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Art museums frequently remove old paintings from their original settings. In the process, the context of these works of art changes dramatically. Do museums then preserve works of art? To answer this question, I consider an imaginary painting, The Travels and Tribulations of Piero's Baptism of Christ, depicting the history of display of Piero della Francesca's Baptism of Christ. This example suggests that how Piero's painting is seen does depend upon its setting. According to the Intentionalist, such changes in context have no real influence upon the meaning of Piero's painting, and consequently museums can be said to preserve works of art. According to the Skeptic, if such changes are drastic enough, we can no longer identify the picture's original meaning, and museums thus fail to preserve works of art. Skepticism deserves attention, for such varied influential commentators as Theodore Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Maurice Blanchot, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Martin Heidegger, Hans Sedlmayr, and Paul Valery hold this pessimistic view of museums. I develop the debate between the Intentionalist and the Skeptic. Ultimately skepticism is indefensible, I argue, because it fails to take account of the continuities in the history of art's display. But Intentionalism is also deficient because it is ahistorical. In presenting the history of Piero's painting, The Travels and Tribulations of Piero's Baptism of Christ shows that we can re-identify the original significance of Piero's work and the recognizable continuities that obtain through its changes. It thus makes sense to claim that at least in certain circumstances art museums can preserve works of art.

An analysis of French art's influence over the global art world during the last quarter century is presented. The art world's shifting emphasis from art to art objects, and the growing importance of the visual culture are examined.

The goal of Indian art historians has long been to understand the visual coherence of their monuments, to clarify their historical relationships and to comprehend their meaning. The essential priority of historical reconstruction to cultural interpretation has been difficult to maintain, and the time has come to set aside the idea that cultural interpretations can be made independent of specific historical contexts. The priority hitherto given to meaning must be subordinated to the fundamental priority of history. Ways to analyze styles of surviving monuments must be developed on the basis of the significant formal criteria inherent in the monuments themselves. These criteria can only be apprehended by examining the Indian artist's technical approach and his understanding of forms through their unique measure. Imaging technology provides us with the means to access the self-explanations encoded in the morphologies of the surviving monuments.