A Lightning Tour of 5,000 Years of Painting, Sculpture, Buildings...

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highly recommended

BE AWARE THAT REPRODUCTIONS ARE very SMALL!

Five stars because Gombrich's text has all the virtues attributed to it by reviewers here and elsewhere, and because Phaidon has done a fine job of making the book it set out to make--a cheap, easily portable version. But in my opinion the reproductions are much too small; in many cases it is quite impossible (for these eyes, at least) to see in the pictures what Gombrich is talking about or to check with any confidence the plausibility of his statements. My advice would be to forget about portability and buy the full-size version.

A Lightning Tour of 5,000 Years of Painting, Sculpture, Buildings...

If you're interested in art but never took an art history course, this book will fill the blanks in your education. From the Stone Age to Picasso, *The Story of Art* is a lively and accessible survey of the products of mankind's urge to create. E.H. Gombrich does a stellar job of selecting those art-works--paintings, sculptures, and architecture--that he feels best exemplify the major movements in art and therefore tell a `story' that continues to unfold so long as artists make art.

This book was supposedly written for young people, but don't let that fool you into thinking *The Story of Art* is not a sophisticated and informative text that practically anyone will find rewarding. Gombrich's insights are easy-to-grasp but surprisingly illuminating. He deftly mixes history, religion, and biographical detail into his discussions which serve to help provide readers with a better understanding of what questions the artists of any given period were trying to answer with their art. For as Gombrich points out, art is a kind of ongoing conversation ((or story)) between the artists of different generations and the problems one group of artists solves creates a whole new set of problems for those who come after. To really understand art beyond the point of simply knowing what paintings you like illustrating your wall calendar, it's important to have some idea where an artwork fits into the grand scheme of things. It is the thread of this story that Gombrich follows in *The Story of Art* and it's his genius to pick out the essential plot-line with such lucidity and relative brevity.

Although he died in 2001, *The Story of Art* effectively ends sometime in the early 1960s. There is some passing discussion of Lucien Freud and Hockney, but no mention of such seminal figures as Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rothko, deKooning, Bacon, or anyone after them. It's a little surprising inasmuch as Gombrich certainly had to be familiar with these artists, and its clear that someone like Warhol, for instance, is not just a passing fad. Still, one can find other, more detailed, not to mention more up-to-date books, about contemporary artists and art movements. Perhaps the greatest value of a book like *The Story of Art* is that it brings to life precisely the parts of the "art story" that aren't as familiar, or as often told. Those long centuries of Church-commissioned art or those weird-looking portraits of kids with the heads of middle-aged adults...they're also important chapters in the story of art and to understand where we are today it's important to know what happened back then. Where does El Greco fit in? Van Gogh? Why is Raphael important? To really understand art, you need to have an idea of where each artist fits into history's big picture-book and Gombrich's *The Story of Art* does exactly that.

I highly recommend this book to art lovers and artists alike. Witty, entertaining, always informative, its like having an urbane and kindly grandfather lead you through a museum of mankind's most important art...and opportunity, in other words, not to be missed.

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A "Regular People" Review

Sir E.H. Gombrich is a person who I would have loved to of conversed with. He is knowledgable in many areas and this is no different. This book it written so that normal peaople with no prior art exposure can learn to appreciate art. He does so without talking down on the reader and is very entertaining. I think I'm going to buy the pocket edition so I can read it on the go as well. You should read it...and keep me updated!

It's fantastic!

The Story of Art it's simply a fantastic book!
Classical, obligatory reference for anyone that wants to know the real world of arts.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

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