The complete Lanier

"Vincent Lanier does more than raise uncomfortable questions. He is a very skillful phrase-maker and has a way of puncturing educational platitudes that few can equal," said Edmund Feldman. "I think Vincent is one of our best polemicists because he enjoys deflating pompousness wherever it shows up. Over a long teaching career he has witnessed a good many art educational infatuations. Apparently it pains him to see us taken in by purveyors of instructional snake oil. That pain, of course, is the obverse of a kind of love. Underneath Lanier's crusty exterior lies a large deposit of affection for our profession and an irrepressible idealism about what art can accomplish for the good of humanity..." This book, a professional profile of a senior art educator, Vincent Lanier, is an annotation of his published writings, a personal and professional biography noting the main influences on the subject's ideas and writings, including the influence of his ideas on the field, and significant ideas as found in published writings. "... Frankly," says Feldman, "I'm anxious to learn who or what has become the latest target of his righteous wrath. When Lanier lectures, no sacred cow, no educational fetish, is safe."