Publisher edition artwork
The Story of Art
E. H. Gombrich · First published 1950
The one art history book to own, written for an intelligent adult rather than an examiner.
Essential
Easy · Long — around 690 pages
Why Read It?
It makes galleries legible for the rest of your life.
What It's About
A single-volume narrative history of Western art from prehistory to the modern era.
Why It Matters
It has been the standard introduction for seventy-five years and has never been bettered for clarity.
The Review
Gombrich's opening line — there really is no such thing as Art, there are only artists — sets the tone for the clearest survey ever written. He moves from cave painting to the twentieth century without jargon and without condescension, and he explains problems rather than listing masterpieces: how do you show depth, how do you show movement, what were these people actually trying to solve.
It has sold eight million copies because it works. Read a chapter before any museum visit and the visit improves measurably.
Best Read
A chapter at a time, preferably in a city with good museums.
Three Things You'll Take From It
- 01
Every style was a solution to a technical problem before it was a taste.
- 02
Context explains more than biography.
- 03
Looking slowly at ten works beats glancing at a hundred.
Better Read or Heard?
Print only, sensibly — it is a book of plates as much as text.
If You Like This…
Ways of Seeing — John Berger
The argumentative counterweight.
Find it on AmazonBrunelleschi's Dome — Ross King
One building, told as a thriller.
Find it on Amazon
The Edition to Own
The Phaidon pocket edition is remarkable value; the luxury large-format printing is the coffee-table version.
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