The paper considers theoretical legacy of the Russian art historian Grigory Sternin (1927–2013). The scholar’s work is examined in the context of methodological innovations in Western science in the 1960s and 1970s and attempts to use this experience within the framework of the publishing policy of the “Soviet Art Studies” journal. The most radical component in Sternin’s theoretical strategies is highlighted, breaking with “visual essentialism” and rehabilitating “literature” in its complex relationships with fine art. This most striking feature of the individual research style of the Russian art historian makes him a forerunner of “visual studies”. The article emphasizes that Sternin’s interest in the textual embodiments of visuality was based on a (post)structuralist understanding of the sociology of art.