Louis Torres

Louis Torres is an independent scholar and arts critic, and co-editor of Aristos (An Online Review of the Arts), which he founded in 1982 as a print journal. Prior to that, he taught English, and art and music appreciation, at public and private high schools in New Jersey and New York City. He completed his undergraduate education at Rutgers University in 1960, majoring in psychology, with a minor in English. Following graduate work in child psychology at the University of Minnesota, he earned an M.A. in the Teaching of English at Teachers College, Columbia University.

He is a member of the American Society for Aesthetics, the National Association of Scholars, and the National Art Education Association, a specialist in the neglected fiction of Jack Schaefer (author of the classic novel, 'Shane'), and co-author of 'What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand' (Open Court, 2000). He has also contributed articles to the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, the Encyclopedia of Libertarianism, and Art Education.

An essay by him---"The Interminable Monopoly of the Avant-Garde"---is in After the Avant-Gardes, forthcoming from Open Court, January 2016. See its Amazon page at http://tinyurl.com/AfterTheAvant-Gardes.

Aristos (An Online Review of the Arts) - http://www.aristos.org

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/AristosOnlineReview

Aristos is an online review of the arts and the philosophy of art. Like its print predecessor it is a unique critical voice, advocating objective standards in arts scholarship and criticism, and arguing that the concept of art (in the sense of the traditional fine arts of painting, sculpture, literature, music, and dance) can, and ought to be, objectively defined.

Critical of both modernism and postmodernism, Aristos vigorously opposes the increasingly bizarre and inscrutable work promoted in the name of art since the early years of the twentieth century--from abstract painting and sculpture through the seemingly endless concoctions of postmodernism. Aristos also champions contemporary work that, like the significant art of all ages, is concerned with important human values, and is both intelligible and well crafted.

Though staunchly independent, the editorial viewpoint of Aristos owes much to the thought of the philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand (1905-1982). It is aimed at a broad audience of general readers, critics, scholars, and students. The fullest explication and application of the philosophy that informs its views is found in What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand (Open Court, 2000).