The story of art
The Story of Art, by E. H. Gombrich, is a survey of the history of art from ancient times to the modern era. First published in 1950 by Phaidon, the book is widely regarded both as a seminal work of criticism and as one of the most accessible introductions to the visual arts
Stats for nerds
7recommend
8mentions
8people
2013–2026years
88% recommend13% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I am worried.
I do agree that the bigger picture of learning non-fiction is richer. We now have other ways to learn non-fiction: Wikipedia, Veritasium, Gemini, etc.
But only books can provide you something we may call a "coherent worldview". They are the ones that stitch together different pictures into a coherent whole.
I can think of a lot of books that gave me that: E.Gombrich's "Story of Art", Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death", ... honestly, even Julia Childs' "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" or Yuval Harari's "Sapiens" (his other books are crap, b.t.w.).
True, we still have universities' textbooks. But they're very narrow in scope.
The thing about non-fiction books is that nothing else can provide the same combination of depth and scope.
- Yes, it is also a really good painting - see for example „The Story of Art“ by E. H. Gombrich for an in-depth appreciation.
- If you want an introduction to the history of visual art E. H. Gombrich's The Story of Art is the classic text and takes you up to about the 1990s.
Apart from that - go to a decent gallery, find a theatre production that looks interesting, go to a classical concert, contemporary dance performance or ballet, see a jazz band. Find a friend to share the joy / boredom with. Bonus points if they know something about what you're going to.
Honestly the best thing is just to explore and give yourself licence to like things that aren't fashionable and dislike things that are.
- Thank you for your response.
Frankly... sorting the wheat from the cruft is a major task as there has been so much written on the subject. I would recommend that art be separately considered with respect to it's history (time/place), aesthetics (it's formal parameters) and process (how it was made).
On the subject of art history, I would recommend any art history book that places art in standard sequential order (i.e. 'canon'). Even a child's primer on the subject would be sufficient. A lot can be learned about art by simply placing it in sequential order. Only then can you see that art grew in response to the time/place of its manufacture. If you need a recommendation, then you could do no worse than 'The Art Book' (Phaidon).
More specifically, art produced pre- and post- 1900 needs different treatment as they are different things.
- For art produced pre 1900, the classic tome is 'The Story of Art' by Ernst Gombrich. He may be a bit sneered at nowadays, but he knew his stuff.
- For art produced post 1900 'The Shock of the New' by Robert Hughes is a great primer. Also 'Ways of Seeing' by John Berger is aimed at students and presents high-brow ideas in a very digestible manner.
On the subject of aesthetics, I would recommend 'Toward a Psychology of Art' by Rudolph Arnheim. He may now be considered rather old fashioned but he is one of the few thinkers on art who effectively addressed its formal attributes. He also drew, which is a plus. In the same vein there is Ruskin (Modern Painters) who really understood how an artist thinks, and was no slouch as an artist (draftsman) himself.
On color in art I would recommend Bruse MacEvoy's Handprint website. On the topic of color, he has forgotten more than most people would ever know. In my opinion, he is superior to Goethe and Johannes Itten (both art school favorites but both highly questionable). He does not always organize his thinking as well as might be hoped, but that is the nature of color: pan-dimensional and perverse. Also 'Color space and its divisions' Kuehni, R. G. (2001).
The making of art is a process, yet we only see the finished thing. This is our loss as there is much to be learned by studying this process. On the creative process much has been much written, some of it very high-brow. However, the book I would most highly recommend is rather coffee table: 'Daily Rituals: How Artists Work' by Currey, M. (2013). Nothing gives deeper insight into the mind of a creator than how they timetable their productive life.
Finally, I would recommend that art be experienced 'in situ', in front of the actual artwork. I was speaking to a student a few days ago who claimed to have seen the work of Rothko. Of course they had not, they had only seen photos of it. Nuf said.
- > The vast majority of instructors I've had prefer not noticing the broad trends that cultivated the soil for its people to prosper.
I observe a trend away from this, at least here in Germany. A symptom of this is that museums and exhibitions nowadays put things into a much broader context than previously. Typically by explaining how far the raw materials of what is shown had travelled (eg. the blue of medieval illuminated manuscripts coming from Afgan lapis lazuli). But of course, there is much room for more improvement.
The most important cause for the spacial and termporal devisions we observe in the disciplin of history has nothing to do with exclusive ideology, but it is the fact that any research across such subdisciplinary borders is much more difficult than inside a subdisciplin. In case of ancient Greece: It is already very difficult to establish a good enough proficiency in Ancient Greek and Latin to study the "European" sources as well as accumulating the expert knowledge about the multiple aspects of the narrower Greek history.
My ambition was to gather expert knowledge in my research fields, but integrate that, at least when I was teaching students, into a wide horizon, where I rely on the expert knowledge of others.
This brings me to your question about good reads: My caveat is that I am all but an expert about the eastward influence of Ancient Greek culture. What I know I catched from various books.
If you can read German, you might be interested in the "Fischer Weltgeschichte"[1], published in 36 volumns from 1965 to 1983 (vol. 5, 6 and 16 are relevant for your question). However, they need to be read with not only one but some grains of salt, because much of their contents is outdated. Nevertheless, their authors have been leading experts in their fields of study at the time. So the books are still often much better than more recent introductions.
For the history of Central Asia a very nice overview is Susan Whitfield's "Silk Roads: Peoples, Cultures, Landscapes"[2]. It is not specific about the Greek influence to the East, but if you are new to this topic, it is perhaps a better idea to start broader.
I first learned, if I remember it correctly, about the Greeco-Roman high relief travelling eastwards, when reading E.H. Gombrich: "The Story of Art"[3] -- the best introduction into global art history I know of.
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_Weltgeschichte
[2] ISBN-10: 0500021570, ISBN-13: 978-0500021576.
[3] "The Story of Art" was first published in 1950 and is still available. There exists a cheap pocket edition in smaller sizes, small font and small images, which I cannot recommend: the illustrations are too small. Go for the normal edition. Chances are good that you find a cheap one at your local Antiquarian bookshop.
- I recommend reading "The Story of Art" by Gombrich. It is very well written, although perhaps it should have been called "The Story of Western Art".
Related
The Elements of Style
131 recommend · 281
The War of Art
112 recommend · 165
Ways of Seeing
24 recommend · 35
2009–2025
The art of color
5 recommend · 6
The cartoon history of the universe
5 recommend · 9
A little history of the world
6 recommend · 6
The Art of War
57 recommend · 198
