A critic paints a brilliant picture of his subject

Where have all the critics gone?

That may seem an unlikely question to entertain. But think about it. These days, those of us who love the arts could turn to the scholars, conducting valuable if often indecipherable research in their micro-specialties. Or we could trust the popular pundits, directing us with "thumbs up, thumbs down" semaphores, as if they were parking garage attendants.

But couldn't there be something in between? How about critics who take their readers seriously, who write congenial, inviting prose, but also provoke their readers, and challenge us all to engage more fully with the arts?

This is precisely what makes Jed Perl so vital a writer. As the art critic for The New Republic during the last 14 years, Perl has proven consistently demanding in his critiques of an art world gone mad over its own, money-soaked flummery, but he's also remained a generous advocate for those artists he most admires.

Throughout his work, he always strikes a unique tone, one that combines serious, intellectual inquiry with the directness of good journalism. Perhaps Perl found a model for this style in the work of the great movie critic Pauline Kael, who championed his work from the early days. There's also something of Edmund Wilson in this tone - a range of reference that recalls that a great literary critic's ability to span whole genres and historical periods in a single paragraph.

But the tone is Perl's own, and his new collection, "Antoine's Alphabet," shows how successful it can be. The Antoine of the title is the 18th-century French painter Antoine Watteau. The artist, whom Perl admits is his "favorite painter," has long been known for his paintings of bucolic reveries, flirtations, and f??tes galantes. His paintings include such classics as "La Perspective" at the Museum of Fine Arts and "Mezzetin" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

But Perl's book is neither a scholarly monograph nor a biography. It's something much jazzier. The form is "abecedarian": Each letter of the alphabet receives a chapter, and in each chapter Perl riffs on one or more words beginning with that letter. All of the words have some relevance to Watteau, but they also allow Perl to follow his imagination. The links between the sections often lie hidden, much like the structures of improvised music or the connecting motifs in a set of haiku. In one section, Perl muses on the effect of liberal spirit on the arts in the 18th century. In another, he discusses Samuel Beckett's admiration for Watteau. In others, Perl recounts visits to the studios of his own artist friends. Reading "Antoine's Alphabet" is like attending the party to beat all parties, where the company includes both Katharine Hepburn and the fabled Greek painter Zeuxis, both the diamond-studded harlequins of Watteau's paintings and the painters and writers of modern-day Manhattan.

While Perl's tone swings from casual to cerebral and back, while his content jumps between centuries and continents, you begin to sense that his deepest subject remains the very connection between art and life. His book shows how aesthetic experience can enrich our feeling for the everyday, and how our understanding of the world around us, and all its facets, can lead us back to a keener discernment and enjoyment of art. This is the work of criticism at its most vital, and Perl raises that work to fine art.

Peter Campion is the author of a collection of poems, "Other People," and teaches at Auburn University.