The phenomenon of repetition in the history of art has been the subject of numerous independent studies. For George Kubler, all artworks could be sorted within a linear chronological sequence of primes, replications, and mutations in order to address a particular visual problem. In contrast, outside the realm of mechanical reproductions, the anachronistic assembly of contemporary and historical quotations from existing visual models was suggested by Alexander Nagel and Christopher Wood as simply being a part of the visual mechanics of an image. Nagel and Wood thereby defined the terms substitution and performance to categorize the shift in the perception of artworks in their dependence on existing images within the substitutional mode; whereby a new image within the same pictorial type substitutes the old through the replication of its primary features, from those which sublimate the temporal historicity of existing artworks within a contemporary work through the performative principles. Despite their ...