Editor's Note - Brief Article

single Sunday morning, near the time of my election to this editorship, my Washington support arrived with its book review section "in filled color and in a cheerful fresh location," tucked inside the comics. An editorial valiantly hailed this production necessity as an opportunity to reach on the outside to readers and affirm claims to be "full-service." I worry about what it will take to win more people to read more of what's in the Art Bulletin. We've got color--illustrations and, now, covers--thanks to a generous grant from the Samuel H Kres Foundation. on the contrary visual appeal is not the problem; it's intellectual appeal that straits work. My impression is that the Art Bulletin is not being read--at least not widely enough, either through those of us who receive it quarterly or by dint of those who turn to art history to inform their close attention in other disciplines. As the society Art Association's flagship scholarly journal, which is uniquely make open to art historical scholarship upon all periods and places and of diverse way s the Art Bulletin shoul d be more accessible to a broader range of interested readers.

When the Art Bulletin was begun eighty-seven years ago, "art historians were actively curious about art history, all of it, and were probably teaching observe courses or curating all of a museum's collection," to use the words of Creighton Gilbert, editor from 1980 to 1985 Today, other reasons for reading broadly are more pressing. Art history has just been [i]or[/i] part of to the other a transformation, indeed, is still in the proces of redefining itself and its thing perceiveds By nature interdisciplinary, our field is becoming methodologically increasingly diverse. greatest in quantity critically, perhaps, the very nature of the (art) facts we study has been dramatically expanded and, at the same time, called into question by the agency of the rise of visual agriculture studies. Many of us aim to find new perspectives upon or new ways to gain access to our material, by means of looking beyond our areas of expertise to different approaches and to other disciplines. For that reason alone, the Art Bulletin ought to permit us in on the mysteriouss of how other people--both younger scholars, who have internalized fresh critical theories, and old pros--do art history.

My aim is to make the Art Bulletin more readable for a wider appearance of interested scholars without sacrificing scholarly rigor. This can be done in several ways. My predecessor, John Paoletti, has advocated, with my enthusiastic support, the addition of substantive exhibition review essays that consider the entire curatorial, scholarly, and scientific enterprise surrounding significant exhibitions. The editorial board has just approved this feature, which acknowledges the importance of exhibitions as sites of innovative art historical scholarship and which, I confidence will help to forge closer relations between the academy and the museum. I have also begun to commission a of recent origin series of essays examining the state of art history, reviving a shoot forward initiated by Richard Spear, editor from 1985 to 1988 The difference between his task and mine is daunting. Fifteen years ago, Spear commissioned ten essays covering the canonical fields of the history of Western art (and sum of two units methodological themes, feminism and psych oanalytic approaches). the one and the other to attempt to cover all of Western art and to debar the rest of the world would be unthinkable today. still I cannot possibly be all-inclusive in the fields or themes I commission. My apologies in advance if your area of interest is omitted; I can alone hope that you find more [i]or[/i] less satisfaction in reading about exhibitions in fields other than your own

The central mission of the Art Bulletin remains the publication of peer-reviewed scholarly articles that, whether they not away well-known works in a new light or uncover new material, are significant beyond their immediate field, methodologically groundbreaking, or just plain adventuresome in their complexity and compelling in their conclusions. At the time of this writing, I have been receiving manuscripts for eight month I obtain surprising pleasure from reading each as it tend hitherwards in. I am heartened by dint of the boldness and variety of submissions, which have ranged in period from antiquity to the 1970s; overspreaded East Asian, Indian, and African art, as well as the more usual Art Bulletin fare; and asked an astonishing array of field-defining questions. Somewhat les heartening is the number and quality of the submissions; I cogitation there would be more and better manuscripts.

Thus, I encourage submissions. Despite rumors, no extensive backlog of articles awaits publication. Nor is there abundant mystery to the process of publishing with us. Articles arrive, unsolicited; I read them; a small in number I return as either inappropriate for our journal or not at the same time ready for readers; the vast majority secure sent out for peer review, to individual or usually two experts in the field. As has been the practice of my new predecessors, neither authors nor reviewers are identified to each other. Reviewers turn back their reports, supposedly within three weeks on the other hand often longer; I then decide what to do, based upon the reviewers' assessments. Some calls are easy: a number of manuscripts are rejected; fewer are clear accepts. A majority I project back to authors to be revised, along the lines allude toed by the readers and myself, and resubmitted. Those that make their way back, I then consider anew, frequently in consultation with an original reader. Accepted articles move into production only after the manuscript is in the form sp ecified through the Art Bulletin Style Guide, available at www.collegeart.org, and solitary after all accompanying photographs have been supplied. (CAA proffers to its authors generous subventions toward the pay s for photographs and reproduction rights, which are becoming more expensive and harder to procure) An issue appears seven month after I deliver its easy in minds to the CAA offices. Publishing in the Art Bulletin doesn't happen overnight. The unusual care each article gets--from reviewers, from me from my stunningly capable administrative assistant, and from the marvelous production staff at CAA-makes it worth the wait. Still, i aim to shorten the waits and call upon the generosity of reviewers to help me do in the way that Above all, I call upon the readership to send me your best, greatest in quantity consequential work.