Preference for the Primitive

Sir Ernst Gombrich was one of the greatest and least conventional art historians of his age, achieving fame and distinction in three separate spheres: as a scholar, as a popularizer of art, and as a pioneer of the application of the psychology of perception to the study of art. His best-known book, The Story of Art - first published 50 years ago and now in its sixteenth edition - is one of the most influential books ever written about art. His books further include The Sense of Order and Art & Illusion, as well as a total of 11 volumes of collected essays and reviews.Gombrich was born in Vienna in 1909 and died in London in November 2001. He came to London in 1936 to work at the Warburg Institute, where he eventually became Director from 1959 until his retirement in 1976. He won numerous international honours, including a knighthood, the Order of Merit and the Goethe, Hegel and Erasmus prizes. Gifted with a powerful mind and prodigious memory, he was also an outstanding communicator, with a clear and forceful prose style. His works are models of good art-historical writing, and reflect his humanism and his deep and abiding concern with the standards and values of our cultural heritage.

'The great strength of this book is its historical sweep … of interest to specialists and general readers alike.' (Colin Rhodes, Loughborough University, The Burlington Magazine)

• Prefece Chapter 1: Plato's Preferences Interlude: Progress or Decline? Chapter 2: The Ascendancy of the Sublime Chapter 3: The Pre-Raphaelite Ideal Chapter 4: The Quest for Spirituality Chapter 5: The Emancipation of Formal Values Interlude - New Worlds and New Myths Chapter 6: The Twentieth Century The Lure of Regression (1) The Lure of Regression (2) Chapter 7: Primitive - in what Sense? Appendix, Notes, Index