Editor’s Note: Of Jesus and Judas

Abstract

Situated in the rear of our set of essays in this issue of Source is an elegiac “Appreciation” by Paul Barolsky of one of his former teachers, the late Fred Licht. Best known for his work on Goya, Licht was a multifaceted scholar and curator whose published essays (including some in Source) covered several centuries of topics ranging from Raphael to Picasso. Barolsky’s remarks about Licht’s “acute visual analysis and . . . depth of historic knowledge” brought me to thinking about one of my own mentors (elegiac moods being rather contagious), Paul Watson, who passed in 2005. Students in his course on Italian Renaissance painting at Penn in the 1970s may no longer remember exactly what Paul said about Botticelli or Mantegna, but they will never forget his wit, which could sometimes take on an acerbic and irreverent tone. I