Anon. Sense

When I was about 17 and a pretentious art student, I thought I knew everything about art. But there was one artist I liked a lot who I knew very little about – Anon. The diversity of his work amazed me, but his somewhat sketchy biographical details confused me. In particular, I was sure I’d seen something of his from the 1500s and other work from the 1800s – and other stuff in between, in all kinds of mediums. The truth was revealed in a humiliating conversation amongst fellow art students (far more embarrassing than my pronouncing ‘Titian’ as ‘Titan’ in public a few years before):

For some reason, a fellow art student had mentioned anon.
I said, ‘Oh I really like Anon.’
She said, ‘What?’
I said, ‘I like Anon.’
She said, ‘Are you being serious?’
I said, ‘Yes, I really like his paintings. Why?’
She said, ‘You do know anon. is short for anonymous?’
I went red and said, ‘No, I didn't know that actually.’