When I went to Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art I recall an instructor that tried to convince me that my good paintings were painted badly, and my bad paintings were painted very well. I did not accept this as fact, and I wondered what her husband’s thoughts were since he was also an instructor at the Academy.
One day I approached him and showed him the same paintings that she saw. What he said next was exactly as I thought… that my good paintings are good, and my bad paintings are bad.
At the end of the semester she exclaimed that I “didn’t do a single thing (she) told the whole semester!”, and I replied, “Of course I didn’t do what you wanted me to do; you tried to set me up for failure.” I was fortunate because I was warned about this kind of behavior from modernists back in high-school by a great art teacher. #kitschified