 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | New Format and Redesign of the World's Best Selling Art Book "Gombrich (1909-2001) had a gift for clear, conversational language, a narrative approach, and an interest in pop culture--he even included mass media and cartoons in The Story of Art. The book, which receives high praise in the CAA report [a recent assessment of art history textbooks by the College Art Association], is today the world's best selling art history textbook, with total sales of 8 million copies." -Art News, February 2006 E.H. Gombrich's warm, lively, opinionated--yet never patronizing--authorial voice brings history to life in a way that attracts both adults and young readers alike. Last year the first English translation of A Little History of the World, originally written in 1935 in German, was a surprise publishing success. Yet, this isn't even Gombrich's most popular work. The Story of Art has sold over 8 million copies, has been translated into more than 30 languages and served as the standard introduction to art history for students around the world for the past century. Now, the book will be available in a new affordable format, in wide release for the general public, just in time for the holidays. Phaidon Press is pleased to announce the publication of THE STORY OF ART: POCKET EDITION by E.H. Gombrich, a re-designed, re-formatted compact edition of one of the best-known and best-loved books on art ever written. This new edition combines smoothly flowing text with a clear, simple design in a convenient and accessible format. The new edition allows this classic work to continue its triumphant progress for another generation, and to remain the first choice for all newcomers to art. Phaidon Press commissioned Gombrich during World War II to write a history of art for young people. In 1950, The Story of Art was published and so a classic was born. Gombrich dictated the whole text from memory, using illustrations from books in his library as prompts. The outcome was a seminal work of criticism and one of the most accessible introductions to the visual arts. Starting with the cave paintings at Lascaux and stretching as far as Postmodernism, the whole of art history is presented as a chronological narrative. Using vivid imagery, storytelling and sly humor, Gombrich's voice draws in all--the student, connoisseur, or amateur. The Story of Art has always been admired for two key qualities: it is a pleasure to read and a pleasure to handle. The pocket edition is no exception. With this new edition this classic work is now as accessible as the story inside. Gombrich's extraordinary knowledge and wisdom will continue to teach and inspire generation after generation. |
Average Customer Rating:  Excellent edition
This is an excellent edition of what is certainly a classic in its field. The reasonable price does not hurt either. It is worth adding to the older version that you probably have now.
Good book; good service My daughter has to read it for school. The book arrived in perfect conditions and even quicker as expected. I just either liked a work of art or not, but wasn't able to appreciate the artistry behind it I normally find portraits and religious paintings with all those angels boring and battle fields or works in broad format seem too "crowded" to me, so basically I did not think much of the art performed before the Flemish painters of the XVI century, which started painting rural life and landscapes. I am glad I bought Mr. Gombrich's "Story of Art", since it introduced me to a subject that I thought was only interesting to art lovers and true "conoisseurs"; it helped me appreciate paintings I do not like and see art in a different way. This book is probably aimed at people like me, if you already know more about art, a deeper treatise on technique, composition or else will maybe suit you better.
I am of those who believe that one of the characteristics of great expertise is the ability to explain complicated things in a simple way, which shows that the author not only understands but fully masters the topic. Well, this is the case, the "Story" of art is not a dry "history of art", it truly narrates a story; it puts the artists and their works in a well explained historical and artistical context and allows you to appreciate equally works of art from different time periods. As the author puts it: "the purpose and technical resources may change, but art itself does not progress in the same sense as science", a work of art is complete as such in each time period. I also appreciated that the author included some architecture, not only paintings and sculptures, to frame the master pieces in their full context.
My first encounter with Mr. Gombrich was his book The Image and the Eye: Further Studies in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation which captivated me, since it combined science with art in a masterful way. Mr. Gombrich was probably one of the first art experts to be interested in the research done in the emerging neurosciences, specially regarding vision. His attention was drawn to how we receive external stimuli (light), how our brain perceives and forms a three-dimensional image, how it makes sense of a figure of which it only sees a countour like in a caricature, etc., but best of all, his insights were explained using pictures of great works of art. After reading this book, which I also highly recommend, I started searching for other books written by him and was gladly surprised to find out that he had written a "Story of Art" as well, which by the way seems to be better known and easier to understand than the Image and the eye.
16 editions supervised by the author talk of the care with which a book was written, revised and edited. My Spanish version of this 16th edition, full format is also excellent (translation inlcuded), congratulations to Phaidon Press for a beautifully presented book. Excellent!!!! This is a fantastic book. This is definately a keeper for any art buff out there!!!! This is not merely an story of art, but history of architecture This book does not only tell the history of art, at the same time, the history of architecture, since the two are so much interrelated. Therefore, as an architecture student, I recommend you guys to read this book to gain the knowledge of how art and architecture evolve throughout history. |  |
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