The Story of Art

Preface / Introduction - On art 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 / Tradition 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 century 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/ A note on art books / Chronological charts /

Sir Ernst Gombrich's (1909-2001) standing in the world of art and his popularity with experts and a vast general readership alike remain unrivalled. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages and many titles have become classics. Ernst Gombrich was born in Vienna and came to England in 1936. He spent the larger part of his working life at the University of London's Warburg Institute, where he was Director from 1959 until his retirement in 1976. His 'retirement' saw the publication of numerous books, reviews and articles, and the conferring of many international honours, including a knighthood and the Order of Merit. In 1994 the city of Frankfurt awarded him the Goethe Prize. His bestselling book The Story of Art, first published over fifty years ago, continues to delight and inform students of art around the world. Professor Gombrich's books are models of good art-historical writing, and reflect his deep and abiding concern with the standards and values of our cultural heritage.

'This is a book which, widely read as it will certainly be, may well affect the thought of a generation. Gombrich writes conversationally and intimately. His learning, though very perceptible to any student of the subject, is worn lightly, but he has something new to say on almost every subject. He can illuminate with a few words the whole atmosphere of a period.' T J Boase, Times Literary Supplement, reviewing the 1st edition, 27 January 1950 'The country's bestselling book on art, never out of print, still in demand (and not just by students) and one of the few "gift books" that actually gets read. The work is not so simplistic as the title implies, but it is this very title that rendered the book enormously attractive in 1950 to a new sort of book buyer: the self-educator. This field was set to grow, publishers eagerly wooing punters into buying the one big book on every impossibly massive but key subject. But with Gombrich, art was all sewn up.' The Times

'a book to slip into your pocket and dip into on a journey. It remains a delight to read.'
The Good Book Guide '... beautifully designed'
Frank Whitford, The Sunday Times 'Anyone looking for the most readable survey of the history of art from the [sic] cave paintings to the 20th century should buy the new, beautifully produced pocket edition of The Story of Art, still one of the great classics of art criticism.'
The Independent 'Phaidon, the book's publisher, has managed to give downsizing a good name by printing 'Story of Art' in a pocket edition...the pleasing proportions of this edition are a marvel of compactness.'
The Boston Globe 'There is something seductive about holding all of art history in one hand, and the designers have pulled it off.'
Art and Auction