since about 1970, however, these assumptions have been strongly called into question. There has been a marked shift of interest from the work as a thing whose meaning is contained within itself a decontextualized object-to a thing whose meaning partly, largely, or even entirely consists of its context, its relation to things outside of itself(for instance, the institutions or individuals for whom the work was produced), especially its relationship to the person who perceives it Further, there has been a shift from viewing an artwork as a thing of value in itself or as an object that provides pleasure and that conveys some sort of profound and perhaps universal meaning-to viewing the artwork as an object that reveals the power structure of a society. The work is brought down to earth, so to speak, and is said thereby to be de mystified." Thus the student does not look for a presumed unified"deconstructs" the work by looking whole. On the contrary, the student for fissures and"slippages" that give away-reveal, unmask-the underlying political and social realities that the artist sought to cover u with sensuous appeal nineteenth-century idyllic landscape painting, A discussion of an early for instance, today might call attention not to the elegant brushwork and the color harmonies(which earlier might have been regarded as sources of