Criticism of the visual arts has always figured prominently in the pages of The New Criterion. Not only have we reviewed the latest museum and gallery exhibitions, but we have also regularly stepped back to register and comment on the vital signs of that hydra-headed beast, “the art world.” It was only ten years ago, however, that we began devoting a large portion of our December issue to the visual arts (just as we’ve also been devoting a large portion of our April issue to matters poetical). We’ve found the exercise illuminating, not least because the concentration of diverse perspectives and subjects always seems to yield various unplanned synergies and continuities. What begins as a series of discrete essays turns out to be a kind of impromptu conversation, or a series of conversations. The whole, in any event, always seems larger than the sum of its parts.

This year’s offerin ...

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