As we passed the Mac Johnson Wildlife area near Brockville, on the way to the family cabin, I thought of my old prof, MacAllister "Mac" Johnson. I wondered if it was the same person. One of the few profs I had at UofT for whom I had a true fondness, I decided to look him up to find out. Sadly, what I learned was my professor passed away in August this year.
Mac referred to himself as a "dinosaur" because he was a relic of a time when art history was examined through a philosophical lens that married aesthetics and history. He loved that I was utterly unable to separate art from the context in which it occurred. He, like his own professor, Erwin Panofsky, loved iconography and the meanings behind everything.
He was, I believe, a confirmed bachelor who liked movie dates with Millie, his chihuahua, and once astounded us with the statement that 'The Mummy', starring Brendan Fraser, was an aesthetic and artistic triumph and really "a lot of fun". He made me like frou-frou 18th century art because he steeped it in the history of its time, the hidden messages, and the technological advances of print making. RIP, Mac, you were poorly understood by your department, thought quite eccentric by many of your students, but I always wished I'd known you better.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McAllister-Johnson
