Explores critical activities in the visual arts and how they can enhance art appreciation. Outlines sources of criticism, different types of criticism, the varied backgrounds of art critics, and the artist-critic relationship. Maintains that, by emphasizing interpretive aspects, school art criticism can come closer to professional art criticism.…

Presents a metacritical examination of published essays by three professional critics of Richard Avedon's photographic exhibition, "In the American West," to determine how critics describe art work. Concludes that more comparative research is needed to bridge the gap between professional art criticism and that taught in schools. (KM)