This latest volume in the critically acclaimed Clark Studies in the Visual Arts series examines the force of art history's attrraction to particular objects and the corresponding rhythms of attachment and detachment that animate the discipline. In a series of thought-provoking essays, distinguished curators, conservators and scholars from various disciplines within the humanities consider how artists, the public and art historians have encountered objects in periods ranging from the Renaissance to Surrealism and contemporary art. They grapple with the questions of how art and art history are shaped by the confrontation with the object - painted, drawn and sculpted; lost, found and ready-made; exhibited and conserved; made and unmade. Art historian Stephen Melville provides the introduction to the volume. Other contributors include Emily Apter, George Baker, Malcolm Baker, John Brewer, Martha Buskirk, Margaret Iversen, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, Karen Lang, Mark Meadow, Helen Molesworth, Marcia Pointon, Christian Scheidemann, Edward J. Sullivan and Martha Ward.