Continuity and Change in Art

Sidney J. Blatt, Ethel S. Blatt

"Begin an encounter with this giant on any random page, and you begin -- with an unexpected delight -- a most exciting adventure that will exhilarate you with new insights and understanding of the complex and yet logical relationship of humanity's psychological development to the concrete representations in visual art of the resulting world view. That this ambitious volume was a labor of love is evident from the first page, and its articulate readability and intriguing content encourage you to devour every page. "This is an art history book, but written for psychologists -- and at the same time, a psychology book written for art historians. It is a must for anyone wanting to better conceptualize the integration of art and the cultural psyche."—Imagination, Cognition and Personality"...a monumental, awe inspiring and profoundly scientific work of great inner beauty."—Erika FrommUniversity of Chicago"This is a bold and extraordinary study. The Blatts have thoroughly integrated three separate bodies of knowledge -- art, history, psychoanalysis, and the psychology of cognition. They have achieved this with uncompromising scholarship and rigor. Reading this book is an intellectual adventure. This work is destined to be a landmark in interdisciplinary studies."—Robert LiebertColumbia University, author of Michelangelo: A Psychoanalytic Study of the Man a

• 1: The Form of Objects and of Space in the History of Art; 2: The Development of Modes of Representation; 3: From Topological to Projective Space: Painting in the Ancient, Greco-Roman, and Medieval Periods; 4: The Discovery and Development of Linear Perspective: The Renaissance, Mannerism, and the Baroque; 5: From Linear Perspective to Conceptual Art: Impressionism, Cubism, and Modern Art