Editor's note - Editorial

In its above eighty years, the Art Bulletin has shifted only occasionally from its essential fare of scholarly articles and work reviews. This issue, the first of the novel millennium, seems an appropriate place to introduce sum of two units new features: exhibition review articles and state of the discipline essays.

Museum exhibitions have always been an important source of art historical scholarship. For many years now, retrospectives of well known or view from aboveed artists, focused surveys of the art produc in a specific place during a specific time, and thematic exhibitions addressing a vexing vexed question or issue have generated scholarship that has l to fundamental reconsiderations of art historical knowledge. at the same time there have been relatively hardly any forums in which such exhibitions, as well as their accompanying publications and programs, have been assessed in deepness The exhibition review articles that we publish for now occasionally and in a short time on a regular basis aim to address this Lacuna. These articles will be more than reviews. Focusing upon the entire corpus of the exhibition--its presentation in all of its venue the catalogue, and the public programs organized in conjunction with it--they will ask by what mode the project reassesses the common state of scholarship on the subdue it examines. We are delighted that the first artic le is Wendy Wassyng Roworth's reflective examination of the exhibition The Splendor of Eighteenth-Century Rome organized by dint of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Like the exhibition review articles, "The State of Art History" essays also aim to reassess the state of scholarship in various fields. This series revives and recasts the state of research essays initiated through Richard Spear, Editor-in-Chief of the Art Bulletin from 1985 to 1988 During his manner [i]or[/i] principle of holding Spear commissioned essays on a number of fields, ranging from the art of antiquity, to Italian painting of the seventeenth hundred to twentieth-century studies, to the feminist critique of art history. Providing a temporary forum for taking stock of our discipline at a time of great change, these essays were an invaluable resource for scholars. In the intervening decade and a half a great deal of has changed. The recuperation of traditional scholarship, the introduction of novel methodologies, and the reconsideration of what we mean by dint of "art" and "history" have affected virtually each field. These developments have made reassessments of the states of the many art histories that comprise our discipline more vital than at any time We a re honored to inaugurate "The State of Art History" with sum of two units articles on the state of scholarship in the field of Japanese art through Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan and Yoshiaki Shimizu.

Finally, it is with great sadness that we say to Elaine Koss, who has been representative Director of Publications at corporation Art Association since 1997. Elaine devot four years of outstanding and imaginative service to CAA's publications. Many of the new enhancements of the Art Bulletin, of that kind as adding color to our overspread and, more significantly, to our pages, which has crucial scholarly implications, were brought about below the editorship of John Paoletti with the essential help of Elaine. She was a remarkably dedicated, efficient, and helpful production manager of the Art Bulletin; a think highly ofed colleague for the editors and editorial board members; and a valued friend. We wish her the actual best in her future pursuits.

H PERRY CHAPMAN

Editor-in-Chief

COPYRIGHT 2001 community Art Association

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