Alan Bennett’s art criticism is refreshingly down-to-earth, but less blunt than this story.

A northern friend of mine took his dad to see Monet’s Rouen cathedral in the morning fog. He took one look at it and sniffed,

“If ‘e’d a waited a bit longer ‘e wouldn’t ‘ave ‘ad to paint t’ bloody thing at all!”

Cf. F. Huehl and his Monet are soon parted.