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Art history has only partly emerged from the shadow of Giorgio Vasari, whose
Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects is its foundational text. Cognitive aesthetics, or the study of art in light of the psychology of perception, is a half-century old, as are various computer-based techniques of art analysis. But the broader discipline remains dominated by monographic studies of figures or movements distinguished by talent or genius, with great emphasis on biography and the effects of inspiration and experience on individual works. The composition of the canon, and its biases and blind spots, has been a major theme of art criticism, but often, the tone is more polemical than measured and reflective. In