Gombrich on the Renaissance, Volume II: Symbolic Images by Leonie Gombrich

Gombrich on the Renaissance, Volume II: Symbolic Images Reviews

• 
  Alessandro Massa

  Fascinating and enlightening. Written for readers with a strong grip of the classics. A little meandering at times.
• 
  Lorna

  I think I'll put this one back on the shelf for now. I chose it because it was Gombrich and his 'The Story of Art' was an invaluable companion to me as a first year history of art student. This book of essays is however more akin to walking into a conversation between several professors in the midst of an animated debate. And I can only hear one of them speak.
  
  My search continues for a good, heavyweight book on allegorical painting.
• 
  Tom Brannigan

  These classic studies on the interpretation of images are essential reading for all students of Renaissance art; they also take their rightful place as seminal texts that have themselves helped to shape the evolving discipline of art history. Many of the essays focus on the greatest artists of the Renaissance -- notably Botticelli, Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo -- and all reflect the author's deep and abiding concern with standards, values and problems of method. Yet Gombrich never loses sight of the works of art he is investigating, and he brings to all his analyses and interpretations an original and powerful intelligence, unfailing clarity of expression and immense learning. These four volumes have a permanent value and represent a vitally important humanistic tradition in scholarship and criticism.(less)
• 
  Gort

  Voluptatem sapiente a voluptatem debitis ea cum nesciunt. Sit cupiditate voluptatem. Dolores rerum quam dolore laborum. Error quos minus dolores doloribus beatae iusto. Odio ipsum occaecati sit tempora.
• 
  Kevin Fitzpatrick

  "The Platonic and the Aristotelian traditions which have here been traced in their attitudes towards symbolism may be said to represent two fundamental reactions to the problem which the existence of language poses for every reflecting human being. It was the Platonists who made man feel the inadequacy of 'discoursive speech' for conveying the experience of direct apprehension of truth and the 'ineffable' intensity of mystic vision... It may be argued that the Aristotelians, by contrast, kept this reaction alive by overrating the powers of language... They (the Aristotelians) failed to notice the inadequacy of language for the communication even of very commonplace subjective experiences...they did less than justice to its flexibility and powers of creative growth."
  
  Thus E.H. Gombrich sums up the warring systems of thought present in Renaissance art in the penultimate section of his wonderful book about Renaissance images, "Gombrich On the Renaissance: Volume 2, Symbolic Images." However, before one reaches this critique of the main trends of the book, Dr. Gombrich brings his readers through a series of nine distinct chapters which treat great exemplars of Renaissance painting, such as Botticelli's 'Primavera,' the unknown artist's work 'Tobias and the Angel,' Raphael's 'Stanza della Segnatura,' Poussin's 'Orion,' and a wide range of other examples of the visual arts, in light of the philosophical systems that informed, so Gombrich asserts, the 'world' that was inhabited by the denizens of the Renaissance. So we are exposed to the thoughts of Ficino's Academy and their relationship with Botticelli's patron, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco; we understand the 'science' underlying the imagery of Poussin's allegorical painting "Orion;' we explore the neo-Platonism of Florence, and how it shaped the images, their significance and type, of that time. Viewed after the fact of reading, Gombrich's tome is characterized by a strict adherence to the principles of scholarship and visual, literary, and philosophical exegesis; supporting evidence in the form of primary sources (Ficino, Neo-Platonists like Plotinus, writers such as Schiller and Goethe) are accessed with the aim of supplementing analysis of the images themselves, allowing the reader clear, unimpeded insight into the 'thought' that, according to Gombrich's thesis, informed these masterpieces of the visual arts. The tone is majesterial, the erudition is advanced, and the beneficial pedagogical effect is immediate and long-lasting. For the reader is left convinced of the author's suppositions and assertions; additionally, one becomes enlightened to the philosophical traditions that were at war in these artifacts of culture, and one submits, with humility and acceptance, to the tutelage that is Gombrich's 'take' on these grand themes. To this reader, who is mostly a neophyte to the terrain of this artistic debate, the arguments are convincing due to the encyclopedic and all-encompassing breadth of Gombrich's vision and erudition. This makes for a enlightening read, a read where one encounters a breadth of vision and learning that is truly wonderful. The addition of images of the works at the end of the book serves to illustrate the theories and assertions of the author; they are also fine additions to the appreciation of art in their own right. Together the images and text provide the reader with an all-encompassing encounter with the works of the Renaissance in light of the philosophy of its era. To discount the importance of such a book to an understanding of either element would be a great disservice to the cause of clear understanding of an essential time in our history as a people. A fine book this is!