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I have nestled all of these introductions in the middle of the art texts because this book is not "linear" in the sense of a straight, curvilinear or regular line. Rather, it tries to be "lineate" with sinuous lines of thought and experience that cluster and crisscross like the currents in an ocean, or buttress one another deepeningly like the parts of an Archaic sculpture. The texts within this book are meant to be concretely situated, that is, to emerge as far as possible from within the phenomena studied and, similarly, to keep themselves bound to the occasions and milieu in which they occur. Such text is not amenable to regular kinds of introductory statements, which are traditionally top down, abstract and simplifying. Nonetheless, in these "Retrospective Beginnings", I may be able to offer a little guidance on how to approach the very different chapters of this book by means of a few notes that reflect retrospectively on the work. They must be retroductive and far less "ductile" or flowing than the entering introductive statements about art line thought that occur in the following chapters.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-1594-7_6

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