In a quote that encapsulates the premise of Conceptual art, Joseph Kosuth pronounced in 1969: "The 'value' of particular artists after Duchamp can be weighed according to how much they questioned the nature of art." For Kosuth, modern art is essentially self-reflective: its intention is to interrogat

Classical, Clean, Eclectic, Elegant, Repetitive, Subtle

From an early age, Joyce disdained what he saw as the shabby Philistinism of his birthplace, Dublin, rejecting the Catholicism that dominated Irish culture in favor of a literary faith and a rebel's stance. Absolutely convinced of his genius, Joyce left for self-imposed exile in Europe in 1904, and b

Composed, Excessive, Expansive, Formless, Layered, Modernist literature, Moody, Playful, Postmodern fiction, Profane, Religious, Sprawling, Subtle

Just before his death in 1991, Miles Davis teamed up with rapper Easy Mo Bee to make a jazz/hip-hop album called "Doo Bop." This wasn't the first time Davis had done something utterly new -- his entire career was devoted to jazz-faring exploration. Playing with such supernovae as Charles Mingus

Bebop, Classical, Composed, Cool, Cool jazz, Electronic, Elegant, Expansive, Fusion, Fuzzy, Hard bop/post-bop, Improvised, Intimate, Loose, Lush, Mathematical, Minimal, Open-ended, Quiet, Sexy, Sincere, Spare, Subtle, Trippy

The next time you watch a Howard Hawks film, look for the seams -- they won't be there. An unobtrusive, quietly gifted director, writer, and producer, Hawks constructed films that seem as effortless and artless as the films of his contemporaries seem idiosyncratic. With a background in mechanical eng

Classic hollywood, Contemplative, Film noir and neo-noir, Layered, Pathos, Subtle