‘The Story of Art’ by E.H. Gombrich

So when lockdown came a number of things happened to me personally, the first is that I had a bit more time than usual and the second is I really wanted a distraction. I had been insanely busy this year up until this point with work and my M.A. and all of that going on, but suddenly I was more free than I expected. So I decided to do something I had been meaning to do for a bit, get into visual art. Art scared me. I knew bits and pieces and I enjoyed certain painters and works but I really had no grasp of the subject, no information outside of the little tidbits I picked up over the years. I needed a book to fill me in, to bring me through the history of art from start to finish and give me an overview of it all. The Story of Art by E.H. Gombrich is exactly that.

Gombrich starts by discussing what exactly art is, and more specifically asking the reader to leave their ideas and presumptions about art by the door. While it is easy to presume art is almost a development of style and craft that starts as easy and boring and moves to more complex and ‘realistic’, Gombrich hastens to point out this isn’t the case. What is true is that the purpose of art has changed over time. At certain points it had a religious purpose, at others it had a historical purpose, when photography came about it lost it’s portrayal purpose and had to find a new one, point is art is complicated and thinking about the whys of art is nearly more important than the whats. I say all this because it’s all in the first chapter and really blew my mind. Gombrich immediately grabs the reader and shakes them, cleverly redefining art before he brings you through its history.

The remainder of the book is occupied with guiding the reader through the history of Western art from ancient Greece to the mid-twentieth century. I say specifically Western art because although Gombrich does dedicate a chapter or two to Eastern art, it’s not nearly enough to be considered comprehensive in any way. Each of the chapters comes with large, bright images used as examples to which Gombrich refers in the text and a run down of the historical context and developments in painting, architecture, and sculpture of a given era.

His writing is easy to understand and largely entertaining throughout. In short, the book did it’s job, I felt as though I got a nice overview of the history of Western art from which I could continue my exploration on the subject. It’s not the whole story but it’s a good start and it certainly wet my appetite for further reading (there’s also a lovely bibliography at the back to direct such reading).

I’d recommend this book to anyone looking to find a nice, straightforward introduction to visual art, I’m sure you’ll finish it with the beginnings of a love for art as I did.