The Story of Art

Book Description

4 Reviews

• 

  A Great Introduction, Heavy on the Medieval Ages and Renaissance

  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 form ... (continue)

  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 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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  Kant1066 said on Dec 1, 2011 | Add your feedback

• 

  VERY GOOD START

  It is a very good book to lay the fundations of the history of art. As it was written in the 50's a large part of contemporary art is missing but the author's perception and final chapter leaves the door open for what is to come, exposing quite well what were the first traces of the problems that ar ... (continue)

  It is a very good book to lay the fundations of the history of art. As it was written in the 50's a large part of contemporary art is missing but the author's perception and final chapter leaves the door open for what is to come, exposing quite well what were the first traces of the problems that are virulently ailing the art world now. Recommended to those who want to start somewhere to understand why art developed the way it did and the reasons why we find so difficult to appreciate some aspects of contemporary art.

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  Ignominia said on Feb 2, 2011 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

• 

  Wealth of Information & lots of art works presented in color

  If I can give it 10 stars, I will.

  The late E.H. Grombich has been an authority over this subject area. The regular edition of this book has sold millions of copies, and translated into many different languages.

  This is my first book about art history. I got this book during my visit to Getty Ce ... (continue)

  If I can give it 10 stars, I will.

  The late E.H. Grombich has been an authority over this subject area. The regular edition of this book has sold millions of copies, and translated into many different languages.

  This is my first book about art history. I got this book during my visit to Getty Center in Los Angeles. Once I started reading, I cannot put it down. It talks about the important art pieces and paintings from the ancient Greece, all the way to late-20th century. He tells you why they are important, and what kind of influences these art pieces to the society at that time.

  The book has over 400 color pictures referencing the text. Grombich uses a storytelling style to illustrate his beloved subject, and the method works fantastically. You got to pick this up if you are even slightly interested in art. It helps me appreciate art in a whole new dimension.

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  Sibant said on Nov 12, 2009 | Add your feedback

• Section 1 [return]Illustration / Art

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  Jonaschau said on Jul 18, 2009 | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
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• English Books
• Paperback 1044 Pages
• ISBN-10: 0714847038
• ISBN-13: 9780714847030
• Publisher: Phaidon Press
• Pub date: Oct 07, 2006
• Dimensions: 1226 mm x 710 mm x 258 mm Just how big is that?
• Also available as: Hardcover, School & Library Binding and Others
• In other languages: other languages Libri Italiani

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