In this collection of essays, five previously published and three new in this volume, a western historian of Chinese art examines the received ideas of art history from the vantage point of another culture. On the premise that what we feel a need to explain and how we explain it alike depend on what we assume to be normal, the essays all adopt a comparative approach. Whatever body of material is taken as case study--Gothic churches, Egyptian reliefs, Chinese bronzes, Insular gospel manuscripts--the problems addressed are of broad general relevance to the discipline. They include the nature...