The Story of Art

by Gombrich, EH

• ISBN13: 9780714832470
• ISBN10: 0714832472
• Edition: 16th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-09-09
• Publisher: Phaidon Press

Summary

This text is the 16th revised and updated edition of this introduction to art,rom the earliest cave paintings to experimental art. Eight new artists fromhe modern period have been introduced. They are: Corot, Kollwitz, Nolde, dehirico, Brancussi, Magritte, Nicolson and Morandi. A sequence of new "ndings" have been added, and the captions are now fuller, including theedium and dimension of the works illustrated. Six fold-outs present selectedarge-scale works. They are: Van Eyck's "Ghent Altarpiece", Leonardo's "Lastupper", Botticelli's "Birth of Venus", Jackson Pollock's "One (Number 31,950)", Van der Weyden's "Descent from the Cross" and Michelangelo's Sistinehapel ceiling.

Author Biography

"

Ernst Gombrich was one of the greatest and least conventional art historians of his age, achieving fame and distinction in three separate spheres: as a scholar, as a popularizer of art, and as a pioneer of the application of the psychology of perception to the study of art. His best-known book, The Story of Art – first published 50 years ago and now in its sixteenth edition – is one of the most influential books ever written about art. His books further include The Sense of Order (1979) and The Preference for the Primitive (2002), as well as a total of 11 volumes of collected essays and reviews.

Gombrich was born in Vienna in 1909 and died in London in November 2001. He came to London in 1936 to work at the Warburg Institute, where he eventually became Director from 1959 until his retirement in 1976. He won numerous international honors, including a knighthood, the Order of Merit and the Goethe, Hegel and Erasmus prizes.

Gifted with a powerful mind and prodigious memory, he was also an outstanding communicator, with a clear and forceful prose style. His works are models of good art‐historical writing, and reflect his humanism and his deep and abiding concern with the standards and values of our cultural heritage.

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Table of Contents

Preface	7	(8)
Introduction
On art and artists	15	(24)
Strange Beginnings
Prehistoric and primitive peoples; Ancient America	39	(16)
Art for Eternity
Egypt, Mesopotamia, Crete	55	(20)
The Great Awakening
Greece, seventh to fifth century BC	75	(24)
The Realm of Beauty
Greece and the Greek world, fourth century BC to first century AD	99	(18)
World Conquerors
Romans, Buddhists, Jews and Christians, first to fourth century AD	117	(16)
A Parting of Ways
Rome and Byzantium, fifth to thirteenth century	133	(10)
Looking Eastwards
Islam, China, second to thirteenth century	143	(14)
Western Art in the Melting Pot
Europe, sixth to eleventh century	157	(14)
The Church Militant
The twelfth century	171	(14)
The Church Triumphant
The thirteenth century	185	(22)
Courtiers and Burghers
The fourteenth century	207	(16)
The Conquest of Reality
The early fifteenth century	223	(24)
Tradition and Innovation I
The later fifteenth century in Italy	247	(22)
Tradition and Innovation II
The fifteenth century in the North	269	(18)
Harmony Attained
Tuscany and Rome, early sixteenth century	287	(38)
Light and Colour
Venice and northern Italy, early sixteenth century	325	(16)
The New Learning Spreads
Germany and the Netherlands, early sixteenth century	341	(20)
A Crisis of Art
Europe, later sixteenth century	361	(26)
Vision and Visions
Catholic Europe, first half of the seventeenth century	387	(26)
The Mirror of Nature
Holland, seventeenth century	413	(22)
Power and Glory I
Italy, later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries	435	(12)
Power and Glory II
France, Germany and Austria, late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries	447	(10)
The Age of Reason
England and France, eighteenth century	457	(18)
The Break in Tradition
England, America and France, late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries	475	(24)
Permanent Revolution
The nineteenth century	499	(36)
In Search of New Standards
The late nineteenth century	535	(22)
Experimental Art
The first half of the twentieth century	557	(42)
A Story Without End
The triumph of Modernism	599	(19)
Another turning of the tide	618	(8)
The changing past	626	(12)
A note on art books	638	(17)
Chronological charts	655	(9)
Maps	664	(6)
List of illustrations by location	670	(4)
Index and glossary	674	(13)
Acknowledgements	687