ABSTRACT
Representational art reproduces concrete particulars, yet its creations that are most honoured by posterity carry an aura of transhistorical, even universal, significance altogether distinct from the purely technical innovations in the medium that may endow some of them with lasting interest. Critiques of social theory seek to relate its generalizations to the historically specific circumstances of their creation, even sometimes denying altogether their claims to generality; critiques of non-abstract artistic creations, on the other hand, seek out the wider meanings implicit in the concrete particulars they represent. Yet there are surely some works of art that capture a contemporary situation that is bound to be transitory without communicating this sense of eternal brooding over the passing scene. If theory starts with the universal, or at least the general, and reasons from it to the particular, literature and representational art starts with the concretely particular and creates at least an aura or intimation of the universal or general.
