. While Mr Thompson claims that 'reading art history backwards to try and identify which artists contributed to the birth of modernism is ridiculous', genuflecting before the critical estimations of the past, simply because they are of the time, seems even more idiotic. Mr Thompson implies twice that I shouldn't be allowed to express an opinion on this exhibition because I have never 'picked up a paintbrush'. As a matter of fact I have a degree in painting, which has no bearing on my right to express an opinion on this exhibition or anything else.