PERSPECTIVE ON AMERICA

By BRUCE HALLETT/PRESIDENT

An Australian by birth, TIME art critic Robert Hughes tends to view his adopted land--and its art--with an anthropologist's eye. That's probably as it should be. America, he likes to remind us, is an immigrant society, and its art reflects the cultures of its settlers. For the past three years, Hughes has been trying to capture the essence of these cultural accretions. One result is an 88-page special report titled American Visions, which will reach our subscribers and newsstands across the country this week.

It is the equivalent of a complete issue of TIME produced by a single writer. "I felt like a stable owner who had sunk all his money into one Thoroughbred," says assistant managing editor Christopher Porterfield, who oversaw the project. Happily for us, Hughes never pulled up lame. His insight and his vigorous prose perfectly frame the lavish illustrations, which range from a 17th century Puritan headstone to Jackson Pollock's energetic Abstract Expressionism.

Hughes laid the groundwork for the issue by trekking to more than 100 cities, including Charlottesville, Va., home of Monticello, "where you couldn't sit down because everything was a historical monument," and Prout's Neck, Maine, where he looked upon the same "great, severe coastline" that inspired Winslow Homer. His cross-country expedition produced an eight-part mini-series, also called American Visions, which will air on PBS from May 28 to June 18, and a 635-page companion volume just published by Alfred A. Knopf.

Hughes, who came to TIME in 1970, has made a career of balancing weekly art criticism with books and TV projects. American Visions follows such Hughes best sellers as The Culture of Complaint and The Fatal Shore; the TV series takes its place with his 1981 series (and book) The Shock of the New. What's next? "Give me a break," he says. "I'm going to catch some fish, strangle some crocodiles, sing macho songs."

Even the hyperproductive Hughes has his foibles. One of them, Porterfield says, is to keep pushing back the promised delivery time for his copy. "We cordially lied to each other throughout," says Porterfield. "Every deadline I threatened him with had, like a Chinese box, at least three false bottoms." The results, we're pleased to say, justified the subterfuge.