41 ART-CRITICISM

Most professional art-critics are weak-kneed when it comes to contemplating the theoretical implications of their practice and would react with horror to the suggestion that criticism needs to establish a coherent methodology. This is largely due to a nearly universal acceptance of the primacy of experience in front of the art-work, of the direct personal response which, it is feared, would lose its purity if 'too much theory' were brought into it.