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Title: The Story of Art by Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich ISBN: 0-13-850297-8 Publisher: Prentice Hall Pub. Date: September, 1980 Format: Textbook Binding List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.84 (19 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: art history in the essentials
Comment: this is a wonderfully conceived and written history of western art from cave painting to the late 20th century. gombrich tells the story by focusing on the essential ideas or achievements characteristic of each artist and art epoch. each chapter is about 5 or 6 pages of text and several large format art reproductions (there are several fold out images of works such as botticelli's "birth of venus" or pollock's "one"). the narrative is conversational, concise, well informed, and extremely intelligent; the book reads as though you are strolling through an immense museum with gombrich at your side, commenting on paintings and sculptures as you go.
gombrich manages to teach the reader how to look at art at the same time he explains the main historical developments and style points of each movement or period. new students of art will find the book is a pleasurable and clear guide; experienced readers will enjoy gombrich's judicious use of detail and selection. a bibliography, chronological charts of art epochs and artists' lives, maps of europe and an index conclude the book.
Rating: 5
Summary: The book's purpose
Comment: Gombrich's book has a very specific purpose: he wants to tell the history of art as a continuous story, focusing on Western art and its gradual approach to the visual world. In strong contrast to most other art history texts, Gombrich's book has a thesis, and therefore an argument. In choosing among the various alternates (Janson, Gardner, Stokstad, etc.) it is important to bear this in mind. The size and compression of his book is not its salient feature from a
philosophic standpoint: it is the presence of an authorial voice, and a continuous narrative. Most other survey texts give up the ideal of coherent exposition in favor of a neutral descriptive voice and a fragmented "story" that
continuously interrupts itself in order not to lose any essential historical detail.
Rating: 5
Summary: The way it should be done!
Comment: About a year ago, I suddenly decided that it was about time I learned something about art history. After reading all the reviews about this book, I decided that this was the book for me. And so it was. I would never have imagined that it could be so entertaining to read about art history. A previous reviewer called this a simplified historical description of art from the perspective of an authoritarian male, white, european. Maybe it is simplified. So what! That's excactly what I needed at the time I bought this book. It has always been quite clear to me that this book was only an introduction to art. Since it was so entertaining I was able to finish it, and I have finally learnt to appreciate art. Because of this my second visit to Louvre in Paris was a lot more fun than my first visit there.
I guess it's true that the author was a white, european male. What does this have to do with anything? The book is mainly about western art, so I don't see why it matters that he's european. And in the history of western art, how many non-white or female artists are there? I guess there are some from the previous century, but that is quite a small part of the book. So the author was a white, european male, like most of the artists in the history of western art.
Some people have pointed to the fact that the book is a bit biased. Well, that is probably one of the things that makes it such an entertaining read. I highly recommend this book if you need an introduction to art.
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Title: Art and Illusion by E. H. Gombrich ISBN: 0691070008 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 15 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Stories of Art by James Elkins ISBN: 0415939437 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: 01 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: History of Art: The Western Tradition: Slipcase by H. W. Janson, Anthony F. Janson ISBN: 0131828959 Publisher: Prentice Hall Press Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $95.00 |
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Title: The Essential Gombrich by Richard Woodfield ISBN: 0714834874 Publisher: Phaidon Press Inc. Pub. Date: 05 September, 1996 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Art: A New History by Paul Johnson ISBN: 0060530758 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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