Front cover image for The story of art

The story of art

"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
Print Book, English, 1995
16th ed., expanded and redesigned View all formats and editions
Phaidon Press, Ltd., London, 1995
History
688 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm
9780714833552, 9780714832470, 9780714815237, 9780134401997, 071483355X, 0714832472, 0714815233, 0134401999
960911278
Introduction: On arts and artists
Strange beginnings : prehistoric and primitive peoples; Ancient America
Art for eternity : Egypt, Mesopotamia, Crete
The great awakening : Greece, seventh to fifth century BC
The realm of beauty : Greece and the Greek world, fourth century BC to first century AD
World conquerors : Romans, Buddhists, Jews and Christians, first to fourth century AD
A parting of ways : Rome and Byzantium, fifth to thirteenth century
Looking eastwards : Islam, China, second to thirteenth century
Western art in the melting pot : Europe, sixth to eleventh century
The church militant : the twelfth century
The church triumphant : the thirteenth century
Courtiers and burghers : the fourteenth century
The conquest of reality : the early fifteenth century
Tradition and innovation I : the later fifteenth century in Italy
Traditions and innovation II : the fifteenth century in the North
Harmony attained : Tuscany and Rome, early sixteenth century
Light and colour : Venice and northern Italy, early sixteenth century
The new learning spreads : Germany and the Netherlands, early sixteenth century
A crisis of art : Europe, later sixteenth century
Vision and visions : Catholic Europe, first half of the seventeenth century
The mirror of nature : Holland, seventeenth century
Power and glory I : Italy, later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Power and glory II : France, Germany and Austria, late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries
The age of reason : England and France, eighteenth century
The break in tradition : England, America and France, late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
Permanent revolution : The nineteenth century
In search of new standards : the late nineteenth century
Experimental art : the first half of the twentieth century
A story without end: The triumph of modernism ; Another turning of the tide ; The changing past