In an e-mail to the News today, Sterling Professor Emeritus Vincent Scully ’40 GRD ’49 said it is important not to view his wish to return to teaching as “a program.”

“Much as I have missed teaching at Yale and would gladly return to it, I know that it is not really feasible to do so,” he said. “And I am not planning to try.”

Scully added that the introductory survey art history class “Introduction to the History of Art: Prehistory to Renaissance, ” which he taught for 62 years, is “none of [his] affair” and will be well taught by any member of the faculty who undertakes it.

In an interview Tuesday, Scully said spending the past few months away from teaching has been “hell.”

“I first made [my departure] sound final, but the way I feel now, the hope is that it isn’t,” Scully said Tuesday.

Chair of the History of Art Department Alexander Nemerov GRD ’92 could not be reached for comment Thursday night.