Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Phaidon Press (1995), Edition: 16, 688 pages
Description
"The Story of Art is one of the most famous and popular books on art ever published. For 45 years it has remained unrivalled as an introduction to the whole subject, from the earliest cave paintings to the experimental art of today. Readers of all ages and backgrounds throughout the world have found in Professor Gombrich a true master, who combines knowledge and wisdom with a unique gift for communicating directly his own deep love of the works of art he describes." "The Story of Art owes its lasting popularity to the directness and simplicity of the writing, and also the author's skill in presenting a clear narrative. He describes his aim as 'to bring some intelligible order into the wealth of names, periods and styles which crowd the pages of more ambitious works', and using his insight into the psychology of the visual arts, he makes us see the history of art as 'a continuous weaving and changing of traditions in which each work refers to the past and points to the future', 'a living chain that still links our own time with the Pyramid age'. In its new format, the 16th edition of this classic work is set to continue its triumphant progress for future generations and to remain the first choice for all newcomers to art."--Jacket.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member ablueidol
Dated now as western and male art its central theme but its scope and breath still inspirational-fascinated me to see how the interplay of technology, ideas, patronage, audience etc create world heritage art in one period yet nothing in another.
LibraryThing member richard_hesketh
Bought on recommendation by my art teacher in the 1960's. This book formed the solid platform that I needed to build a long and enduringly happy engagement with the history of human creativity. Now dated and, at times questionable in it's poitics. Still a good read though. It has proved a homework
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staple for many children since. Show Less
LibraryThing member nummy_cupcake
A very accessible book about the history of art
LibraryThing member FlorenceArt
I loved this book. It explains in a very lively and understandable way (with, I'm sure, some simplification) the history of western art. The love of the author for his subject and for all those past artists is palpable and communicative. A great introduction and an enjoyable read.
LibraryThing member davidgregory
This is an historical over-view about the developpement of art from prehistorical cave-drawings to modern artistic currents like expressionism or surrealism. Gombrich widely concentrates on architecture, sculptures and paintings.
LibraryThing member SamMaxwell
Why am I limited to only 5 Stars? Read it!
LibraryThing member HeyYeah
I read this cover to cover for a History of Art course at Uni. Very readable and a good introduction but a bit out of date now.
LibraryThing member kant1066
Just a dozen or so pages into this book, I knew that it was one I wish I would have had access to when I was first seriously exposed to art. While in many respects, it is a conservative textbook (being first published in 1950), it is fundamentally meant for someone who has little to no previous
The inclusions and exclusions of certain artists are, of course, always arbitrary. However, Gombrich’s choices do not deviate too much from a standard art history text. What particularly drew me to the book was what I perceived to be its inordinate focus on medieval and especially Renaissance art. Of the twenty-eight chapters included in the book, about five mostly focus on Western medieval images (6 and 8-11). Another six chapters (13-18) focus on the art of the Western Renaissance. Most surveys of art history to which I had been previously exposed paid scant attention to medieval art and they sometimes did not give the Renaissance the space that I felt it deserved. There is no doubt the medieval and Renaissance art Gombrich’s pet periods here (and, admittedly, they’re mine, too.)
What makes it so special is that, instead of spending the first chapter in an abstract exercise of thinking about what “Art” is, he forces you over and over again to take the art on its own terms. While discussing the various visual perspectives painted by the artist of “The Garden of Nebamun,” he says: “To us reliefs and wall-paintings provide an extraordinarily vivid picture of life as it was lived in Egypt thousands of years ago. And yet, looking at them for the first time, one may find them rather bewildering. The reason is that the Egyptian painters had a very different way from ours of representing real life. Perhaps this is connected with the different purpose their paintings had to serve. What mattered most was not prettiness but completeness. It was the artists’ task to preserve everything as clearly and permanently as possible. So they did not set out to sketch nature as it appeared to them from any fortuitous angle” (p. 60). It is the occasional insight like this that makes the book most worthwhile for a neophyte. After all, how many of us have measured something we saw by the standards of our particular narrow time and place? He really drives home the point that thinking about art seriously means thinking about other perspectives (both literally and figuratively), other preoccupations, and other aesthetic modus operandi. This is a lesson that should be lost on none of us, about art, or about anything else.
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formal contact with art history. Of course, if you have some, this can make you seriously engage some of your previously held assumptions about what you like and why you like it, but I got the distinct impression while reading that it was meant to initiate a teenager – a teenager who very much reminded of me of myself – into a whole new world. The inclusions and exclusions of certain artists are, of course, always arbitrary. However, Gombrich’s choices do not deviate too much from a standard art history text. What particularly drew me to the book was what I perceived to be its inordinate focus on medieval and especially Renaissance art. Of the twenty-eight chapters included in the book, about five mostly focus on Western medieval images (6 and 8-11). Another six chapters (13-18) focus on the art of the Western Renaissance. Most surveys of art history to which I had been previously exposed paid scant attention to medieval art and they sometimes did not give the Renaissance the space that I felt it deserved. There is no doubt the medieval and Renaissance art Gombrich’s pet periods here (and, admittedly, they’re mine, too.)
What makes it so special is that, instead of spending the first chapter in an abstract exercise of thinking about what “Art” is, he forces you over and over again to take the art on its own terms. While discussing the various visual perspectives painted by the artist of “The Garden of Nebamun,” he says: “To us reliefs and wall-paintings provide an extraordinarily vivid picture of life as it was lived in Egypt thousands of years ago. And yet, looking at them for the first time, one may find them rather bewildering. The reason is that the Egyptian painters had a very different way from ours of representing real life. Perhaps this is connected with the different purpose their paintings had to serve. What mattered most was not prettiness but completeness. It was the artists’ task to preserve everything as clearly and permanently as possible. So they did not set out to sketch nature as it appeared to them from any fortuitous angle” (p. 60). It is the occasional insight like this that makes the book most worthwhile for a neophyte. After all, how many of us have measured something we saw by the standards of our particular narrow time and place? He really drives home the point that thinking about art seriously means thinking about other perspectives (both literally and figuratively), other preoccupations, and other aesthetic modus operandi. This is a lesson that should be lost on none of us, about art, or about anything else.
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LibraryThing member ted_newell
A clear tour of the history of art including ancient, through the advent of perspective and modern art. Full disclosure: So comprehensive it needs to be re-read.
LibraryThing member soylentgreen23
It took me about a year to read this, but what a rush! It's only a shame that Gombrich is so bemused by more modern art, but then, aren't we all?
LibraryThing member thenumeraltwo
This has sat around for over a year looking daunting on the shelf. It's size implying weeks of effort. I needn't have worried. This is Gombrich: erudite, approachable and informative and oh so readable. He's the stereotype of the kindly and informed grandpa.
I was sad that he didn't mirror the
I was sad that he didn't mirror the
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visual arts with snippets of the aural, but that's being sad about something that the book isn't. Instead, I got a whistlestop tour of a few thousand years of architecture that I've already mostly forgot. It does feel though that, like [Little History of the World] that the chapters are short and contained enough, that I'll read a snippet for a refresher for the rest of my life. Show Less
LibraryThing member booktsunami
This is a great book on art history ....though now somewhat dated. I'm now in the position of having to downsize my library and this book is one of the casualties. Pity but I won't be using it. I give it two stars.
Awards
ALA Outstanding Books for the College Bound (Non-fiction — 1999)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1950
Physical description
688 p.; 9.7 inches
ISBN
0714832472 / 9780714832470