a b c d Janson, H. W. (1950). "Review of The Story of Art". College Art Journal. 9 (4): 429–430. doi: 10.2307/773706. ISSN 1543-6322. The only book somewhat similar to The Story of Art I've read is Revolution in the Head, by Ian MacDonald—a song-by-song analysis and critique of the Beatles’s music. That book (highly recommended) is astounding because MacDonald’s ears are so frighteningly acute. Although I have musical training and have been listening to the Beatles since my youth, MacDonald makes you hear their music in new and exciting ways, opening up a whole new aural world. the northern artists, who were no longer needed for the painting of altar-panels and other devotional pictures, tried to find a market for their recognized specialities and the paint pictures the main object of which was to display their stupendous skill in representing the surface of things”

the rich Greeks .. perhaps even the poets and philosophers, mostly looked down on the sculptors and painters as inferior persons. Artists worked with their hands, and they worked for a living … they were not considered members of polite society” Tiopolo’s ‘The Banquet of Cleopatra” shows the story that Cleopatra ‘took a famous pearl from her earring, dissolved it in vinegar and drank the brew” even in architecture the strong and simple forms of the Doric style and the easy grace of the Ionic style were not enough. A new form of column was preferred, which had been invented early in the fourth century and which was called after the wealthy merchant city of Corinth. In the Corinthian styl, foliage was added to the Ionic spiral volutes to deocrate the capital” The rue le Peltier is a road of disasters. After the fire at the Opéra, there is now yet another disaster there. An exhibition has just been opened at Durand-Ruel which allegedly contains paintings. I enter and my horrified eyes behold something terrible. Five or six lunatics, among them a woman, have joined together and exhibited their works”

national differences had existed all through the Middle Ages .. but on the whole these were not very important. This applies not to the field of art alone, but also to the world of learning and even to politics. The learned men of the Middle Ages all spoke and wrote Latin” If on the other hand, we mean by art some kind of beautiful luxury, something to enjoy in museums and exhibitions or something special to use as a precious decoration in the best parlor.

the whole temper of the country was opposed to the flights of fancy of Baroque designs and to an art that aimed at overwhelming the emotions” the artist’s horizon widened. He was no longer a craftsman .. he was a master in his own right.. exploring the mysteries of nature and probing into secret laws of the universe”the spirit of Chinese landscape paintings .. also comes so close to the idea of poetry” 025 Permanent Revolution: The 19th century The book is divided into a preface, introduction, and 27 chapters that each deal with art within a defined time period and geographical context. A 28th chapter summarizes the latest developments in visual arts. the leading conservative painter in the first half of the 19th century was Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres “ the painters of the Middle Ages were no more concerned about the ‘real’ colours of things than they were about their real shapes .. they loved to spread out the purest colours and most precious colours they could” John Singleton Copley .. was to paint [in 1785] the famous incident when Charles I demanded from the House of Commons the arrest of five impeached members, and when the speaker challenged the King’s authority and declined to surrender them [in 1641]”

a b Wilkin, Karen (Spring 2003). "A preference for the primitive: Gombrich's legacy". The Hudson Review. 56 (1): 217–222, 224 – via ProQuest. Upon its release, The Story of Art was noted for its pedagogical potential [8] [12] despite Gombrich’s intentions of producing a pleasure read for teenagers. [12] Artist and art history professor H. W. Janson, reviewing the book for College Art Journal, remarked it was “undoubtedly destined for a most successful career in the classroom.” [8] He praised the book for its accessible language and selections free from Gombrich's own preferences, measuring the book against scholarly standards. [8] In his discussion of the book in The Burlington Magazine, artist and writer Wilfrid Blunt noted that The Story of Art reads like a lecture. [12] Though he believed the lecture-like tone would lead masters to prefer the book rather than students, he declared that The Story of Art “fully deserve[s] a place in any educational library." [12] But he was also proud of his understanding of Italian tradition an “wrote a book, which he called ‘The Analysis of Beauty’, to explain the idea that an undulating line will always be more beautiful than an angular one”Constable “went out to the countryside to make sketches from nature, and then elaborated them in his studio.. painted with restraint .. refusal to be more impressive than nature” In the middle of the 12th century, when the Gothic style was first developed, Europe was still a thinly populated continent of peasants with monasteries and barons’ castles as the main centres of power and learning .. 150 years later these towns had grown into teeming centres of trade” it is curious how rarely artists before the middle of the 18th century strayed from the narrow limits of illustration [of biblical stories and classical myths] .. all this changed very rapidly during the period of the French Revolution. Suddenly artists felt free to choose as their subjects anything from a Shakespearean scene to a topical event” Leonardo Da Vinci’s discovery .. “the painter must leave the beholder something to guess .. Leonardo’s famous invention .. sfumato – the blurred outline and mellowed colours that allow one form to merge with another and always leave something to our imagination”