Drawing on analyses of texts by Derrida, Deleuze and other leading critics, as well as illustrations of artworks from various cultures, this book examines art historical writing as an expressive medium, capable of emotion and reflection. "Concerned with the rhetorical dimensions of artwriting, Elkins identifies the ways in which immediate questions about the truth of interpretation are inevitably deflected by awareness of the stylistic qualities of art historians' texts... Wildly imaginative at making connections, his highly original book inevitably will be one necessary starting point for all future discussion." -- David Carrier, Carnegie Mellon University