Salvo’s work finds its most receptive audience in refined observers of things artistic; and certain refined discourses have sought in his work anticipations of developments in the late ’70s, especially the ephemeral triumph of painting as our primary art form. Yet for me, Salvo remains—and this is confirmed by this recent retrospective of his work—the symptom of a crisis. His work’s success or failure—i.e., whether its flowering and continued growth should be seen as healthy exuberance or as a sickly problem—is not, to my mind, the question that should be posed or addressed.

But if it is a question