Jed Perl’s project as an art critic has been reformulated and reiterated over a long period. He currently writes a column on art in The New Republic, and has contributed for many years to such publications as the British magazine Modern Painters, Vogue, and indeed The New Criterion. His new book[1] is not his first collection of his essays in book form, and the very act of gathering together what were originally journalistic pieces implies that in sum they offer something more than a casual, passing commentary on gallery and museum shows.

Perl is deeply sceptical of the art he sees being promoted by the major international art institutions, and he champions certain less acclaimed artists whom he thinks deserve more attention. Their work suffers neglect, he feels, largely because of the prevalent tastes and prejudices of the “official” art world. He posits the existence of an alternative, largely invisible art world where substantial artistic concerns, traditions, researches, and developments are being stoically kept alive in the studios of painters and sculptors. These artists have often the respect of colleagues, and of a few collectors and critics, and sometimes they are supported by smaller museums and university galleries. But they frequently have to content themselves with showing at artist-run cooperative spaces, and the long-term effects of being deprived of a wider audience are demoralizing. They face the “nightmare,” as he puts it, of achieving that hard-won artistic breakthrough in their work, only for