It is notoriously true that art historians virtually never look at the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, the British Journal of Aesthetics, or the Zeitschrift für Aesthetik—not to mention the twenty-odd other aesthetics journals published throughout the world. Most developments of interest to art history are reported in its own journals, and when artists are discussed in the pages of aesthetics journals, the essays are not consistently cited in subsequent art historical literature. Imagine two societies that live on distant islands—call them Ah and Ae. (“Ah” for art history, “Ae” for aesthetics.) Although they are neighbors in their archipelago, they are very far apart, so that they are just … Continue reading James Elkins