Gombrich: A Theory of Art (Refractions) [1 ed.] 1399512579, 9781399512572

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Joaquín Lorda  Gombrich: A Theory of Art

The first English translation of Gombrich: una teoría del arte, by Joaquín Lorda, originally published in 1991 Joaquín Lorda was considered by Gombrich himself to be one of his most astute students. This book presents an extensive, expansive and holistic analysis of Gombrich’s thought. Built on four paradigms – Science, Joke, Play and Rhetoric – it sheds new light on Gombrich as a thinker, shaping his ideas into a workable theory of art that can be used to examine the history of world art and architecture, and its current practice. Joaquín Lorda (1955–2016) was Professor at the School of Architecture at the University of Navarre, Spain.

Cover design: emilybentonbookdesigner.co.uk

edinburgh university press.com

Joaquín Lorda

Gombrich: A Theory of Art

ISBN 978-1-3995-1257-2

Edited by María Angélica Martínez Juan Luis Lorda María Antonia Frías Ramón Alemany

Gombrich: A Theory of Art

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Refractions Series editor: Kamini Vellodi, University of Edinburgh At the borders of art history and philosophy

Editorial Board Andrew Benjamin, Kingston University Adi Efal, University of Lille 3 Jae Emerling, University of North Carolina Vlad Ionescu, University of Hasselt Sjoerd Van Tuinen, Erasmus University Sugata Ray, UC Berkeley Aron Vinegar, University of Oslo Hanneke Grootenboer, Radboud University Poised at the threshold of art history and philosophy, Refractions offers a space for intellectually adventurous work that engages the theorisation of art and image as a persistent provocation for our times. The series captures the character of inquiry as refractive, forging resonances and oblique intersections between diverse zones of thought, while fostering breakaway strands of thinking.

Books available Mieke Bal, Image-Thinking: Artmaking as Cultural Analysis Bart Verschaffel, What Artistry Can Do: Essays on Art and Beauty Ian Verstegen, The New Vienna School of Art History: Fulfilling the Promise of Analytic Holism Kamini Vellodi and Aron Vinegar (eds), Grey on Grey: At the Threshold of Philosophy and Art Joaquín Lorda, Gombrich: A Theory of Art, translated by Tim Nicholson

Books forthcoming Charlotte de Mille, Bergson in Britain: Philosophy and Modernist Painting, c. 1890–1914 Adi Efal-Lautenschläger, Ravaisson’s Method: Edification as Therapy Maryse Ouellet and Amanda Boetzkes (eds), Art’s Realism in the Post-Truth Era Aline Guillermet, Gerhard Richter and the Technological Condition of Painting Visit the series website at www.edinburghuniversitypress.com/series-refractions

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Gombrich: A Theory of Art Joaquín Lorda Translated by Tim Nicholson Editorial team: María Angélica Martínez (ed.), Juan Luis Lorda, María Antonia Frías and Ramón Alemany

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Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © Joaquín Lorda, 2023 English Translation © TISA Tim Nicholson, 2023 Revised by María Angélica Martínez (ed.), Juan Luis Lorda, María Antonia Frías and Ramón Alemany Grateful acknowledgement is made to the sources listed in the List of Illustrations for permission to reproduce material previously published elsewhere. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publisher will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity. Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12(2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Cover design: emilybentonbookdesigner.co.uk Typeset in Constantia by Biblichor Ltd, Scotland, and printed and bound in Great Britain A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN  978 1 3995 1257 2 (hardback) ISBN  978 1 3995 1259 6 (webready PDF) ISBN  978 1 3995 1260 2 (epub) The right of Joaquín Lorda to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).

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Joaquín Lorda and Ernst H. Gombrich at the home of Ilse and Ernst H. Gombrich, Hampstead, London, 1995. Collection: Joaquín Lorda.

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To a Hobby Horse E costume di chicunque si azarda di far comparire in publico, qualche parto del proprio ingegno, racomandarlo all’autorità di un gran nomé che lo diffenda dalla garrulità dei maligni e dalla troppo affettata severità dei Critici. Antonio Vivaldi, La Stravaganza, Amsterdam, 1713

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Contents List of Illustrations Foreword and Acknowledgements Preliminary Note Preface, E. H. Gombrich Introduction

ix xi xvii xix 1

Part I:  Paradigms and Analogies Science, Joke, Play and Rhetoric 1. Science 2. The Joke 3. Play 4. Rhetoric

19 21 56 86 98

Part II: Approaches to Progress Topics of Western Art 5. Vasari and the Classical Theory

115 117

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6. Beauty as the Objective 7. Art and Progress 8. Winckelmann and Hegel 9. Primitivism

130 149 173 186

Part III: Metaphor and Complex Order Ideas for a Theory of Art

223

1 0. Art and Metaphor 11. Mastery 12. Style 13. Evolution 1 4. Creation 15. Expression 16. Understanding 17. Interpretation

225 262 289 333 362 405 451 493

Postscript:  Joaquín Lorda: A Few Afterthoughts, Partha Mitter

518

Notes Specific Bibliography and Abbreviations General Bibliography Bibliography of the Works of Joaquín Lorda Index

525 553 562 568 573

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List of Illustrations 0.1 Joaquín Lorda and Ernst H. Gombrich at the home of Ilse and Ernst H. Gombrich, Hampstead, London, 1995. Collection: Joaquín Lorda 6.1 Diego da Silva Velázquez, The Waterseller of Seville, c. 1620. Apsley House, London. Copyright © Historic England 12.1 Pillars of the cross vault of the Cathedral of Burgos, Spain. Collect­ion: Joaquín Lorda 12.2 Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, Philip II, c. 1590. Patrimonio Nacional, Spain. Copyright © Patrimonio Nacional 12.3 Joaquín Lorda, Lordly column and vulgar pole, ink on paper, 1996. Collection: Joaquín Lorda 13.1 Dome, Cathedral of Seville, Spain. Courtesy of the Cabildo of the Cathedral of Seville 13.2 Altarpiece, Cathedral of Seville, Spain. Courtesy of the Cabildo of the Cathedral of Seville 13.3 Easter monument, Seville. Collection: Museum University of Navarra, Spain

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13.4 Narciso Tomé, El Transparente, 1732. Cathedral of Toledo, Spain. Collection: Joaquín Lorda 13.5 Cathedral of Granada, Spain. Photo María Angélica Martínez 13.6 Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. Patrimonio Nacional, Spain. Copyright © Patrimonio Nacional 13.7 Basilica, Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. Patrimonio Nacional, Spain. Copyright © Patrimonio Nacional 14.1 Cathedral of Valladolid, Spain. Photo María Angélica Martínez 14.2 Cathedral-mosque of Córdoba, Spain. Photo María Angélica Martínez 16.1 San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo, Spain. Collection: Joaquín Lorda 16.2 Chapel of the Constable, Cathedral of Burgos, Spain. Collection: Joaquín Lorda 16.3 Chapel of the Vélez, Cathedral of Murcia, Spain. Collection: Joaquín Lorda

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Foreword and Acknowledgements Gombrich: A Theory of Art, originally written and published in Spanish, is one of the most important works by the late Professor Joaquín Lorda (1955–2016). Joaquín Lorda first encountered the ideas of Ernst Gombrich during his time as a student of architecture at the University of Navarra (Spain) under the tutelage of Luis Moya, lecturer in aesthetics and composition, and subsequently in the doctoral courses run by Carlos Montes. In 1985, their shared interest in Gombrich’s work led Montes and Lorda to write E. H. Gombrich: marco conceptual y bibliografía, the first ‘biography with a bibliography’ – as Gombrich himself described it. In 1987, they met Gombrich and his wife Ilse on a visit to London and Lorda continued to enjoy a close and ongoing relationship with Gombrich until his death. With Montes’s support, Lorda created an overview of Gombrich’s ideas on art within his dissertation, which was later published separately as Gombrich: una teoría del arte, with a foreword by E. H. Gombrich (Barcelona, EUNSA, 1st edition 1991). Lorda continued to develop the ideas articulated in this early work throughout his later work on the history of architecture.

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The book is the most complete synthesis ever written of Gombrich’s theoretical thinking and owes much to the close relationship and understanding the two men enjoyed. Gombrich himself publicly acknowledged that it was one of the best works written about him, jokingly remarking that Lorda was the only scholar who truly understood him. Joaquín Lorda offers a systematic analysis of Gombrich’s ideas and theoretical frameworks that extends to all of his published work up to the date of the book’s own publication in 1991. The book is divided into three parts, which were conceived by Lorda as texts that could be read independently. In the first part, Lorda acknowledges the underlying ideas that are disseminated across Gombrich’s writings. From these, he draws four paradigms and analogies, upon which his theory is built: Science, the Joke, Play and Rhetoric. At the same time, he studies the intellectual influences of figures such as Popper, Freud and Huizinga. The second part addresses Western art, focusing on the idea of artistic progress and its consequences. Lorda examines the works of Vasari, Winckelmann and Hegel and the concept of beauty, and provides the reader with keys to understanding the development of modern art and the ‘negative’ tradition of the West: primitivism. In the third part, which he considered to be the core of the book, and even thought of publishing independently, Lorda presents ideas that are applicable to a general theory of art. He addresses the role of art within a framework of scientific theories of knowledge and perception, questions of mastery and style, and the subjective aspects of creation and expression, contemplation and interpretation. Indeed, Lorda aligns himself with Gombrich when he discusses these issues with illustrations from a variety of cultures. In the first paragraphs of his Introduction, Lorda emphasises that Gombrich’s most innovative ideas relate to a traditional perspective on art shared across cultures, in the sense that they constitute an approach not yet problematised but understood and valued. Thus, the main objective of the book is to show the aptitude and validity of Gombrich’s conceptual framework in relation to the valuation of artistic practice across the world – art not being an abstract entity but the practice of a skill.

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Writing in a clear, straightforward and eminently readable style, Lorda’s account makes the most complex of ideas readily accessible to a broad spectrum of readers from different disciplines. Gombrich’s theory of art can be applied to many fields, and for this reason Lorda long harboured the idea of publishing an English translation of his work. Consequently, as an essential part of the tribute, In memoriam. Joaquín Lorda, held on 7 October 2017, several members of the research group ART T&H (Architectural Research Team, Theory and History) at the University of Navarra committed to publishing an English version of Lorda’s text, as the finest homage we could pay him. We felt it was important to make his valuable studies more widely known in the English-speaking world and on the international stage. We were further encouraged by the support we received from Richard Woodfield, a leading expert on Gombrich who knew that such a work would find a considerable readership. Professor Woodfield was well acquainted with Joaquín Lorda’s work and had included two contributions by Lorda in his books Gombrich on Art and Psychology (1996) and Framing formalism: Riegl’s work (2001). The first was an essay on Gombrich’s theory of ornament, while the second addressed Riegl’s original theory. Lorda drew on Gombrich’s ideas and investigated classical architecture, but he also delved into Spanish and American design. In particular, the pre-Columbian art of the Aztecs and Mayans represented an extraordinary field for its application and transmission within the teaching at our school, as well as the Mexican viceregal design, a topic that served him as a suggestive laboratory of transcultural practices to confirm the validity and fecundity of Gombrich’s ideas. The craft of architecture, which Joaquín Lorda mastered, shed new light on the significance of Gombrich’s framework. No one has expressed this better than Woodfield, who once told me, ‘I really do think that Joaquin had an empathetic understanding of Gombrich’s work, born from his activities as a practising architect. He has forged a poetics out of Ernst’s work. As you know, “poetics” stems from the original Greek “poiesis”, which is a “making”, and that makes Joaquin’s text an “ars poetica” for the “arti del disegno”.’

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The translation in this edition is a faithful rendition of the original Spanish. This is true of both the main body of the text and the footnotes, which are taken from Lorda’s original work. Only a few necessary changes have been made for linguistic accuracy together with some minor typographical corrections, and some other important and necessary adjustments have been made to adapt the text to an English readership. The bibliographical references cited in the Spanish version have been replaced by their English-language equivalents. All data have also been checked and some minor errors amended. Original quotations from English editions were added, and quotations from some texts originally in German and Italian were translated into English. Particular care was taken in some chapters to preserve the terms already coined in English and Professor Lorda’s clarifications and explanations added in square brackets. The translation of Gombrich: A Theory of Art is the fruit of a com­ bination of several favourable circumstances. The hard work and determination of various individuals and institutions was particularly indispensable. As we conclude the work of editing and publishing, we would like to thank all those who made this project possible. Undertaken at the behest of Joaquín’s twin brother, Juan Luis Lorda, a member of ART T&H and holder of the copyright, the project owes everything to his drive, his suggestions and his final decision. We would like to express our particular thanks to Professor Woodfield, who with infinite patience and generosity painstakingly revised the translations of the original text and provided us with some very valuable recommendations. His wise intervention was of fundamental importance to our work. We are also grateful for the financial support of the Rectorate of the University of Navarra, the School of Architecture, and especially that of Juan Luis Lorda and family. Together with donations from alumni, teachers and friends, their contributions allowed us to complete the translation. Our thanks go to Professor Rafael Zafra, who initially suggested and endorsed the company Traducciones e Intérpretes TISA, on the advice of Professor Ruth Breeze from the Institute of Languages of the

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University of Navarra. The quality of the work of its translator, Tim Nicholson, has ensured the academic accuracy of the text while preserving the author’s style. We also wish to thank PhD student Ramón Alemany, who as an introductory exercise in the subject of his doctoral thesis and under the supervision of Professor Juan Luis Lorda of the School of Theology, the Emeritus Professor of the School of Architecture María Antonia Frías and myself, undertook the gargantuan work of tracking down the bibliographical references in English editions from which to extract the original quotations, checking the relevant details and correcting any mistakes. We would also like to express our gratitude to Edinburgh University Press for publishing this English edition in its Refractions series, and especially to Kamini Vellodi and Carol Macdonald for their kind and professional accompaniment from the first steps of the project. Originally published in 1991, the work continues to offer a firm and valid discourse, unsurpassed in its objective. Subsequent contributions in related fields can now interact rewardingly with it. We were therefore honoured when Professor Partha Mitter offered to add an epilogue to the book. Professor Mitter and Professor Lorda share an openness to Gombrich’s ideas and their fecundity within different fields and ­traditions. Decolonisation and the revisitation of Eurocentrism across diverse disciplines that has impacted the work of contemporary artists and art historians are important considerations that Professor Mitter highlights in his epilogue. The pertinency of Lorda’s book stems precisely from this space, as it makes available to scholars from any field and epoch, current or remote, the universality of Gombrich’s ideas in today’s lingua franca: English. Spanish readers can consult the second edition of his book, published by EUNSA in 2021, and there is a Chinese translation in preparation. The last word should be given to Lorda’s brother, Juan Luis: ‘Joaquín also felt the call to carry out this task of keeping alive and renewed the traditions of beauty in the world. Human heritage and true humanism. A task that is not always easy because it collides with practical needs

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and imperatives, as well as with the other difficulties of life.’* We are confident that this publication will be of interest to the current reader, new generations of students and the connoisseur of different traditions, serving as a catalyst for new ideas in their possible application to non-classical art and to universal art, as well as a tool to comment on new narratives and build bridges with diverse pasts in our world’s history. María Angélica Martínez Editor and Coordinator of the ART T&H Research Group at the University of Navarra, Spain

*  Lorda, Juan Luis, ‘Sobre el caballito de Gombrich y Joaquín y Faustino’ in Hobby-­ Horse: Joaquín Lorda y E. H. Gombrich. Exposición de Faustino Aizkorbe. 15 enero –20 abril 2022. Universidad de Navarra, edited by María Angélica Martínez, Pamplona 2022, 15.

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Preliminary Note Quotations and references to Gombrich’s work use abbreviations consisting of capital letters in the case of his books and numbers in bold in the case of articles and pamphlets. The numbers make reference to an alphabetically ordered list. The list of abbreviations and works is shown at the end of this book in the section titled ‘Specific Bibliography and Abbreviations’. The use of abbreviations may to some extent make the references more difficult to follow; however, given the large number of citations, it was the only practical option. I felt it was more appro­ priate to place the abbreviations within the main text in order to avoid duplicating footnotes and the list of abbreviations. Because of this, they necessarily had to be very short. As for the system adopted, which is quite common in the English-speaking world, I should perhaps make a couple of remarks: the books, for which I provide one- or two-letter references, should present no difficulty. The use of numbers to indicate articles and pamphlets meets the criteria of brevity but is not entirely satisfactory. I would have preferred to add a sub-index to indicate the year of publication; however, I had to apply the system to a wide variety

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of material: articles published on different dates but later incorporated into books; pieces written solely on the occasion of the publication of these books, and others amended and extended for inclusion; and, finally, translations of other works from different dates. I have decided to use a simple numbered list, in alphabetical order, which I hope will be clearer, albeit less expressive.

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Preface E. H. Gombrich

There is a famous moment in Molière’s comedy Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme when Monsieur Jourdain discovers to his surprise that he has been speaking prose all his life. Thanks to Professor Lorda and other friends in many parts of the world, I have discovered that I have been writing prose for more than half a century. Had I written poetry my writings could not have been translated into so many languages and could not have been studied and interpreted by colleagues from different backgrounds and traditions. It has often been said that poetry represents that function of language that resists translation. I would go further here and suggest that it also resists paraphrase. Its meaning resides not only in its words but also in the images they evoke, in their sound and their rhythm. Take these away and very often the sense also evaporates. I never like to speak in generalities and so I prefer to illustrate this point by quoting a few lines of poetry I take from an anthology of

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Spanish verse, the first stanza of a poem by Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas: En crespa tempestad de oro undoso nada golfos de luz ardiente y pura mi corazón, sediento de hermosura, si el cabello deslazas generoso. One wonders whether the poet would have been able to explain to Sancho Panza what these lines are supposed to mean. The best he might have done is to say that he liked the hair of his beloved. It would be invidious to cite examples from the literature of art, but it would not be hard to find a passage there praising El Greco, Velázquez or Goya that would equally have baffled Don Quixote’s prosaic companion. There certainly are difficulties also in translating or paraphrasing prose. But here it is a matter of degree: a scientific text dealing with chemistry or physics can easily be transferred into any language that contains the necessary vocabulary, but an account of childhood memory may have to reply so much on the idiosyncrasies of the narrator’s native tongue that it will cause the translator a significant headache. Having changed languages from my native German to my adopted English I know very well that exact equivalences are rarely to be found, for many words and expressions depend on cultural traditions that are far from universal. Thus my French translator had trouble with the notion of the hobby horse and maybe my Chinese translator will not have found a word for emblem in his vocabulary. But unlike the translator of poetry the interpreter of prose need not despair. Even where he or she finds no exact equivalents he can usually explain what was said and though he may have to sacrifice stylistic elegance, his paraphrase can make sense. Maybe this applies to my writings on art. I have always wanted my words to make sense rather than to create poetic effects. It may well be argued that such an attitude is inappropriate to the mystery of art which we must celebrate in exalted language. I agree that art presents us with a mystery, but so does nature. Many poems have been written on the beauty of roses, but books on botany must make use of prose to

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impart information, and to present such theories and hypotheses as the study of plant life has yielded. Whatever I may have experienced in private when confronting a great masterpiece, in my writings I have always wished to formulate ideas that will survive translation or paraphrase. It is in the nature of things that I cannot tell how far I have succeeded in this ambition for I neither know Japanese nor Turkish, neither F ­ innish nor Hebrew. Alas – to confess the bitter truth – even my knowledge of Spanish is inadequate to judge whether my meaning has always been accurately rendered. But in Professor Lorda’s case I trust that he has overcome the language barrier and has understood me. I am touched by his effort to paraphrase the hypotheses he found underlying my writings and I have no doubt that he has succeeded. My confidence is based on an enjoyable experience: I found in our correspondence which began in 1987 that he caught the meaning of my jokes much as I appreciated the humour of his letters. There can be no better test for a meeting of minds. E. H. Gombrich London, July 1991

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Introduction Gombrich is currently considered to be the most significant art historian of his generation. He does not owe his reputation to any surprising archive discoveries, nor to any monumental works of scholarship. Gombrich’s name is most commonly associated with his very successful educational texts, such as his The Story of Art. Among specialist authors, too, his studies of crucial themes in the history of culture, art and art theory from novel perspectives are frequently used. The two facets are closely linked, since Gombrich’s great contribution has been to address problems of interpretation. And he has done so from an ambitious cultural perspective, transcending the narrow confines of specialisation, without descending to doctrinaire schematisms or abstract speculations. His approach marked a new departure from the most common theories on art, and the way it should be studied. Although I shall not labour the point, I hope that readers will discover for themselves that precisely in their most novel aspects, Gombrich’s ideas fit genially within a traditional view of art. In this approach, art is meant to be

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understood, not problematised, for Gombrich considers the study of art to be one of the most rewarding of experiences. In this book, I seek to examine Gombrich’s ideas on art in the most general terms possible. This is not meant to be a simple historiographical study, but to reveal the skill and validity of his contribution to theory. My interest in Gombrich began some years ago, when I was looking for some theoretical guidance for studying the history of architecture. Professor Carlos Montes brought to my attention Gombrich’s book The Sense of Order, which had just been published in Spain, and I was greatly enthused by it. I have since come to learn much more about many other of his areas of activity; and I believe I have identified some of his principal ideas. Although Gombrich has devoted much attention to figurative representation, his work contains numerous ideas on the arts in general. These ideas – which apply to music, architecture or any other form of art – constitute a harmonious whole, and my purpose here is to reflect that corpus of ideas. I have tried to be rigorous in my undertaking. However, both for my own sake and that of the reader, I also wanted my incursion into these ideas to be a gratifying experience. I would be doing Gombrich an injustice if I were to make his explanations seem complex or tedious. Without losing the necessary meticulousness, I have tried to offer an accessible – even agreeable – exposition. It was important to include all of Gombrich’s ideas on art in general and an in-depth discussion of these issues necessarily required that the book be quite long. In order to make it easier to read, I have divided it into three parts. In practice, each one is self-standing and can be read on its own. I have also tried to give numerous quotations from the author himself, in order to avoid the distortions that are inevitably involved in any commentary. Where necessary, I have also added simple illustrative examples of my own. I sincerely hope that my readers will find this approach helpful and that the many quotations from the author and my own examples will help illuminate Gombrich’s ideas. I am particularly appreciative of the help I have received from Professor Gombrich himself. It is a source of a satisfaction which those writing about figures from the past can never know. I have not had to

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challenge the object of my study; I have received much kindness from Professor Gombrich and at no point have I felt the need to mark a distance between us – quite the contrary. As a sign of my gratitude, I would like to dedicate these pages to Professor Gombrich’s ‘hobby horse’, a metaphor he used in one of his most important articles, and a personification of which I have become quite familiar with. I would also like to thank Professor Carlos Montes. He launched studies on historiography at the School of Architecture of the University of Navarra and discovered some time ago the great authority of E. H. Gombrich’s ideas. Carlos Montes and I jointly published a study of his principal ideas, with a bibliography of Gombrich. As the author himself recognised, it was the first monographic work devoted entirely to him. It served as the starting point for my PhD thesis, which I wrote under Professor Montes’s supervision. Since then Carlos Montes has published various studies on Gombrich. I am indebted to him for his help in so many matters; and now, I am indebted for so much more, not to mention his great patience during the long process involved in writing this book. Ernst H. Gombrich Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich was born in Vienna on 30 March 1909. His parents were Dr Karl B. Gombrich, a lawyer with a broad education, and Leonie Gombrich, a piano teacher and lover of the decorative arts, who was well-connected in Viennese musical circles. Supported by his home life, Ernst Gombrich drank in the stimulating cultural atmosphere of the city; he went to museums and music salons, and familiarised himself with its Baroque architecture. His tastes and education inclined him towards classical authors. He was educated at the prestigious Theresianum, where he reinforced his interests and broadened his learning. He also became interested in figures such as Winckelmann, and theories such as expressionism, which explained the changes that were taking place in the art of the time. His career was marked by his reading of Max Dvořák and other authors. He studied art history at the University of Vienna. Among

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others, he studied under Strzygowski, Swoboda, Hans Tietze, Emanuel Löwy – who interested him in the psychology of art – and particularly Julius von Schlosser, of whom he was an avowed disciple. Through the Viennese, he met Alois Riegl, Franz Wickhoff and many other intellectuals who he greatly valued. On a visit to Berlin, he learned from Heinrich Wölfflin, and from a pioneer in perceptual psychology, Wolfgang Köhler. In 1933 he wrote his doctoral thesis on the architecture of Giulio Romano, under the direction of Julius von Schlosser, part of which he later published in two articles. However, Vienna in the 1930s held out few opportunities for a graduate of Jewish origin, and after completing his studies Gombrich found himself unemployed. During those years he struck up a friendship with Ernst Kris, curator of the Department of Applied Arts at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, who was to be a great influence in his career. Kris, a historian and psychoanalyst, brought him into contact with figures such as Karl Bühler, who was interested in the psychology of expression and language, and introduced him to the ideas of Freud. Gombrich worked with Kris on an extensive – though unfinished – study on caricature, which he later summarised in 1940 in a small book, Caricature, and in a number of articles. The years 1934 and 1935 were important for Gombrich. While working with Kris, he was asked to write a history for children. In need of money, he readily accepted the commission and completed the book in just a few weeks. At this early stage, Gombrich demonstrated his talent for explaining a wide-ranging theme in a way that was easy to follow. The history was published in Vienna in 1935 under the title of Weltgeschichte von der Urzeit bis zur Gegenwart (KW). It enjoyed unexpected success and was translated into Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Polish. The publisher suggested following up with a children’s history of art; Gombrich replied that it should be targeted at all audiences. However, he had to abort the project. His situation in Vienna became untenable and in 1936, with Kris’s help, Gombrich moved to Britain to work as a research assistant at the Warburg Institute, which had relocated to London from Hamburg. His job was to order for publication the enormous body of notes and

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manuscripts bequeathed to the institute by its founder, Aby Warburg. Ultimately, the task proved impossible, but it gave him an in-depth acquaintance with an exceptional figure and introduced him to a whole new field of study – iconology. His work during those years finally bore fruit many years later, in 1970, with the publication of his book Aby Warburg: An Intellectual Biography (AW). His contact with the institute was hugely important; he met many leading historians – some in exile – who were related to Warburg or his methods, amongst them Panofsky and Wittkower. He also familiarised himself with what was to be a potent tool in his work: the Warburg library. Since then, Ernst Gombrich’s work has been closely associated with the Warburg Institute: from 1946 to 1948 he worked as a senior research fellow; from 1948 to 1954 as a lecturer; and from 1954 to 1959 as a reader. In 1959 he was appointed director of the Institute, a post he continued to hold until 1976. In London, at a seminar given by Professor Von Hayek (another exile), Gombrich got to know Karl Popper; the resulting friendship led to a rich exchange of ideas that was to last many years. It was Popper who finally drew him away from the solutions of neo-Hegelian cultural history and totalitarian sociologism which infused the work of most Central European art historians of the time. Popper also helped nuance the influences of psychoanalysis on Gombrich’s thinking. The Second World War marked a parenthesis in his career; from 1939 to 1945 he worked exclusively listening to foreign radio broadcasts for the ‘BBC’s Monitoring Services’. At the end of the war, he was commissioned to write his history of art; like nearly all his books, it was to be published by Phaidon, also in exile. Gombrich, who was eager to find a place in academia, wrote the book hurriedly, adding and removing paragraphs to suit his readership and get around typesetting problems in the difficult post-war economy. This was the origin of his book The Story of Art (SA). As the title itself suggests, he wanted to offer a continuous ‘narrative’ of art, following a storyline. The book was well received and over time became an unprecedented success with multiple re-editions. The other members of the Warburg Institute, to which Gombrich had returned after the war, found this popular book difficult to accept;

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but in a review, Tom Boase, director of the Courtauld Institute, praised it, and proposed Gombrich for the position of Slade Professor of Fine Arts at Oxford, a prestigious post which he held from 1953 to 1956. This was to mark the beginning of his academic career in England. By then, he had written several studies on iconology, a field in which he earned something of a name for himself. Between 1956 and 1959, in addition to his work at the Institute, he also held the position of Durning-Lawrence Professor of the History of Art; and in 1959–76, that of Professor of the History of the Classical Tradition at the University of London. From 1961 to 1963, he also held the position of Slade Professor in Cambridge. From there he was invited to give courses in Harvard and many other American universities. Based on his research at the Institute and his teaching experience, he wrote four volumes of studies on Renaissance art: Norm and Form (NF), in 1966, on the influence of ideas on artistic practice; Symbolic Images (SI), in 1972, containing a number of studies on iconology; and less homogenously, although also devoted to the Renaissance, The Heritage of Apelles (HA), in 1976, and New Light on Old Masters (NL), in 1986. Another of his publications from this time, Reflections on the History of Art: Views and Reviews (RH), contained a collection of thirty-­ two book reviews taken from the many Gombrich had written comparing and contrasting his own ideas with those of other authors. Gombrich never renounced his interest in theory, including his studies of the psychology of artistic representation. Some of these pieces, published as separate articles, were anthologised in 1963 in Meditations on a Hobby Horse and Other Essays on the Theory of Art (MH). International fame came in 1956, when he delivered the A. W. Mellon lectures at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, discussing the relationships between psychology and art. He later edited these lectures to form his most famous book, and the one for which he is best known among experts, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (AI). He returned to these themes in a small book entitled Means and Ends: Reflections on the History of Fresco Painting (ME), and many other articles, some compiled in 1982 under the title The Image and the Eye: Further Studies in the Psychology of Pictorial

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Representation (IE). In 1970, he developed his ideas on the psychology of ornamentation in the Wrightsman lectures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. These lectures were to form the basis for his 1979 book The Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art (SO). Together, these works made his name as one of the essential scholars of the psychology of art and theoretical questions of representation and ornamentation. In 1979, he set out his more general theoretical beliefs on the function of art in culture, the methodology of art history, the role of criticism and the defence of cultural values in Ideals and Idols: Essays on Values in History and in Art (II). To mark his seventy-fifth birthday in 1984, the publishing house Phaidon also published twelve essays and lectures under the title Tributes: Interpreters of our Cultural Tradition (T), in which he dealt extensively with similar themes. Gombrich sought to pay homage to some of the authors to whom he felt indebted. They include long-departed figures such as Lessing, Hegel and Lord Leverhulme; masters such as Sigmund Freud, A. Warburg and J. Huizinga; and personal friends such as A. Yates, E. Kris, O. Kurz, G. Boas and I. A. Richards. Gombrich’s Theoretical Purpose The great majority of Gombrich’s writings contain an important theoretical charge. In nearly all of them, he sets out to explain a theory on some specific point or test its validity by applying it in practise. Art and Illusion (AI), for example, discusses the thesis that the ascent of painting from the conventional symbol to figurative realism is the result of a technical progression: on the one hand, the accumulation of effective, well-formulated procedures; and, on the other, the creation of habits of perception among the public, who learn to look properly at a picture. In The Sense of Order (SO) Gombrich presents a similar theory for the decorative arts. There is also a theoretical purpose behind all his works on the Renaissance. Sometimes this is reflected in the title: Norm and Form (NF), the norm – that is to say the ideas formulated by humanists and theorists – precedes the specific artistic form; The Heritage of

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Apelles (HA), the resources of the antique tradition have been perpe­ tuated; Symbolic Images (SI), behind the symbolic images there exist philosophical theories on human knowledge, the Platonic and the Aristotelian; New Light on Old Masters (NL), the role of the humanist is to reveal the potentialities that are always present in great works of art. In the approach that Gombrich tries to bring, art history is seen above all as a ‘humanistic knowledge’; the history of art belongs to the humanities. Gombrich’s career was grounded in the School of Art History in Vienna, where art was seen as Kunstwissenschaft, a scientific discipline. For this very reason, historical research was sometimes based on theories and discoveries from the experimental sciences. However, the meaning given to the term ‘science’ in Vienna could not in any way be reduced to that of the experimental sciences; Gombrich’s time as a student there coincided with the rise of the philosophy of science in the Vienna Circle, and the differences were clear. The Vienna School’s interest in the sciences derived from a need to find a foundation for art history that would transcend the perspective of the enthusiastic amateur or simple scholar. Gombrich has always retained that objective, but his contact with the English-speaking world has shown him the limitations and dangers of too much stress on the scientific nature of art studies. In his work, Gombrich gives a predominant place to the art theorists of the past. And it is characteristic of Gombrich that he treats them not as mere historiographical curiosities, but as individuals who contributed valuable ideas, some of which are still valid. And so, parading through the pages of his writings we find Leonardo da Vinci and Giorgio Vasari, William Hogarth, Joshua Reynolds, John Constable, Goethe and Schelling. By the same token, his work is full of historians who took an interest in theoretical matters – even if Gombrich sometimes shares little or nothing of their beliefs. Among these, naturally, some of the most important are figures such as Heinrich Wölfflin and Alois Riegl, Julius Schlosser and Hans Tietze. Occasionally, too, there are Gombrich’s contemporaries from the English-speaking world: Kenneth Clark, John Summerson, James S. Ackerman and George Kubler. Nor should we forget one of Gombrich’s favourite assignments – book reviews – which

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sometimes provide an opportunity to discuss and propose new ideas with many contemporary authors. Nonetheless, even whilst dealing with issues in art theory, Gombrich remains strikingly removed – one might even say opposed – to philosophical profundity. He is a sworn enemy of any type of ‘system’, any set of closed and determined ideas, and he is wary of the field from which such constructions tend to arise: philosophy of art and the philosophy of beauty, aesthetics. Gombrich saves some of his harshest attacks for historicism. As a result, he is openly critical of certain schools (especially certain German schools) that advocate a holistic interpretation, as is the case with Hans Sedlmayr and his followers. Nonetheless, it is important to note that, even here, Gombrich is concerned with specifically artistic aspects. His criticism is levelled fundamentally against art historians, using arguments drawn from their field. Contrary to popular belief, therefore, the figure of Hegel (about whom he has written two excellent works), is necessarily marginal to his work; Gombrich rarely discusses his philosophical arguments.1 The same is even more true of a whole host of other authors from the field of aesthetics, whom Gombrich simply ignores. He makes no reference to Baumgarten or Lukács, makes only passing mention of Dilthey – a memory of his schooldays2 – and Schopenhauer3 – for his thoughts on music – and he almost never refers to Husserl, Scheler, Cassirer, Heidegger and Gadamer. Moreover, Gombrich distances himself from the exercises of approximation to ‘systems’ of different types to be seen in other disciplines, even when they are performed within a relatively pragmatic ambit. His attitude to the ideas of such a renowned and essential author as Susanne K. Langer, 4 celebrated for her approach to symbolic logic, is truly curious. Gombrich cites her frequently,5 but never with much enthusiasm, implying that she has little of interest to contribute. Gombrich treats incursions of the semiotic into art much more coolly. One need only look at his harsh review of Charles Morris’s famous book, Signs, Language and Behavior.6 Another inescapable figure, Umberto Eco, is rarely mentioned in Gombrich, and then only in passing.7 His approach is different when dealing with English-speaking scholars far removed from such pretensions. Gombrich enthusiastically

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quotes authors such as Arthur Lovejoy and his friend George Boas.8 He also praises C. S. Lewis (in particular, his contribution to The Personal Heresy9), M. H. Abrams10 and T. S. Eliot,11 not to mention some former exponents of that tradition, such as Edmund Burke.12 Gombrich’s repudiation of abstract approaches and his quest for rigour characteristically lead him to seek support in empirical sciences. Empirical sciences provide him with safe starting positions: themes of perceptual psychology, instinctive response or learning; and a few clearly formulated notions or principles – ritualisation, imprinting, affordance, etc. In addition, he is inspired by certain analogies or paradigms. The field from which Gombrich has drawn most is, perhaps, the psychology of perception;13 his writings make extensive and accurate use of many notions from this scientific terrain. In addressing the idea of communication, he also finds information theory.14 Linguistics, too, play an important role, particularly the work of Noam Chomsky, whom Gombrich cites with great respect.15 Indeed, he has gone so far as to say that his own role in art is similar to that of Chomsky’s in literature.16 Elsewhere, when it comes to examining the human response, Gombrich falls back on psychoanalysis. And as an underlying theory, one catches a glimpse of Popper’s philosophy of science. These are his intellectual interests. However, Gombrich’s work can be better understood by considering his personal interest in music. Gombrich was born into a Viennese family with a passion for music – his mother was a pianist and piano teacher, his brother was a concert violinist and he himself was a keen cello player. This intense interest has led him to elaborate ideas on the art without any detachment. He sees it as part of the wider artistic tapestry and tries to inspire in others the same respect he feels for the great musical traditions and the same veneration for its masters. And Gombrich has always mined music for examples for his ideas. When I first reached this conclusion, I told Professor Gombrich and he agreed. You are certainly right that music – classical music – was and remains for me the ‘model art’ the one against which I

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tend to test all other theories. I sometimes suspect that my interest in the other arts does not arise from a spontaneous response as much as from a desire to make clear to myself and others how such a response may be accounted for and explained in terms of the experience of classical music. (London, 3 August 1988) This is some indication of the scope of Gombrich’s ambitions and the resources he had at his disposal. One must understand that Gombrich’s clear purpose is to create theories that are rigorous and allow critical examination, theories that can effectively replace the excessively rigid and elementary systems that have previously been common in art history – systems that cannot stand up to a comparison with the facts. And yet Gombrich has never set his ideas down consistently in writing, in an ordered fashion. The reason, I believe, lies in the way he prepares his studies and I therefore think this issue needs to be addressed. That same – fragmentary – approach explains why his readers do not realise to what extent Gombrich’s works embody a theory of art, and why they are incapable of appreciating it in all its complexity. A Scattered Theory From an early age, Gombrich showed his talent as a writer. His broad general education, vivid imagination and sense of humour were all evident in his work. Over his career he has built up a diverse range of knowledge: from Freud to his work as a radio monitor at the BBC and from his iconological scholarship to his study of caricature. He has spent his academic life in hallowed institutions: Vienna and Oxford. He has worked at one of the world’s greatest art libraries, in terms of the selection and order of the material it contains: the Warburg library. He meets all the conditions for one to expect that his work will be of the highest quality and I believe he has lived up to those expectations. Here, at least, I consider myself a qualified witness. I cannot name a

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single anodyne text by Gombrich; every one contains some appealing nugget, some spark of erudition or wit, which will make the reader glad to have chosen it. His favourite form is the lecture – long enough to develop an idea, but not so long that it might bring that development to completion. His style is more to suggest and to indicate, to show rather than to demonstrate. His books are, generally, collections of different articles grouped by themes; and even the most famous, The Sense of Order and Art and Illusion, are series of lectures whose texts were amended for publication. Only his children’s history of the world (KW) and his The Story of Art (SA) were devised as books from the outset. He wrote them without too much concern, scribbling them down hastily in a style that was very well suited to his intended readership; their success clearly shows that he got it right. Aby Warburg: An Intellectual Biography (AW) is, strictly speaking, the only book devoted to a single subject of research. It is exemplary in its genre, but it took its author many years to write, during which time it went through many different outlines and several rough drafts. In general, he tends towards a short form, with an easy if careful style and an affable tone that he rarely abandons; when he does, it is to adopt all the firmness of deeply-held convictions. When Gombrich describes the qualities of a work of art or the mastery of an artist, the reader can sense a deep sympathy that creates an intimate atmosphere. Without disturbing that atmosphere, a well-placed biographical note or some technical detail can free the commentary from any saccharine sweetness. Otherwise, large quantities of examples – some curious, some scholarly – some exact and opportune quotations and a few touches of friendly humour or gentle scepticism give his theses just the right balance to make his scholarship accessible while at the same time steering it away from the emphatic or anecdotal. Gombrich is clearly apprehensive of anything overly abstract. Speaking of ‘art’ or ‘the artist’ repels him. Time and again he demonstrates an enviable and healthy ease in finding the perfect metaphor or example to brook any argument and to return to the indeterminate spheres of lucubrations with specialist terms. His work also abounds with

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references to the empirical sciences; here and there, he tries to lay the foundations for points on which to build. Gombrich’s writings contain ambitious theses which the author defines with abundant examples, noting down a series of suggestions. The style is attractive, and also quite unsystematic. Gombrich’s writings know little of paragraphs and sub-paragraphs, sections, outlines or summaries. Each one is a separate and independent piece, succinctly setting out its own bases, developing its intended point, and suggesting possible consequences, which Gombrich may choose to elaborate on in subsequent texts or simply confine to oblivion. At one point, for example, he suggests that Art and Illusion should be rewritten on the basis of ‘recognition and recall’; elsewhere he argues that a transformational grammar of forms is needed. And yet, he never refers to these ideas again. Added to all this is a constant sense of caution, which serves to veil the author’s more resounding conclusions with a ‘maybe’ or a ‘perhaps’, ‘I would be prepared to argue . . .’, or more vaguely, ‘if this were so, I would still argue that . . .’. There is also a considerable number of ‘howevers’, ‘at the same times’, ‘there are those who believe that’s . . .’. The unprepared reader may be carried along by an easy and attractive narrative, sprinkled with juicy details and a plethora of suggestions, and may fail to spot the true heart of the matter. Rudolf Arnheim remarked that when he read Art and Illusion he had had the sensation of walking through the backstage of an opera, full to bursting.17 Ortega once said that a book of science has to be about science, but it also has to be a book. Similarly, a book on art has to be more of a book than anything else: it always deals with ethereal and volatile issues that do not sit easily with systems, outlines and summaries. There is nothing worse than an attempt to explain a poem in detail; it will end up teaching everything, the style and the rhyme, everything except for the most important thing of all – the poetry itself. Gombrich, who has renounced emotional outbursts and manifestations of the mystical, has preferred never to abandon his friendly, suggestive way of doing things. For all of these reasons, if there is a coherent theory in Gombrich (as I will try to show that there is), then it only pokes its head out at certain points. Much of it can be found in any of his texts. Precisely

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because that theory exists, the author is not content to leave it to one side or take it for granted; instead, he constantly needs to sketch out its essential outlines. The reason is that Gombrich is not willing to build an abstract system to which to refer. The Objectives of This Work It has become increasingly clear that there is a need to record the whole tapestry of ideas that Gombrich has patiently put together, woven to a greater or lesser extent into some of his writings. In some it is strongly condensed, and thus barely outlined; in others only certain points are fully elaborated; in all, however, it is alluded to in some way or other. The difficulties of such a task are obvious. The author’s oeuvre is vast. He has published hundreds of articles and dozens of books. His work springs from an extensive and happily unfinished academic career, interrupted only by the war. Many of his ideas have emerged and developed slowly; others derive from school problems; a few have been left to one side, while others have appeared suddenly, the fruit of some chance event or logical deduction. It is difficult to try to demonstrate that they form a single theory – or to be more exact, a coherent set of ideas. To prove it definitively would be quite impossible. And yet, in light of Gombrich’s own theoretical endeavour in constantly considering theoretical problems and focusing on points he finds obscure, one can, in general, speak of a relatively broad and harmoniously developed corpus, albeit on that is not free from inaccuracies, and subject at times to rectification. At the same time, his aversion to the philosophy of art and his desire to establish a basic foundation for determining the value of a work make his ideas simple and not at all abstruse. The purpose of this work is to set out clearly and straightforwardly the ideas Gombrich has developed on the more general issues of art theory. Little attention has been paid to this more general network of ideas18 in the many essays penned on Gombrich’s work. Rather, there has been a tendency to compare him to other authors and discuss the validity of some specific points.19 It was important in this study to eschew polemics

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and turn constantly to a description of Gombrich’s ideas. I could not expand on the formation of each one or construct an index of places where they are found. I believe the validity of my arguments is suf­ ficiently supported by the wealth of verbatim quotations and references. In all cases, I have tried to include the author’s own unequivocal words. In any event, I felt it was important to address at some length the specific contexts of the theories – from Freud to Popper – that have had a decisive influence on his life, so that certain expressions commonly found in Gombrich, such as ‘condensation’ or ‘criticism’, can be interpreted with their true meaning and proper value. However, precisely because of Gombrich’s pragmatism, such contexts are very few. If one starts from the basis that Gombrich’s ideas are simple and have a certain logical consistency and that some, although alluding to a small number of well-determined contexts, preserve their relative autonomy, one can then see that, though difficult, it is not a futile exercise to set them out in writing. I have set Gombrich’s theoretical ideas out in three parts. The first contains four chapters of varying length. Its purpose is to set out the principal theories and traditions from which Gombrich draws in creating his own theories. Each one has provided him with a model, paradigm or analogy for clarifying certain ideas. Although all four are unquestionably present in Gombrich’s work, any explanation involves a certain schematisation and runs the risk of ignoring some less well-known but nonetheless important ideas. The four we have chosen are: the schema of science attributed to Popper; Freud’s theory of jokes; the theory of play, as conceived by Huizinga; and rhetoric. Each is addressed in a different way. I have explained my way of dealing with them and the reasons for this approach in their respective introductions and there is therefore no need for me to refer to any particular one here. The four models are very different; the first two form part of well-developed theories; the theory of play is a (very fruitful) idea which is only discussed in one book, while rhetoric forms an entire tradition. These four chapters are presumed to be the sources to which one must turn to find the meaning and scope of Gombrich’s expressions. They also form a model of some aspect of art.

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These four chapters are followed by another two parts containing parallel developments, one devoted to Western art and other to art in general. One might think that the former should form a sub-section of the latter, but this is not the case. Although they are closely related, they derive from two different stages in Gombrich’s theoretical development and the second – universal art – is actually a consequence of the first. It is for this reason that the second part of this work is devoted to Western art and the final part to art in general. Obviously, the two overlap in some aspects and ideas from the first can be found in the second. In accordance with my stated aim, I have tried to make these chapters almost independent of one other. The second part (on Western art) focuses on the idea of artistic progress and its consequences: artistic progress in the West, particularly in the classical periods. I first examine the figure of Vasari, the great theoretician who set out the idea and was responsible for its success. The chapters on beauty and the consequences of the idea of progress are meant to review the aim and limits of this notion. A second group of chapters examines the way in which Gombrich interprets the trans­ formation of the ideal of progress through the work of Winckelmann, and its application in Hegel. The consequences of that transformation enable us to understand the evolution of contemporary art; the last chapter (and in my opinion the most interesting) is devoted to primitivism and the negative tradition in Western art. The third part section is the central core of this work and forms its principal objective; it is also by far the longest section in the book. In it, I discuss Gombrich’s ideas as they apply to art theory in general. This discussion uses a theory of knowledge and perception to define the function of art in culture. The chapters that follow make up the public framework: mastery, style and the evolution of style. The central chapters examine subjective aspects: creation and expression. And the final chapters are devoted to the contemplation and interpretation of works of art. The following pages contain what one can presume to be Gombrich’s theory of art. I have limited myself to anthologising his ideas and highlighting their consistency. My purpose is – as I have said – to offer them

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not so much as a historiographical essay, but as an aid to understanding the purpose of art history, and the presuppositions on which it may be based. For I am convinced that Gombrich makes contributions which are not only original, but moreover valid. I wanted to set out his discoveries, rather than his position on other themes or authors. I have always tried to bear in mind Gombrich’s advice in the foreword to Ideals and Idols: ‘we want the critic to ask “what has he found out?” rather than “where does he stand?” ’ (II, 7).

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Part I Paradigms and Analogies Science, Joke, Play and Rhetoric

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1. Science Gombrich’s use of science as a model refers particularly to the theory of science developed by Karl Popper; that is to say, to the way in which Popper views science and its evolution. Gombrich draws extensively on this model. However, it is immediately obvious that there are sub­stantial differences between the ways in which science and art operate. In the case of science the results can be evaluated. But, what are the results – and value – of art? These differences have led Gombrich to view the task of art as an aesthetic of effects, a search for formulas capable of arousing specific responses in its audience. It therefore becomes necessary to add to Popper’s theory a ‘Trigger Theory’, a theory of human (and animal) responses to certain configurations. However the two theories are in themselves insufficient and another factor therefore needs to be introduced which we shall examine in the next chapter: the subjective response. It is interesting to compare Popper’s ideas with Gombrich’s. The two authors share a very close intellectual and even human relationship; it would be no exaggeration to say that many of Gombrich’s ideas derive

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from the Popperian field; that Popper was unquestionably the author by whom Gombrich was most influenced in developing his theories; that Gombrich’s network of ideas can be quite organically classed within Popper’s thinking, about which Gombrich has a deep understanding and which he, generally speaking, accepts. 1. Gombrich and Popper In his intellectual biography, Unended Quest,1 Popper cites Gombrich on several significant occasions. Despite a seven-year difference in age (Popper is the older of the two), they have long been friends and they have much in common: both were born in Vienna, to educated, wellto-do families of Jewish extraction, with a great love of music, and very broad intellectual interests. However, their friendship was born out of the dramatic period leading up to the Anschluss and Hitler’s occupation of Vienna. The two were attending Von Hayek’s seminar in London, where Hayek and Gombrich were both living. Popper was already known for his book The Logic of Scientific Discovery,2 criticising the suppositions of the Vienna Circle. At the seminar, he read the papers which were later published under the title The Poverty of Historicism.3 Both authors still remember the meeting. 4 Popper also recalls that afterwards, Gombrich saw him off at the airport.5 Popper was later forced to flee Austria to New Zealand, where he took up teaching. During the war Popper completed his book The Open Society and Its Enemies,6 but he was unable to get it published. In these circumstances he happened to obtain an address in England for Gombrich who helped him find a publisher.7 Popper was enormously grateful.8 Shortly afterwards, in 1946, Popper moved from New Zealand to London. From then on, the two remained in very close contact. Popper mentions Gombrich as being among ‘the people from whom I learned most in those early days in England [. . .]’.9 Since then Gombrich and Popper have maintained a regular friendship and read each other’s writings (cf. 57, 18). In recent years, Gombrich and Popper have been in the habit of talking by telephone several times a week.10

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In an interview with Brian Magee in 1972, published under the title ‘The Achievement of Sir Karl Popper’ (2), Gombrich admitted that since that first meeting in 1936 he had ben captivated by his theories and particularly his criticism. ‘I was present’, he recalls, ‘at a lecture Popper gave here before the war in which he first propounded his criticism of the Hegelian and Marxist idea of history as a deterministic plan. And it was this, above all, which attracted me towards his critical view of history’ (2, 228). This is one of the channels through which Gombrich communicates with Popper’s theses. It is also the most frequently mentioned contact between the two, and Gombrich wrote a famous essay, In Search of Cultural History,11 in which he applied Popper’s theses to historiography. However, Popper’s influence goes far further. Firstly, Gombrich has a deep knowledge of Popper’s work: he witnessed the birth of The Poverty of Historicism and helped publish The Open Society and Its Enemies, in which he says he knows it well (cf. 76, 358). The two books stand at the centre of Popper’s work. They represent the application of his theory of science to other fields. In other words, they are the basis of ‘critical rationalism’. Moreover, in the second book, he begins to develop a theory of objectivity. Gombrich frequently quotes Popper’s main works, always demonstrating a first-hand know­ ledge of the texts.12 As well as those mentioned above, his footnotes often cite The Logic of Scientific Discovery,13 and, individually, the articles that would later be published in Objective Knowledge and Conjectures and Refutations.14 Gombrich also cites works by Popper that have only been very recently published;15 he makes mention of some suggestions by Popper, assuredly made in informal conversations;16 and he even mentions some expressions coined by Popper probably in the same context.17 At the same time, Gombrich has dealt with some misinterpretations of Popper’s work, and he has done so unequivocally and unambiguously.18 It should be clear from this short account that it is not within the scope of this book to examine fully Popper’s influence on Gombrich. Nonetheless I shall attempt to list just a few aspects, in the vain hope of summarising Popper’s key ideas and showing the impact they had on

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Gombrich’s work. Finally, I will refer at greater length to one particular notion with a direct influence on artistic creation, World 3. 2. Popper: Essences and Meanings Popper’s stance on historicism is so well-known that it requires no further commentary from me. The title of his book, The Poverty of Historicism, says it all. Gombrich’s views on the subject are also well known. One need only recall his lectures ‘In Search of Cultural History’ (II, 24–59) and ‘The Father of Art History’ (T, 50–69). On many occasions, Gombrich expressly refers to Popper and his book to criticise any vestige of historicist or holistic interpretation.19 It is more interesting to focus on the two thinkers’ position on what Popper called ‘essentialism’. Popper contrasts ‘methodological essentialism’ with ‘methodological nominalism’, within the framework of the arguments of social action. What Popper calls ‘essentialism’ seeks to encompass the Aristotelian doctrine on abstraction and the universals;20 but Popper equated the more general terms – essence, form, nature, substance – with the idea;21 and this equivalence of concepts is revealing. For Popper the process by which they are obtained is, quite simply, induction: based on the observation of particular individuals, we infer the general features that make up the ‘essence’. Popper argues that for ‘essentialism’ the essences have a certain autonomy, a kind of existence of their own. The belief in a supra-­ individual existence is one of the foundations of historicism: the essences are the invariable substratum of historical vicissitudes.22 Therefore, ‘essentialism’ leads to historicism and must be rejected. Nominalism is more attractive for a rational critic, but also leads up a blind alley. This is an interesting conclusion: essentialism, which advocates the existence of the ‘essence’ of things, is an anti-critical posture. At its heart is language, which invents the universal, that is to say, the classes of things.23 Popper’s attitude to ‘essentialism’ has important consequences, one of which I would like to mention here: his characteristic resistance to offering definitions, which finds its natural extension in his insistence

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that any search for precision in statements is pointless; ultimately, he avoids any discussion on the meaning of terms. And he attacks the special languages of some closed preserves of social sciences. Definitions presuppose a belief in an essence to be captured. Popper went so far as to state that ‘we never know what we are talking about’:24 Any idea has a multitude of logical implications; it may be understood simply in relation to other theories, rather than being expressed in words. Therefore any strict search for precision should be abandoned: ‘The quest for precision is analogous to the quest for certainty, and both should be abandoned.’25 Evidently, if it is not possible to define, then it is not possible to be too precise: it is enough just that it is understood. And this is the reason why no discussion of the precise meaning of terms has any purpose. Popper says in his intellectual autobiography that he decided ‘to impress on myself that I must always remember the principle of never arguing about words and their meanings [. . .]’.26 The possibility of conveying and understanding an argument is not based on some sophisticated terminology but on shared everyday language, whose terms we all understand. For this reason, fields of study that shield themselves behind neologistic terminology must be seen as dubious. Specifically, Popper attacks ‘social scientists [who] are unable, and even unwilling, to speak a common language’.27 Such attitudes always hide a possible essentialism and prevent free access to rational criticism. 3. Gombrich: Essentialism and Abstraction Popper’s position on essentialism has greatly influenced Gombrich. Firstly, Gombrich recognises the link between essentialism and historicism. A belief in essences means a belief in supra-individual, collective realities, such as the spirit of a certain epoch, race or nation. At heart, the terms of stylistic categories such as ‘Romanesque’ and ‘Gothic’ always have a tendency towards essentialism; they can easily end up taking on an autonomous personality of their own.28 For this reason Gombrich often roundly rejects any manifestation of ‘essentialism’; and in the dilemma between essentialism and

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nominalism, Gombrich, like Popper, says he feels more inclined towards a nominalist position, although he recognises – like Popper – that this approach leads to unresolvable problems (cf. NF, 88). Secondly, we have Gombrich’s attitude to abstraction. The problem of ‘abstraction’, as framed by Popper, who equates it with a process of induction plus a process of intellectual intuition, is a very important one for Gombrich. On several occasions he refers jokingly to the ‘tremendous feat of abstraction’.29 Gombrich has learnt from Popper that knowledge and perception operate in the opposite way to induction. The mind starts from general hypotheses, attempting to reach the particular, even though the particular always escapes any absolute comprehension: it does not ascend from the particular to the general, but rather learns to particularise. Gombrich applies this criterion unrestrictedly to the creation of images. Anyone can draw an abstract face. Abstraction is not the last step in a complicated process, but the first: we start from an abstract schema and particularise it. With this approach, Gombrich believes he has overcome obsolete approaches, precisely thanks to his familiarity with Popper’s ideas.30 It should be noted that, like Popper, Gombrich does not use philosophical terms (such as ‘universals’) with any great precision.31 Gombrich is, it seems to me, conditioned by his need to come up with an alter­ native in these two specific fields: on the one hand, the notion of style and the reason for stylistic change and, on the other, the problem of resemblance or realism in figurative representation. In the first case, it is a petitio principii: Gombrich is unwilling to accept a holistic expla­ nation of art history. In the second case, it is an experienced fact: clearly, the child who scribbles a stick figure achieves no tremendous feat by creating an abstract form. The complicated thing is likeness, realism, that is to say, a convincing depiction of the particular. It is easy to see that any application of the Aristotelian concepts of ‘abstraction’ and ‘essence’ to these two cases is somewhat forced. Gombrich does something similar when he applies a necessarily simplified version of Platonic and Aristotelian theories to the study of symbolic traditions,32 although, in this case, the application of these

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simplified versions is fully justified. In fact, Gombrich merely compiles the opinions of authors such as Ripa and Giarda who used simplifi­ cations of those theories in their treatises on iconography. I shall give no further explanations here. I shall return to the issue of style in the corresponding chapter below. Figurative representation and, within it, visual symbols have only an entirely marginal place in this study. I shall simply state that the grounds Gombrich puts forward for rejecting concepts such as ‘abstraction’ and ‘essence’ are weak: this is the result of Popper’s influence and improper usage. And on occasions Gombrich would be forced to pull back from an overly radical position. Gombrich’s complete opposition to the arguments of the aesthetic or philosophy of art prevent him from becoming too familiar with metaphysics and its classical authors, inter alia Aristotle. However, when, with his dogged pursuit of theory, he tries to delve into some purely speculative theme, he runs into problems which have already been solved by Aristotle, who Gombrich sees above all as, ‘the great biologist’ (cf. NF, 71 and 87). The same is true of the theme of ‘essence’ which Gombrich refers to indistinctly as ‘universals’. Although in various places, he warns against a belief in this type of thing,33 in ‘The Mask and the Face’ (IE, 105–36) he accepts that the theory – which here he calls ‘Platonic’ – can become a psychological hypothesis: perception always requires universals. ‘We could not perceive and recognize our fellow creatures if we could not pick out the essential and separate it from the accidental – in whatever language we may want to formulate this distinction’ (IE, 106).34 Something similar occurs when he speaks about ‘generalizations’: an artist’s capacity to integrate into a style (cf. T, 190). 4. Gombrich and Definitions As also happens with Popper, Gombrich’s desire to reject any type of essentialism leads him to avoid definitions.35 And so his writings sometimes contain expressions such as ‘do not expect me to begin with a definition of my own [. . .]’ (47, 7).36 Similarly, he makes no effort to be overly specific: ‘whether we like the particular term or prefer another, we all know what it seeks to describe’ (II, 26).

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As well as his theoretical premises, Gombrich draws on his own very vivid experience of the power and limitations of language resulting from his change of language as an adult, from German to English. His work contains frequent examples of untranslatable words and expressions.37 And at the same time, Gombrich, like Popper, insists on the need to retain a degree of clarity in language, which, like any other social institution, is liable to be corrupted (cf. II, 67);38 he is always reluctant to use vogue words ‘I am fully alive to the danger of new words, specially fashionable words, becoming new toys of little cash value’ (39, 47) and denounces the use of sophisticated specialist jargon to create a closed and inaccessible domain (cf. SO, 175). Indeed, in his biographical reviews of some leading intellectual friends of his, such as George Boas and Otto Kurz, he praises the simplicity of their writing and their eschewal of complex language.39 Gombrich himself (and in this he also resembles Popper) writes plainly and elegantly in English. he substitutes any impossible precision and definition of concepts with highly expressive terms, pairs of opposites and easily remembered metaphors. Thus, the ‘etc. principle’, ‘principle of sacrifice’, ‘principle of exclusion’, ‘cat’s cradle’, ‘twenty questions’, ‘feedback creation’, ‘search for meaning’, ‘beholder’s share’, ‘norm and form’, ‘ideals and idols’, and many others which we shall encounter in these pages. Here I should refer now to two of Popper’s best-known concepts: ‘trial and error’, which in Gombrich’s work become ‘schema and correction’, or ‘making and matching’. 5. Trial and Error Popper used this expression ‘trial and error’ to refer to the method commonly employed in the sciences. All science creates general theories which are rejected as data appear that cannot be included in them. What made Popper’s thesis revolutionary was that he argued that the scientific criterion should not be verification with confirmatory examples, but falsification; in other words, the scientists should seek specific

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examples that are not covered by the theory, thus refuting it and making it necessary to devise another wider one. 40 Popper extends this mechanism to all types of knowledge, which he defines in very broad terms: ‘from the amoeba to Einstein’. Knowledge is animal and human perception, and ordinary and scientific human knowledge. The ‘trial and error’ mechanism is the motor for extending the knowledge of an individual (be it an amoeba or Einstein), a species (i.e. the progressive improvement of sensory or intellectual capacities on the evolutionary ladder), a scientific tradition (e.g. nuclear physics) or a political society (e.g. the right of a nation). This simple mechanism thus forms the basis for a theory of perception, a gnoseology, an ethology, a theory of science and a theoretical sociology. Gombrich applied this mechanism diligently, fully accepting the evolutionary equivalence. 41 However, he also applied it specifically to art. 42 His statement at the Darwin Lecture in Cambridge in 1979 is significant: Transferred from the vast panorama of geological epochs to the narrow stage of human history, the mechanism goes under the name of trial and error. It was in particular Karl Popper, the first Darwin lecturer, who convinced me that this formula throws light not only on the growth of science, but also on the evolution of art. (T, 191) He had already said in Art and Illusion that this description of the way science operates was eminently applicable to the story of visual discoveries in art (cf. AI, 279). It would be impossible to overestimate Popper’s influence over Gombrich at this point; it was absolute. I can only recommend that the reader look through Art and Illusion, in which he views through this dialectic prism some of the most varied aspects that can be related to art: the theory of perception which serves as the basis of the book: the

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senses project a figure which they later confirm; the work of composing a figurative painting becomes ‘making and matching’, in other words, smudge and judge; the artists learn through making picture after picture, by trying, failing and trying again; the growth of artistic traditions consists of artist after artist incorporating the achievements made and abandoning the least promising lines of research. At what we might call this dialectic core, it is possible to make out two stages, moments or aspects, one positive and the other negative. (a) The trial; the subject (a being with external senses, an intelligence ready to reason, an investigator, a link in the evolutionary ladder, or a scientific tradition or social movement) always takes the initiative over the outside world, be it physical, mental or historical. Depending on the subject, Popper uses different terms to refer to the supremacy of their initiative. The most important, and the one that has served as the model for all others, is that of scientific hypothesis. For Popper, the hypothesis is an absolute and prior necessity. Scientific theory does not arise through induction based on data; it exists before those data. The results that should be obtained in a specific case are deducted from the general theory, and this is subjected to verification. This method applies to sensorial perception. Any perception, in this view, is a hypothesis; that is to say, it is hypothetical. In Popper’s classic formulation, the image is presented as the bucket and the searchlight theory, 43 metaphors he used to illustrate the assumption that intel­ ligence or the senses come first, trying to make sense of the stimuli (the projector), and do not passively receive the external information (bucket). The theory of perception and knowledge employed by Gombrich is suffused with this supposition. 44 This theory is further backed by a major school of thought among psychologists of perception, primarily American, which is led by Richard Gregory, Julian Hochberg and to a lesser extent Ulric Neisser and many others. 45 Perhaps Gregory’s most famous book, Eye and Brain argues that the brain is already active in the eye. The same idea lies behind the call for new and daring theories for art history or science; or the need for the artist to be a discoverer, to

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propose ever-new ways of seeing the same thing, to keep his problem in his head, insisting on it over and over again until he eventually solves it. Strictly speaking, this need for initiative can be found at all levels, from the worm trying to return to its hole, to a maestro composing his masterwork, or the artistic tradition working to achieve means of expression never before dreamed of. It may come as a shock to see the scientist or artist juxtaposed with the worm, but I do so deliberately. The idea can be found at all levels. It moves effortlessly along the evolutionary ladder from quasi-mechanical processes to intellectual, personal and collective ones involving the creation of hypotheses of any kind.46 (b) Error; in reality, the negative principle should really be formulated as ‘verification of the error’. 47 The preliminary hypothesis is pitched, above all in order to seek the contrast, the obstacle. If it is found, the hypothesis is demolished and must be replaced. This openness to testing is vital for growth. Again this idea needs to be applied to all levels. This involves evaluating the importance of ‘negative tests’. If a paramecium, swimming along, encounters an obstacle in its path, it tests its initial hypothesis of a straight trajectory, and must be able to change its path, in other words to verify its error. Likewise the representatives of society who discover a fault when applying a political theory must allow open criticism. The link in an evolutionary stage must change when faced with adverse circumstances in order for the species to survive; adapting means recognising error. What matters is to be always willing to change when the error is verified. Indeed, information is sought that will disprove the hypoth­ esis.48 It is impossible here to explore all the implications of these ideas, or even to afford them the space they deserve. However, I would like to set out some broad considerations. The ‘trial-error’ binomial clearly indicates that, in Popper’s view, it would be pointless to look for anything definitive at any level of know­ ledge; we can only seek to improve on the current situation.49 In reality, what matters is the attitude towards improvement and progress. I believe this idea lies behind the notion of trial and error: what matters

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is to be plotting, running hither and thither, getting the measure of things. The ideal image of any cognitive activity is that metaphorical turmoil we associate with the idea of technical or scientific progress. And, therefore, the emphasis is not so much on the achievements obtained as on the attitude of improvement, which is critical: the search for verification. In the world of ideas, Popper expresses this notion very clearly: ‘the old philosophy linked the idea of rationality with final, demonstrable knowledge [. . .] while I linked it with the growth of conjectural knowledge’.50 6. Similarities and Differences This attitude is linked to the immediate present, to an eventual and conjectural present. And we may draw two important consequences from this: (a) The starting point is indifferent. This statement applies especially to ideas: the initial hypotheses are of least importance; it is the critical method used to test them out that matters. Science was – inevitably – born out of ancient myths but it has surpassed them because it has been capable of ousting false theses (gradually, through effective criticism) and replacing them with verifiable hypotheses. Clearly, this idea also applies to other fields: absolutism (initial thesis) has given way to democracy (conjectural hypothesis); and likewise the ‘amoeba’ has become ‘Einstein’. (b) The finishing line is unattainable. This is what Popper seeks to convey with the title of his intellectual autobiography: Unended Quest: the truth always lies beyond; or rather there is no real end point. More progress is always possible. Any position is unstable, it is exposed to criticism; and the examples given in the last paragraph serve to ­illustrate this. Generally speaking, Gombrich’s ideal image of the study of art history probably matches Popper’s. Thus in ‘A Plea for Pluralism’ (II, 184–8), he speaks of a ‘interesting state of ferment’ (II, 188) which must be kept boiling. Elsewhere, more daringly, he calls, for a ‘turbulence’, like eddies in the water or the air, rather than prefabricated models (cf. 35, 883).

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Gombrich also shares the idea that, in scientific hypotheses, what matters least is the starting point.51 However, matters are different in the case of the finishing line. The argument that the end point is unattainable may perhaps apply in some fields: evolution of the species or scientific investigation, for example. When it comes to investigation in the humanities, Gombrich accepts Popper’s approach to social sciences in general terms. This is clearly reflected in his lecture ‘Art History and Social Sciences’, whose second section is entitled ‘Explanation and Interpretation in History’ (II, 135–7), in full agreement with Popper’s theses and even his terminology.52 On some specific points, however, he has his doubts. Gombrich argued in the same lecture that ‘we do not [. . .] enjoy visiting collections in which every label is liberally sprinkled with question marks’ (II, 185). And nonetheless he recognised that dating and attribution methods can only be based on hypothesis (cf. ibid). He has to agree with Popper that all knowledge in the humanities is tentative.53 On one occasion Popper himself used the example of the reconstruction of a damaged text as being like a hypothesis.54 However, years later, Gombrich spoke of a similar example, the recomposition and translation of a papyrus in hieroglyphic notation, arguing that there are certain cases when a hypothesis is such a perfect fit that we have to accept it as being definitive. It should be sufficient to require the sort of evidence that would be accepted by a ‘conscientious court of law’ (cf. T, 18). This may seem like a trivial detail, but it is certainly not. An assertion like this calls into play ‘a conscientious court’, that is to say, a human deliberation, and thus the magic of objective logical statements, whose status is achieved through an urgent and continuous critique of reason, is broken. The humanities once more become a question of knowledge rather than empirical research. It is in the light of this warning, which Gombrich made in an important context – his lecture ‘Focus on the Arts and Humanities’ (T, 11–27) – that one must interpret Gombrich’s previous production, formulated in response to Popper’s pressing calls. It is also extremely opportune, coming just when we must turn our attention to what Popper calls World 3, the haven of objective ideas.

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7. The Advantages of World 3 In 1969, Gombrich published an article written for the Nobel symposium in Stockholm. The title – ‘Art and Self-Transcendence’ (II, 123–30) – is sufficiently explicit. He was referring to artists’ efforts to find a phil­ osophical foundation for their work. We have already discussed Gombrich’s characteristic averseness to those attempts, but it is helpful now to examine his proposed alternative. I am afraid few of these efforts are even intellectually respectable and I would be the last to recommend them to you. But I wonder if we need this kind of metaphysics to justify a more than subjective theory of art, one that explains and accepts the demand for self-transcendence and some notion of perfection. I should like here to refer you to two papers by my friend Sir Karl Popper in which he stresses the emergence of problems in nature and in history as the emergence of what he calls a ‘third world which is neither the world of things or facts nor the world of subjective feelings’. For problems allow of solutions, some better, some worse, some perhaps perfect. (II, 125) World 3 is a notion which helps Gombrich to describe a particular feeling – explaining what it consists of and to what extent it matches reality; this is the feeling that in the great works of art there is something that surpasses us and even surpasses the artist himself, his limited possibilities and goals. Art history needs the same heroic sense with which Popper views science. For Gombrich, art history is the history of the great masterpieces

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and the great masters (cf. II, 152). This claim involves two major issues which stand at the foundation of Gombrich’s theory. The first is that in some way art history has to confirm that these are indeed great works and great masters: it has to show why something is good (cf. II, 185). The distinction between good things and less good things is vital in art history. Interpreting art history in the light of World 3 means con­ cluding that there are perfect, good and less good solutions. However, that approach requires seeing art history as a history of the solution of problems; the great artists have successfully faced problems, objective problems (cf. II, 125), for which they have sometimes come up with a perfect solution (cf. NF, 79–80). The approach of solutions and problems seeks to get round the subjectivity inherent to any other type of assessment. Value takes on an objective appearance. The World 3 model illustrates why art has a history (cf. T, 15). There is a nexus between artists and works from different periods that has to be sought out and which gives meaning to the specific works, and, in turn, the specific works build a coherent – albeit free – process. This concept allows us to see art history and science history in analogous terms, and proves to be an effective approach. The critical mission contained in art history becomes an evaluation of solutions. Each art work is an attempt. Artists, the great artists, are those who have achieved the right solution. Art history is possible because it is possible to narrate the path followed by artists in search of solutions: their attempts, their achievements and their failures; failures which – as we have learnt from Popper – are necessary and fertile, since they are verifications, which lead to new solutions, and thus to progress. Art history can be seen as progress in pursuit of certain objectives. And the great solutions have a value in themselves, regardless of whether they have become obsolete. Art history is the history of the great solutions. It makes obsolete any type of chronicle that limits itself to listing artists and works (cf. II, 141). And moreover: ‘we learn to look at the individual and particular work of art’, Gombrich suggests, ‘as the work of skilled hands and great minds in response to concrete demands [. . .]’ (MH, 119). Clearly, an approach of this type, an approach which Gombrich calls ‘technical’, is

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of such indisputable usefulness that one can ignore the personal to focus on aspects with a greater appearance of objectivity. Above all, a technological approach immunises art history against historicist explanations: works of art are not simply expressions of their time; they simply receive the influence of specific circumstances. 8. The Threshold of Objectivity Gombrich’s interest in World 3 concurs with Popper’s interest in objectivity and the attempt to safeguard knowledge from any subjective consideration. And this is the point at which the history of science and scientific research stand as models for all other fields of research, including art. Popper’s rejection of subjectivity extends only to the interference of subjective criteria into the area of statement. Popper knows well that subjective aspects cannot – and should not – be eliminated from scientific research: interest, the desire to create, etc. However they cannot extend to statements because they are prevented from doing so by criticism. Hence his attack on all supposed science that does not end up logically stating a hypothesis. His attack on what he calls psychologism is directed very particularly against psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis presents itself with clear pretensions of being a science yet it is impossible to subject its conclusions to the sole criterion of validity that Popper accepts: testing. Psychoanalysis bases its conclusions on clinical results which are not always – indeed, are rarely – provable, instead drawing on the aid of introspection. Given that introspection offers no scientific guarantee, any form of psychologism – and thus any psychoanalysis – must be excluded from the ambit of the sciences. I would like to introduce the ideas of World 3 with some short statements from Popper which will serve to establish the objective framework. 1.  ‘Our theories are our inventions; but they may be merely ill-reasoned guesses, bold conjecture, hypotheses. Out of these we create a world: not the real world, but our own nets in which we try to catch the real world.’55

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2. T he real world certainly exists, and from it we extract the isolated facts with which we can test the theory. 3. There are problems that are not scientific, i.e. that are not testable and that are, for Popper, metaphysical: they may be discussed and they may be useful, but their solutions can never be criticised, and therefore they cannot aspire to be true. Accepting them involves ‘a faith which is completely unwarranted from the point of view of science [. . .]’.56 Faith in something leads to belief: being convinced that a metaphysical proposition is true. However, such a posture would not be rational: ‘Belief, of course, is never rational: it is rational to suspend belief [. . .]’.57 Popper claims – with evident exaggeration – that only the logical is rational; only the rational is testable; only the testable can aspire to be true. Metaphysics is not rational because it is not testable, and therefore it cannot aspire to the truth. Popper accepts no truth other than testable truth. 4. On the other hand, ‘we term a proposition “true” if it corresponds to the facts, or if things are as described by the proposition’.58 5. But, how do we know if a statement is true? Popper warns: ‘The quest for certainty, for a secure basis of knowledge, has to be abandoned.’59 We cannot know it and, moreover, it does not matter. 6. T his allows us to understand the next step, which is highly important. ‘A so-called “true belief ” is a belief in a theory which is true; and whether or not it is true is not a question of belief, but a question of fact.’60 7. On the one hand, there are the scientific hypotheses – most interesting when most daring; on the other, there are the data of observation we seek in order to test them out. Popper postulates that our knowledge and scientific knowledge use a ‘deductive methodology’; from previous theories we deduce – based on the rules of logic – specific theses; and these theses contrast with observed facts. Hence, the problem of truth ‘is no longer a problem of our beliefs – or of the rationality of our beliefs – but a problem of the logical relationship between

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singular statements (descriptions of “observable” singular facts) and universal theories’.61 8. To conclude, if the elements involved in knowledge are general theories and empirical data, the subjective is superfluous: ‘we can regard “knowledge” as a subjective “state of mind”, as a subjective state of an organism. But I chose to treat it as a system of statements – theories submitted to discussion. “Knowledge” in this sense is objective [. . .].’62 With these eight statements the entry to World 3 is open. For Popper, World 3 contains, above all, the great theories of the theoretical sciences, such as physics. But, insofar as they are based on testable hypotheses, they can be accommodated in other areas of knowledge. Popper sought to usher in a ‘theoretical sociology’, a sociology built on general elementary principles with the help of an effective critique. In relation to it, other social sciences and even art can gain entry to World 3. None­ theless, the heart of World 3 is identified with what Popper calls ‘the logical province’: the great theoretical sciences. In World 3, the creation and history of art are of interest insofar as they can be viewed analogously with science. The door of World 3 opens only to let in objective formulations. For Popper the touchstone of enduring human creations is rationality. Human activities that accept rational criteria give objective results. Like Virgil in the Divine Comedy, objective facts lead the human mind from the hell of subjectivity – World 2 – through the purgatory of real things – World 1 – to the paradise of objective truths: World 3. 9. Qualities of World 3 I shall limit myself to sketching out a brief description of World 3. To continue the metaphor I used in the previous section, in World 3 there are a multitude of characters to whom it would be good to pay attention; I shall visit only four rooms, with the grandiose names of: autonomy, unintentionality, emergence and self-transcendence. (a) Autonomy. For Popper general theories are valuable. However, there are no general theories without the prior existence of problems to be

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solved. ‘Knowledge does not start from perceptions or observations or the collection of data or facts, but it starts, rather, from problems.’63 At the same time, the subjective processes of thought are of no interest because they can only exist in psychological relations. On the other hand, logical statements that can be found in objective logical relations are of interest. It therefore follows that ‘the argument counts, rather than the person arguing’.64 Certainly, Popper knows that, in man, logical reasoning cannot be separated from the other processes of the mind, from influences of the will, in other words, from the passions. But for him, the critical method ultimately eliminates irrationalism from science. In other words, testing in the practice of theories and the vigilant exercise of criticism by everyone in a scientific community ultimately strips all irrationalism from the logical content.65 Note that if truth is the adaptation between the real thing and that which is thought, in Popper it becomes the relationship between the real thing and the logical statement. And it may thus be deduced that the subject must renounce certainty – the conviction to some extent that he possesses the truth about something – as being of no use; ultimately, the cognoscente subject is something instrumental, whose task consists of not hindering the development of knowledge, that is to say, of applying rational criticism continuously and extensively.66 It is problems and theories that matter. Theories, because they have a logical deductive configuration, are not only independent of the subject, but are also independent of the problem. They are not inductive or based on observations; they are preliminary hypotheses that will be tested against observations. In short, they have a deductive configuration, they are autonomous. This has an important consequence: man does not ‘invent’ theories, Popper says, he simply ‘discovers’ them. The man who conceives a theory ‘comes up against’ a coherent logical structure: some elements and a series of relations between them; he cannot alter it without affecting the whole. Moreover, he is perhaps not even capable of addressing it in its entirety, and yet, in some way, it is there. The student of the history of ideas will find that ideas have a kind of life (this is a

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metaphor, of course); that they can be misunderstood, rejected, and forgotten; that they can reassert themselves, and come to life again. Without metaphor, however, we can say that they are not identical with any man’s thought, or belief; that they can exist even if universally misunderstood, and rejected.67 Furthermore theories, when tested, engender new problems. ‘These problems’, says Popper, ‘are clearly autonomous. They are in no sense made by us; rather, they are discovered by us; and in this sense they exist, undiscovered, before their discovery. Moreover, at least some of these unsolved problems may be insoluble.’68 (b) Unintentionality. From the autonomy of World 3 one may deduce another very interesting aspect: unintentionality. ‘Larger parts of the third world are the unplanned product of human actions [. . .].’69 From the proposed theory, one may deductively draw consequences that were not envisaged by the discoverer of the initial theory. The task of revealing them may perhaps correspond to another discoverer. More generally, not only scientific theories but any human action that belongs to World 3 is performed tentatively and the consequences are unsuspected. My favourite example [. . .] is that though we have invented [. . .] the sequence of natural numbers, we did not invent the sequences of odd or even or prime or perfect numbers, which existed, even if for long unnoticed, as soon as the natural numbers did [. . .].70 This idea of unintentionality is, I think, the basic idea of World 3. Popper admits to having come to it through Descartes and he applies it to the whole broad spectrum of his theoretical concerns, including the social sciences. Man has the capacity to produce things, ideas, that have

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unforeseen – and therefore undeliberate – consequences. Theories involve ‘new, unintended and unexpected problems, autonomous problems, problems to be discovered’.71 (c) Historicity and emergence. The unintentionality and autonomy of World 3 is completed with a third idea: historicity. While it is true that ideas are autonomous, their actual incorporation into World 3 is due to human effort. World 3 is a product of the mind and has arisen step by step; it has followed a path which can be seen – in hindsight – to contain the edification, culmination and derivation of unintended consequences from the objects it contains. The emergence and growth of World 3 is therefore not straight, continuous and uniform: the human mind has had to elaborate and extract it. ‘World 3 has a history. It is the history of our ideas; not only a history of their discovery, but also a history of how we invented them [. . .].’72 But the history of World 3, is not only human; the creation of World 3 forms part of the whole process of evolution. This is where historicity is transformed into emergence. The products of World 3 emerge and they themselves help to configure World 3. Unintentionality also means emergence. Popper’s theory, first posited in epistemology, the domain of thought, of its processes, ultimately ties in with Darwinian evolutionism. And it affects evolutionism, when Popper wonders about the origin of human knowledge. According to Popper, scientific knowledge – and by extension any type of know­ledge – can be viewed within the formula of trial and elimination of error. This arrangement, in itself evolutionary, can be equated with the struggle for survival, and the survival of the fittest. New products emerge. In this process language appears: Popper considers language to be the beginning of knowledge, of the human mind. Language enables us to objectivise the subjective processes of thought, turning them into statements. Statements are communicable; statements are debatable; logical statements allow the objective growth of knowledge. Language makes exchange possible; and criticism, according to Popper, enables human reason. Language is an unintended product, the product of an activity not specifically designed for this purpose. Language works on the mind and the mind on language, and in that process of feedback the two are

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formed, according to Popper. ‘It is to this development of the higher functions of language that we owe our humanity, our reason. For our powers of reasoning are nothing but powers of critical argument.’73 It is in this two-way mutual process of interdependence that World 3 is woven, and the horizon of our own ideas is extended: language and reason arise first and then all the ideas that have been discovered over the centuries. Admitting that world 3 originates with us, I stress its considerable autonomy, and its immeasurable repercussions on us. Our minds, our selves, cannot exist without it; they are anchored in world 3. We owe to the interaction with world 3 our rationality, the practice of critical and self-critical thinking and acting. We owe to it our mental growth. And we owe to it our relation to our task, to our work, and its repercussions upon ourselves.74 The implications that World 3 has for our ideas, our behaviour, our physical surroundings, are so relevant that it might be said that it has become more important for our growth, and even for its own growth, than our creative action upon it. For almost all its growth is due to a feed-back effect: to the challenge of the discovery of autonomous problems, many of which may never be mastered.75 In other words, World 3 has such autonomy that to a great extent it shapes its own development, bringing with it our World 2, the world of our sentiments; and, via World 2, it ends up influencing World 1, the world of real things.

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(d) Self-transcendence. Self-transcendence is the term Popper coined to describe how – thanks to unintended processes and our inter­relationship with World 3 – ‘we can lift ourselves by our own bootlaces’. As we shall see Popper’s expression is singularly appropriate. ‘The great thing about world 3’, says Popper, is that, in our efforts to do our work well, we can transcend ourselves, taking the work itself, and the standards which it represents, as more significant than our own feeling and ambitions. It is not that a great artist or scientist will be or should be without ambition; but his first ambition will be to perfect his work; and he will sense his shortcomings, though appreciating at the same time the immense help which he is receiving from the objective work he is trying to create – the world 3 object. In this he will lean very heavily on the wealth of objective standards which are, as the result of the efforts of other workers, incorporated in world 3.76 In short, objective values stand above our subjective intentions. In the process of creation – of a theory or a work of art – we receive the help of the object itself, by virtue of the unintended consequences of our actions on it, or by virtue of the unpredictable consequences derived from the object itself; the result is contrasted with the standards forged by scientific or artistic tradition, which are in turn the fruit of the transcendental work of other authors. This occurs to the point where the work ends up overcoming our limitations and it is we ourselves who take advantage of the transcendence of our work by learning from it. As with our children, so with our theories, and ultimately with all the work we do:

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our products become largely independent of their makers. We may gain more knowledge from our children or from our theories than we ever imparted to them. This is how we can lift ourselves out of the morass of our ignorance; and how we can all contribute to world 3.77 10. World 3 in Gombrich I believe there are four ideas that define the haven of objectivity that is World 3: autonomy, unintentionality, emergence/historicity, and self-transcendence. The four ideas recur throughout this long work. Although I could refer to many texts from Gombrich’s oeuvre, I shall restrict myself to his lecture to the Nobel symposium: ‘Art and Self-Transcendence’ (II, 123–30). Popper commended it and there can be no doubt as to the similarity of his ideas and Gombrich’s. In my description, of course, I shall respect neither the order nor the contents of the lecture: I shall simply show that it contains the aforementioned ideas. (a) Autonomy. Artistic ideas, the objectives of art, the problems it seeks to resolve, belong to the context; they have nothing to do with the subjective problems of the artist, (or, rather, we cannot know whether they have anything to do with them or not. Neither the artist nor the public knows; and, ultimately, it does not matter at all whether it is known or not.) Gombrich defends himself from ‘abstract expressionism’, from the idea that it is the expression of itself that matters. And he remarks: as a historian I would reply that the problems and values of art [. . .] have emerged from the problems and values of the craft. It is a fact of history that most of the great artists of the Western tradition have felt involved with the

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solution of problems rather than with the expression of their personality. (II, 125) He adds a particularly fitting example: Van Gogh. No one better illustrates the relationship between an artist’s life and his work. The whorls that fill his skies and disturb the leaves of his cypresses or the tortuous furrows of his landscapes might well express the turbulence of a ­tormented mind. Gombrich reproduces two fine extracts from Van Gogh’s letters to his brother Theo, in which he speaks of his ‘mental effort’ to balance the six essential colours; of his work as a ‘cool calculation’ or ‘complicated calculus’. And Gombrich concludes by saying that the problem he had set himself was not only his personal whim. It had emerged in the context of art, he had learned about it in his contacts with fellow artists whom he admired or rejected, whom he wished to emulate or even to surpass. (II, 126) The problems Van Gogh faced arose from his environment; and precisely because they appear in the context of art, the artistic problems can be said to have a life of their own, a certain autonomy. Years later Popper commented on this example: Einstein once said ‘My pencil is more intelligent than I.’ It is clear what he means: his pencil, the writing down of his equations, helped him to solve problems, equations, whose solution he could not anticipate. Van Gogh speaks not very differently. Even though, being less happy and more dissatisfied with his work, he perhaps might not have said that his brush was cleverer than he, he did stress the objectivity of his

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problem, and of the need to wrestle with it, in order to obtain his solutions.78 (b) Unintentionality. This idea is linked to the previous one. Autonomy looks at things from the side of the art work, that autonomous result of the artist; and unintentionality does so from the side of the artist: the art work arises with the aid of the artist, but the artist encounters unforeseen elements, which were already there, and which therefore are really ‘discoveries’ and not inventions. Each new solution brings with it innumerable problems that call for new solutions. Take an elementary artistic problem that may go back to the dawn of history: the decoration of a pot with an evenly spaced row of marks. Whether or not we postulate a subjective ‘decorative urge’ that drives the craftsman on, he must still submit himself to the objective realities of the situation and work out the number and the intervals of marks till they fit. A richer pattern, covering a wider area, would demand correspondingly more attention to the limiting factors involved. However, this attention is likely to be rewarded by the discovery of fresh relationships emerging unplanned between the decorative elements, and these might be exploited and adjusted in their turn. (II, 125) The discovery of unforeseen relations brings the artist up against the possibility of new solutions. Such solutions will be the unintended products of a process that was not destined to discover them. In many other places Gombrich speaks on this subject, but this example has the advantage of having been commented on by Karl Popper:

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I am not, as Professor Gombrich is, rich in examples of word 3 problems from the history of art. Thus he mentions ‘an elementary artistic problem [. . .]’. The similarity with the invention of natural numbers, and the autonomous emergence of the problems of odd and even numbers, and of prime numbers, is striking.79 (c) Historicity-emergence. Works of art have a history because the problems and solutions, which give rise to new problems, are transmitted from artist to artist, and are once again surpassed and replaced by others. This process is identified with artistic traditions, where the subjective motivations of the artist are turned into objective situations, relations between the resources that one possesses and the aims one seeks to fulfil. I would like to add to the previous example a remark Gombrich made on this subject. On this model it is easy to see how the craftsman’s experience can crystallize in simple rules of procedure which can become embodied in the tradition, enabling the next generation to take certain problems in their stride and advance to the solution of fresh ones, which are always likely to emerge in their work. (II, 125) It would be too rounded to include a remark from Popper here; but I will content myself with the comment above. Popper spoke of ‘auton­ omous emergence’ problems and solutions. That autonomous emergence leads to the intelligible process that constitutes history: solutions originate new problems that require new solutions. The process has a history because we understand that certain problems call for and are resolved

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with certain solutions. But the emergence that accompanies historicity consists of the fact that that process, when viewed with sufficient perspective, does not only involve an autonomous chain of problems and solutions, but ultimately involves the person who studies them. For this reason, I wanted to allude, somewhat forcedly, to the issue of language. The mind creates language as an unintended product. And language, Popper believes, makes the mind. The application of this radical idea to art history, is not clearly expressed in this article. However, it is present: ‘in freely submitting to a great work of art and exploring its infinite richness we can discover the reality of self-transcending values’ (II, 130). In the course of this book, we shall have a chance to examine this idea; the discovery of those values is only possible through art. As with language, in the case of those artistic values too, mind becomes mind (cf. T, 73ff.). (d) Self-transcendence. This is the final idea I wish to discuss. And it is, indeed, contained in the words of Gombrich cited in the paragraphs above. In the course of history, a progress occurs in which each contribution involves new contributions, giving it an autonomous emergence. This emergence also operates on the subjects in a process of feedback: the subject contributes to improving the work and the work improves the subject. The idea of historicity-emergence refers more to the part that affects the traditions in World 3. The idea of self-transcendence refers to the subject. The subject receives help from the object that he has created or tries to create, surpassing himself. In this case, I can provide a confirmatory quotation from Popper; moreover, his words spare me from citing Gombrich, since Popper does so himself. As Gombrich says, and I fully agree: ‘an artist [. . .] works within a medium that is preshaped by tradition. He has before him the benefit of countless experiments in creating orders of a similar kind and value. Moreover, in setting out to create another such ordered and meaningful

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arrangement [. . .] he will discover new and unintended relationships during the process of creation, which his watchful mind can exploit and follow up, till the richness and complexity of the work transcends in fact any configuration that could be planned from scratch.’80 11. Trigger Theory If the issue had ended in the previous paragraph, Gombrich would not be Gombrich; he would appear to be a brilliant disseminator of Popper’s ideas. I have already discussed one difference in terms of the inter­ pretation of historical data. It is time I added a few more. In answer to my request Gombrich sent me his opinion on Popper’s ideas on World 3, and their limitations when it comes to understanding art. In the course of our friendship we have had so many conversations that I do not remember when he first broached this subject of ‘objectivity’, but it was still in connection with his anti-psychologism. I am convinced that his insight is very important but my emphasis might be a little different. He does not deny that the 3 worlds interact with each other but he is less interested in this interaction than I may be. I remember that during one of our first conversations when he spoke about music as belonging to world three I suggested that the same was true of his favourite cake, the Sachertorte he just had for his birthday. He agreed that that recipe belonged to world three, but I am also

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interested in our biological disposition to respond to this recipe [. . .]. (London, 2 August 1987) The paragraph is truly eloquent. Gombrich is more interested than Popper in the interaction that World 3 objects cause in the world and the human mind. World 3 indistinctly includes a Mozart symphony and the recipe for a birthday cake. For this reason, it is helpful to examine our subjective and differentiated response to works of art, finding in it some substratum that allows us to argue on the value of great works of art with some objectivity. Gombrich argues that our response to art works is based on biological disposition. Gombrich focuses on this point: art, works of art, cause a response because they affect basic dispositions. Note that if this is true, one might argue that what ultimately matters is the personal response. The value of a work of art could be said to be measurable in terms of its potential to provoke a suitable response. Since that response is based on basic human dispositions, the achievements of art are objective. An evaluation of art will ultimately be based on factors that form part of human nature. With this approach, one can understand Gombrich’s interest in the theories on animal behaviour developed in recent years. Specifically, that set of phenomena that can be grouped together under the title ‘Trigger Theory’. Trigger Theory81 can be defined briefly: for the sake of their survival, living beings are given the capacity to react immediately to certain configurations; or to put it another way, certain configurations ‘trigger’ an automatic response in some animals. This reaction is probably innate. This effect represents a notable economy in the processes of perception and response of living organisms. And that immediate reaction constitutes the best defence or help to guard against threats or obtain benefits. An example Gombrich quotes in Art and Illusion: the stickleback reacts violently to the presence of moving red marks. The males of the species have markings of that colour on their belly. And the appearance of a red sign alerts them to the possibility that there

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may be an invader in their territory and, therefore, a possible opponent. It is important to stress that it is the red mark that ‘triggers’ the response, sparking an immediate aggressive reaction: there is no ‘process’ of information capture, preparation, checking, etc. The animal is immediately on alert and ready to fight. In this way it gains time and energy. Ethologists call these processes precoding. They are understood to trigger innate activation mechanisms (cf. SO, 114 n.). There are two interesting aspects in this phenomenon. The first is that the fish does not need a particularly finished shape to trigger its response: any red mark will do. Everything is geared towards ensuring its safety. Requiring too much information would be a clear waste of time; it would even take up much more attention, since the light and transparency and other circumstances of the medium vary greatly; an overly demanding trigger would be activated only in extremely certain situations, with the evident risk of ignoring less obvious threats. For this reason, for the sake of safety, any red mark will do, and red here has a relatively wide definition. The trigger is very sensitive; for it to be activated, only the slightest pressure of a specific type of shape is required. Because that is the other aspect of the issue: there is only an automatic response to certain specific configurations; all others are examined using other processes. Gombrich has often dwelt on this phenomenon.82 And hence, also, his interest in ethology, particularly the work of the late Konrad Lorenz. This author, who might be considered to be the founder of ethology, is often mentioned in Gombrich’s books on perception.83 The example of the fish, of course, comes from one of Lorenz’s disciples. Nonetheless, although Gombrich frequently cites Lorenz, he does not share his moral conclusions (cf. MH, 163 n. 11) and is not entirely sure of its foundations (cf. AI, 101 n.) and he sometimes adds quotations from authors who disagree with these theories (cf. AI, 103 n. and MH, 14 n. 10). Through Lorenz, Gombrich finds the means of interpreting a basic trigger for certain land animals and also for man: the face ‘we inevitably see’ when we draw two black dots with a line below, an issue he discusses in his article on the hobby horse (cf. MH, 6).84 Gombrich often uses this example because, as he says in that article, it clearly shows that

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‘our automatic response is stronger than our intellectual awareness’ (ibid.); however hard we try, we cannot reduce the image to its real components: two dots and a line: we see a face. That this phenomenon corresponds to a biological legacy is proven by the fact that the form of the eyes is found as camouflage on the body of some animals; the wings of certain butterflies or the abdomen of certain larvae have marks that are reminiscent of eyes: animals with few other defences can thus protect themselves from powerful predators by scaring them off with the insinuation of a face. The response is rooted in deep biological strata; intelligence can drive it but never eliminate it. ‘The point is just that reaction precedes reflection, both phylogenetically as psychologically. What distinguishes us from the animals is not the absence of automatic responses, but the capacity to probe them and to experiment with them’ (51, 204). 12. Elements for an Aesthetics of Effects Trigger Theory shows that human beings respond objectively – they all respond and in the same way – to certain configurations. Evidently the devices of art are ultimately grounded on that response. Of course, Gombrich does not by any means claim that this is the whole story. If man were a simple response-producing machine, that would be the end of it, but that is not the case. Gombrich does not seek to reduce art to a biological issue; he wishes to defend the idea that the arts are based on a basic stratum, even if that stratum has been enormously altered in each of us by the conventions assimilated when we acquire our culture. What Gombrich wants to highlight is that works of art act on spectators, provoking a response, and to that extent they are effective. Throughout this work, I shall try to show what that response consists of. For the moment, suffice to say that Gombrich wants to build what he calls an ‘aesthetics of effects’: the study of art, of artistic forms, through the effect they arouse in the viewer. Using Trigger Theory, the history of art as a solution to problems, becomes the history of art as the creation of effects.

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Such an aesthetics of effects rests on the empirical observation that we all react to sense impressions, whether we experience them in nature or in front of works of art. It matters little whether we can regard such effects as constant or whether they are conditioned by culture. There certainly exist elementary reactions which are almost or wholly universal, for instance the impression made by light, by bright or shining surfaces, by the disgusting and by the erotically arousing. What concerns me is only that all arts make systematic use of such effects and that the artist therefore builds on observations he has made on himself and on others. That is why I like to insist on the formulation that the artist must be a discoverer. (T, 108–9) Instinctive reactions, whatever stratum they come from, cannot be the whole story. For Gombrich, the value of an art work is something fundamental. And that value cannot be reduced to its capacity to arouse an irrational response: it must involve the whole man. The response to art is a very deep human response. Once we abandon our innate responses and enter the domain of conventions, it also becomes necessary to abandon that haven of objective ideas that is World 3. The great human ideas may be founded on an objectivity to which human reason has access; even if it cannot entirely understand them. It will always be possible to explain the perfection of its logical network, and understand its value. In the case of art, this cannot be so. Outside the sphere of elementary responses to elementary signs, the art work arouses a type of response that can never be explained objectively. One has to turn to subjectivity. When we enter the world of merely subjective responses, we abandon the possibility of evaluating art – whether something is good or bad; everything comes down to taste – the

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relativism is total. Over the years, Gombrich has taken on various theories, nuclear ideas and sets of ideas that allow him to explain the subjective response, without compromising the objectivity of the artistic evaluation: the great masters are truly great. In reality, as also happens with Popper, they are ideas he has come up against throughout his life. Gombrich’s concern for theory has led him to hoover them up, trying to fit them into a wider whole. Naturally, any study of an author’s sources requires simplifications, and any simplification is dangerous – and I am going to simplify greatly. Nonetheless, I hope that such simplification will result in greater clarity and will not overly stretch the truth of the facts. My confidence lies precisely in the fact that what is at issue are not facts, but ideas. As I have said, those ideas were already there. Gombrich acquired them through direct contact with their discoverers or with still living trad­ itions. And he took what he needed from them. In my opinion, in Gombrich’s work, as in Popper’s ideas, one can find three major influences: Freud’s psychoanalysis, Huizinga’s concept of ‘homo ludens’, and classic rhetoric. Each one can be summarised in a paradigm: the joke, the game, the discourse. This short list is truly surprising: Huizinga was a well-known opponent of psychoanalysis, and rhetoric has little to do with Freud. However, what these contributions have in common is that they study the problem of the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity, applying each one to a different field. Psychoanalysis teaches the way in which external reality and unconscious longing are combined – or, strictly speaking, come into conflict. It contributes, in short, the thesis that there exist in humans various instances with a different level of consciousness. The effect, which constitutes the value of art, affects all them. Freud refers to this in his theory of the joke. And the paradigm of the joke contributes a theory of artistic creation: a theory of the personal component of evaluation. The homo ludens expresses an interpretation of human life as a game. In the game the objectivity of achievement is combined perfectly with the subjective satisfaction of the spectators who know how to appreciate it. Moreover, the objectivity of the achievement consists of

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that subjective satisfaction. For this reason, the game is a very eloquent paradigm for the evaluation of art, a paradigm for the social component of the subjective evaluation. Finally, rhetoric contributes something that cannot be provided by the other elements. Here, too, the objective success of the discourse depends on the subjective response of the listeners. But what rhetoric contributes is, above all, the fact that ‘ears change’; a speech that once brought an auditorium to tears may today appear archaic or mannered. Rhetoric provides an analogy for the evolution of artistic evaluation: a model for the historical component of evaluation. The time has come to tackle Freud’s ideas, which are an ideal counter­ point to the preceding paragraphs containing Popper’s ideas.

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2. The Joke

Let us now turn to a second paradigm: the joke. It is important to mention this subject since Gombrich adopts it in full consciousness, stating that it is of key importance for a theory of art. However, the true engine of Gombrich’s theory is not joke but caricature, in other words the visual joke. Anyone wishing to build a history of Gombrich’s ideas should bear in mind how many of them emerge from his early studies on caricature; caricature is an invitation to consider summarised for­mulae – the theme of Art and Illusion – distinguishing features, visual discovery and the characteristics of the joke.1 As in science, in this field, too, Gombrich has taken his ideas from theories he has run into over his life. The joke, with its psychoanalytical context, has become highly important for Gombrich and I think it is worth enlarging on this point. Here we can differentiate between two aspects: Gombrich’s reverential attitude towards the figure of Freud, and his only partial – if intelligent – adoption of some of the elements of Freud’s psychology.

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Gombrich never met Freud in person.2 However, he did meet and form a lasting friendship with one of Freud’s last and most faithful collaborators, Ernst Kris. It is crucial, I believe, to talk about this figure, without whom the influence and scope of the ideas of psychoanalysis in Gombrich’s work cannot be fully understood and assessed. I shall therefore start with Kris. 1. Kris and Freud Ernst Kris was a truly interesting character. The close friendship that Gombrich and he developed lasted until Kris’s death. There were two aspects of Kris that appear to have left a deep impression on Gombrich; he was both an extraordinary scholar and a psychoanalyst from Freud’s circle of faithful disciples. Kris was born in 1900, and studied at the University of Vienna. He was a favoured disciple of Julius von Schlosser and reviewed the proofs and compiled the index for the first edition of his Die Kunstliteratur.3 In the book, Schlosser referred to him as his ‘il mio vero primo scolaro [. . .], che da lungo tempo mi è vicino e mi ha seguito sempre cordialmente su vie spesso lontane [. . .]’.4 Kris later worked as the curator of the collection of sculpture and applied arts at the Kunsthistorische Museum in Vienna. There he became a true expert in the study of bronze sculptures, glyptic art and all kinds of craft items. However, by one of those remote paths that Schlosser speaks of, Kris came to meet Freud. It was his fiancée, Marianne Rie, who introduced them. Marianne was the daughter of Oscar Rie, a paediatrician and friend of Freud, who formed part of his circle of correspondence. She was also a friend of Anna Freud who persuaded her father to analyse her free of charge; which he did for several years and he held her in great esteem.5 Marianne went on to become a psychoanalyst. In 1924, during her engagement to Kris, Freud suggested that it would be a good idea for her future husband to undergo analysis; Kris accepted (cf. T, 224). He appears to have been psychoanalysed by Anna Freud, after whom the couple named one of their children.6 In time, Kris too became a psychoanalyst.

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He gradually began to orient his life towards psychoanalysis. However, Freud recommended that he should not give up his art research and his work at the museum. He later entrusted him with the editorship of the journal Imago, which had been founded in 1912 by Otto Rank and Hans Sachs to spread the ideas of psychoanalysis in non-­ medical spheres. Otto Rank had since abandoned Freud, and Sachs had moved to America in 1932. In that same year, Kris had published a piece in the Jahrbuch on the late Baroque sculptor Messerschmidt,7 famous for his physiognomic experiments. Kris had discovered that Messerschmidt was a psychopath, and thus for the first time managed to forge a link between art and psychoanalysis. Even Schlosser praised the article (cf. 6, 162). He followed it with a major publication written in collaboration with Otto Kurz on the legends that have grown up across the world on the peculiar temperament of artists and the magic of images.8 And in 1934 he proposed to Gombrich that the two could work on a study of the facial expression in art. From all this, Kris took themes for Imago. Given the political situation, Kris decided to abandon the work on expression and address another theme where he saw potential for psychoanalytical interpretation – an essay on the theory of caricature and its function. However, the situation was becoming increasingly difficult for a Jewish researcher like Kris. Nonetheless, he decided to continue working alongside Freud and remained in Vienna until 1938. He then moved to London and, after Freud’s death, to America in 1940, where until his death he kept in close contact with the orthodox branch of psychoanalysis. Gombrich has written of Kris’s absolute allegiance to Freud: He did not feel entitled to advance an apodictic statement which might be found not to be in accord with Freud’s theory. Moreover he was quite genuinely convinced that any new idea he would think he had conceived, would and could be found anticipated somewhere in the

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collected works of Freud. Indeed, one of the forms his withdrawal would take, then [1934–5] and later, when one reminded him of the vistas he had opened, was to say with a shrug, there is nothing new in this, everybody would know it if people only knew how to read Freud. (T, 229) This impression is backed by Kris’s writings: he speaks very deferentially of Sigmund Freud and disapprovingly of the work of some heterodox psychoanalysts such as Jung, Rank, etc.9 Gombrich’s testimony, which is corroborated by major authors from the psychoanalytical world,10 presents us with an example of the type of loyalty (or disloyalty) that Freud engendered. Freud always tried to maintain the appearance of preparing theses and developing his work scientifically. At the same time, however, he tried to ensure that his lifework was immortalised, insisting that his disciples attend exclusively to his principles and prohibiting them from having dealings with other schools of psychology.11 He demanded unswerving allegiance, which sometimes resulted in noisy schisms. As has often been noted, Freud’s followers clearly kept up their association not only out of an interest in psychoanalytical theories and methods, but because of the appeal of being psychoanalysed. However the powerful personality of Freud himself exercised a huge power of attraction; the unconditional loyalty he commanded among many of his disciples contained this important personal element. Kris was at all times an exemplary disciple: very loyal, very educated and very hard-working. 2. The Aesthetics of Freud There is a relatively extensive bibliography on the subject of aesthetics in Freud. We shall not analyse it in detail here, since, as we shall see, Kris largely ignored the subject. I shall, however, address Gombrich’s analysis of this aesthetic. Waelder, a scholar of the subject, summarises Freud’s position in the following terms:

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Freud saw in art, above all, an opportunity for the fulfilment, in fantasy, of wishes which in real life are frustrated either by external obstacles or by moral inhibitions. Art, then, is a kind of wild-life preserve in the development from the pleasure principle to the reality principle and serves as a safety valve in civilization.12 This being the case, his best-known works, the studies of Leonardo da Vinci and Dostoyevsky,13 focus more on the relationship between the artist and his work, and more specifically on reconstructing the artist’s internal conflicts on the basis of significant features of his work. In short, he deals with problems that affect the content more than the form; a preferably ‘literary’ content, that can be broadly expressed in words, allowing associations to be identified that would reveal repressed, condemned or frustrated desires.14 This endeavour ended up affecting his work itself. The study on Da Vinci is perhaps his most famous piece on art (although not Freud’s favourite). His famous interpretation is based on a historical novel by Merezhkovsky which years before had been his preferred reading. The book had inspired him to view Da Vinci’s The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne in terms of the ‘Oedipus complex’. But he made the mistake of confusing a species of kite mentioned in Da Vinci’s memoirs with a vulture, due to a mistranslation in the source material. The vulture was a key which, through Egyptian mythology, substantiated Freud’s hypothesis of the Oedipus complex. This slip – spotted as early as 1923 – and Freud’s shocking interpretation of the drawing, aroused great controversy from the 1940s on. Some also sought to discover Freud’s unconscious reasons for writing the treatise. Freud never substantially altered his thesis that the picture was a reflection of Da Vinci’s Oedipal experiences, although he played down the importance of the essay. This is not the place to discuss the complete history of Freud’s writings on aesthetics. Nonetheless, it is important to note that he frequently makes reference to another element, the game, which is a core feature

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for many theories of art. It is particularly central to his book on Jokes, which I shall discuss below. Nonetheless, leading authors have argued that, even in this case, Freud could only try to reduce this element to the basic forces of psychoanalysis.15 3. Psychoanalysis and Art For whatever reason, the fact is that psychoanalysis proved incapable of seriously addressing the nature of genius and the value of the art work. Freud was aware of the limitations of his method (I shall discuss this below in reference to Gombrich’s analysis of Freud’s aesthetics). At the same time, Freud’s disciples were also aware of the circumstantial limitations of the method. Kris tried to prevent him from addressing these themes in his writings (cf. T, 256). Nonetheless, for early psychoanalysis, art was a constant temptation.16 According to Kris, the interest in art engendered among psycho­ analysts is partly due to a desire to corroborate their theses with evidence from fields outside clinical pathology. Psychoanalysts focused their attention, firstly, on problems of art history that required psychological explanations: hence, the ubiquity of images: the surprising fact that recurring themes can be found in literature and mythology. Secondly, they tried to trace the relationship between the artist’s life and his work. And, thirdly, they endeavoured to explain the creative imagination in psychoanalytical terms. Kris’s evaluation of the results in his most famous work, Psycho­ analytic Explorations in Art, is very precise, and, in general terms, negative. For a start he felt that no psychoanalytical psychology of art could be said to exist (Kris was writing before 1952). As regards the first of these points – which is of little interest here – few definitive conclusions have been reached other than a confirmation of the complexity of the theme. With regard to the second point, there have been some interesting studies, but ‘we do not at present have tools which would permit us to investigate the roots of gift or talent, not to speak of genius’,17 although some promising advances can be seen. As for the situation in which the artist works, Kris recognises that ‘there is little

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which psychoanalysis has as yet contributed to an understanding of the meaning of this framework itself; the psychology of artistic style is unwritten’.18 With regard to the third point, the creative imagination, Kris says that ‘the tools which psychoanalytic theory puts here at our disposal have not yet been fully utilized’.19 Kris clarified that if in complex form, while art may be considered to be communication between one and many, if the artist creates the work, then his public necessarily recreates to some extent. However, to explain the psychological processes connected with art, its creation and its re-creation, constitutes a problem that we can hardly hope to solve. All we can hope is to approach it from afar, but we are entitled to value every step we are able to take in the desired direction.20 Gombrich said that Kris abhorred the vulgarised versions of psycho­ analysis (T, 229). A field like art lends itself to such analysis. Kris’s work is an example of caution and rigour; the quotes above illustrate his sharp critical sense and his mastery of psychoanalytical thinking. Nonetheless, for the same reason, his work also contains passages that are difficult to understand, and riddled with technical psychoanalytical terminology. And at the same time, the conclusions of the central chapters inevitably dwell on the basic conflicts on which psychoanalysis has been built – sexual repressions. Moreover – as was common at the time – he uses abundant clinical pathological cases and references to primitive, magic and mythical concepts to illustrate his case. His conclusions are sometimes shocking; on occasions they border on the grotesque. The same is true when he turns to some important themes. For Kris, inspiration, for example, was reduced to flows of Besetzungen – cathexes or charges – which give a greater or lesser sexualisation21 and which he relates to the phase of ‘homosexual passivity’. He goes on to mention the difficulties that exist for understanding inspiration, which he also recognises to be frequent amongst women and children.22

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He also argues that ‘in the full metaphorical sense inspiration implies a state of a sometimes scarcely veiled sexual character which is best exemplified by reports of the changes in sex actually occurring with the shamans of certain Mongolian tribes’.23 Kris’s importance in the psychoanalytical world started with his discovery of the possibilities contained in one of Freud’s somewhat disregarded works: Der Witz und seine Beziehungen zum Umbewussten,24 his book on the joke. Kris, as we have mentioned, was a curator at the Vienna Museum of Art and had access to one of the finest princely collections in the world: the Habsburg collection; among other items, it includes a vast number of small pieces of great quality, some profusely decorated with grottesche. These items are an example of the extraordinary expansion in this genre in Northern Europe. Kris wrote a monumental work on some of those items: Meister und Meisterwerke der Steinschneidekunst in der Italianische Renaissance.25 Naturally, in his work on the grottesche, he discovered an art form that ranged between the extravagant, the comic and the erotic. It was the perfect field for a future analyst. And that strange form of ornamentation led him to the book by Freud. 4. Freud and the Joke Freud discovered that, under certain circumstances, aggressive or erotic insinuations will find a way of overcoming censorship, via the comic. This was certainly Freud’s first intuition, suggested to him by the surprising reaction he observed in some of his patients, who laughed when he gave them his interpretation of their unconscious as revealed through their dreams. Freud’s interpretation was based on and was full of erotic and aggressive references. Freud also loved to collect jokes and anecdotes, particularly Jewish ones, which he recounted wittily and with a good sense of timing. Obviously, many jokes contained a manifestly aggressive and, in some cases, erotic provocation. In this they resembled dreams; but there were other similarities too. It must have been a revelation for Freud to discover that, to some extent, the creation of a joke resembled the development

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of a dream. In a dream the ‘ego’, the principle of reality, loses force and the ‘id’ roams free. Ideas – representations of instincts – that have been repressed by censorship for their libidinous content, accumulate in the unconscious. Such ideas are continuously being shuffled around, attracting others and branching off, in such a way that incompatible ideas can co-exist. What Freud called ‘primary process’ is in perpetual motion, trying to create branches so far removed from the repressed idea that the associated idea can overcome the barrier of censorship and release its charge. The charges of the repressed ideas, among other mechanisms, may be transformed; this transformation may occur by adding charges on a single idea which is a ramification of the censored one, i.e. the ‘condensation’; or, transmitting the full amount of its charge to another, to what Freud calls ‘displacement’. Peculiar types of displacement are the ‘sublimation’ by which the instinct is directed towards more acceptable goals whose satisfaction comes to replace the initial target; and the ‘transference’ typical of analysis: the destination of the instinct is transferred to the analyst him- or herself. ‘Condensation’ is, ultimately, the mechanism whereby representations corresponding to very different ideas can appear; and through ‘displacement’ something can symbolise a very different idea to that which is manifested. In reality, although the exposition is ridiculously short, one can see that it contains sufficient elements to describe symbolic forms, with multiple meanings and causes. In his book on jokes, after providing a list of theories on the subject, Freud goes on to catalogue the main types of joke, in a well system­ atised way,26 displaying a clear understanding of the subject. He then presents the aims of the joke in terms that are accessible to psychoanalysis; he concludes that the purpose of the joke is to give pleasure to the listener. The joke presents erotic or aggressive contents to the audience in a form that allows the teller to overcome the pressure of the others and of his or her own censorship. To achieve this, the problematic contents are associated with various other meanings by presenting a characteristic ambiguity, which is very similar to dream images. That collaboration is typical of the primary process in the unconscious. To the pleasure that comes from this satisfaction, one must add the

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pleasure gained from the mental activity itself. This is a functional pleasure, the pleasure of a mind that returns to a childlike state and enjoys itself, just like a child exploring the possibilities of combining language, jumbling words in meaningless phrases. But, as Freud says, the characteristic of this mechanism lies in the fact that there is a sudden release from censorship; and it makes it possible to view the joke from an exclusively psychoanalytical perspective. For Freud, the pleasure of the joke derives from the momentary suspension of the expenditure of the energy used to keep up repression, due to the attraction exercised by offering a bonus of pleasure. It is a question of economy, and the energy thus gained is often discharged in the form of laughter. Freud warned that although in some aspects there is a strong resemblance between jokes and dreams, there are also some fundamental differences. Jokes are public and are performed while awake. A joke cannot be performed without the peculiar collaboration of the ‘ego’. In the dream nothing of this holds true. Freud would later return to the issue of humour,27 but from a different angle. The treatment Freud used in Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, highlighted the protagonism of the ‘I’; the ego was able to put the primary process to its service. Freud was more interested in stressing the importance of the ‘id’ and he gradually abandoned the problems raised by this essay. His decision may have been influenced by Adler’s defection and his creation of the ‘individual psychology’.28 In any case, in the latter stages of his life he had more reservations and even reticence about the so-called ‘ego psychology’, which some of his disciples began to promote. 5. The Psychology of the Ego The disciples who developed ‘ego psychology’ were mainly Hans Hartmann, Rudolf Loewenstein and Ernst Kris.29 They wanted to continue applying Freud’s theses in the field of the ‘ego’; and they did so with the backing of Anna Freud, torch-bearer of her father’s work. Some have criticised the faithfulness of these authors’ ideas,30 but they did have close personal ties to Freud.

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It is in this context that we must view Kris’s development of the ideas contained in Jokes, especially the discovery that the ‘ego’ is capable of placing the primary process at its service. The formula coined by Kris, ‘regression in the service of the ego’, is very significant; developing this idea means blurring the primitive distinction between the primary and secondary process that stands at the forefront of Freud’s theses.31 According to Freud the conflict is established because the ‘id’ cannot satisfy the urges of its instincts, which are detained by the principle of reality, the ‘ego’, outside consciousness, in the unconscious. Freud was aware that there were plenty of relationships between the two processes; ultimately, the domain of the ‘ego’, the conscious and to some extent the preconscious is something that has emerged from the unconscious and has settled down only after puberty. In the case of psychopathology, or while asleep, the primary ocean appears to submerge consciousness. Fantasies of the normal, repressed contents and replacements can also emerge into consciousness by overcoming censorship with greater or lesser ease. In any case, the intervention of the ‘ego’ in the primary process involves a certain change in roles: here the rational, the ‘ego’, can dispose of the irrational. I do not feel qualified to explain in detail the consequences that may be drawn from this change. But it is important to note that Kris tries by all means possible to respect Sigmund Freud’s achievements. Referring to psychoanalytical interpretations of art and in particular those of Jung and Rank, he says: Many of them eliminate constructs [. . .] which seem highly serviceable and do not replace what they omit except by recourse to concepts unrelated to psychoanalysis itself; and thus the usefulness of psychoanalysis as a theory is impaired [. . .] [Sometimes] the conceptual framework of psychoanalysis has been simplified to a point of where it can contribute hardly more than commonsense psychology of the pre-Freud era.32

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His attempt in Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art, opposing abbreviations and simplifications, is based on the assumption that ‘the complete system of psychoanalysis offers at present the best chances for understanding and predicting human behavior’.33 One should note, in Kris’s favour, that ‘the abridgments and simplifications’ of the authors cited refer both to the psychoanalytical theories and the facts they seek to explain. This inevitably caused the limitations that Kris encountered and recognised, as I have already mentioned. Nonetheless, Kris’s presentation of the preparation of the joke as a paradigm of artistic preparation was a small time bomb in the open but exclusivist and all-embracing system of psychoanalysis. As Spector remarked, all teaching in North America received ‘flank support from the argument of Ernst Kris that art was not, as Freud had insisted, a sublimation of brute impulses, but rather a “regression in the service of the ego” ’.34 And A. Ehrenzweig adds that ‘the great psychoanalyst and art historian E. Kris prepared the way for recasting our concept of the primary process by suggesting that the creative mind can allow conscious functions to lapse in a controlled regression towards the primary process’.35 In the same piece, he quotes Marion Milner, who on Freud’s centenary, ‘put forward the plea that a revision of the concept of the primary process was in the air and that the facts of aesthetics and art called for this revision’.36 6. Gombrich and Kris Clearly Freud’s influence on Gombrich comes by way of Ernst Kris. And it is also evident that this influence has a personal element. Only thus can we understand Gombrich’s intuitive grasp of psychoanalysis. The relationship between Kris and Gombrich was very close during some decisive years. A warm friendship grew up between them which Gombrich mentions whenever the occasion arises. He is often both affectionate and admiring in the numerous mentions he makes to Kris in his work. And Kris responded in similar terms. For Gombrich, Kris was his ‘guide and mentor’,37 as he has said on more than one occasion.

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Gombrich came into contact with Ernst Kris during his third year at university in 1931. Schlosser used to set his students an exercise which involved studying some artistic objects of uncertain date. Schlosser even gave some sessions of his seminar at the Kunsthistorische Museum, where he had worked before gaining his professorship. That year, Gombrich was charged with studying a Carolingian ivory with the figure of St Gregory the Great. The next year, Schlosser entrusted him with an ivory pyx.38 During his visits to the museum, Gombrich asked Kris, curator of the section of decorative arts, to allow him to take the work in his hands. Their first encounter did not go too well. However, after further visits, Kris eventually tackled him and asked him why he was studying art history; he must realise that, at most, he would come to be one of those specialists who catalogued the collections and assessed pieces. If he really did have intellectual interests, he should follow a different path – he should take up psychology. He also advised him to change the subject of his study. In all likelihood, Kris was referring to psychoanalysis, which, by this time – as we have seen – played a leading role in his life. Gombrich was greatly struck by Kris’s comments, but took them as a joke. At the annual comedy performance at the university, Gombrich put Kris’s words in the mouth of one of the characters. Kris, however, was in the audience and as soon as he got the chance, he approached him again. Gombrich later transcribed the conversation: ‘Tell me [. . .] why do you really study the history of art, if you can write such plays?’ (T, 224). Gombrich adds: He never retracted, and I know that this little interview must indeed have had a lasting effect on my development. I never became the kind of art historian Kris wanted to castigate in his homily, indeed I never became the expert and master of a field such as Kris had become before he was thirty. (Ibid.)

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This happened in 1932. In that year, Kris, who had now completed his work on Messerschmidt, was interested in the legends that had built up around artistic creation. In his opinion, they illustrated the mysterious appeal that the power of the artist aroused among the public. Indeed, an astonishing web of fantastic legends had grown up around Messerschmidt. Kris was looking for a copyist and contacted Otto Kurz, a brilliant student of art history who had just completed his studies. Otto Kurz was a very close friend of Gombrich’s, even though he was one year above him. Kurz, who went on to become one of the most renowned scholars of his generation, had already published several studies at an incredibly early age. However, at this time he was out of work, partly due to his Jewish heritage. During this period, Gombrich reports that he and Kurz tried to learn Chinese from a missionary to pass the time (cf. T, 238). Kris took Kurz on as his assistant and between them they gathered an enormous quantity of material, working in perfect rapport (cf. T, 239). The result of their labours was the book I have already quoted on legends about art and artists.39 In the foreword by Gombrich, written many years later, after both authors had died (Kurz in 1975), he recalled ‘the zest and pleasure which pervaded the atmosphere whenever I visited them after their joint sessions’ (58, xiv). With the rise of Hitler and a growth in anti-Semitism, the situation became worse. Kurz was beaten during Nazi riots at the university. In spring 1933, through the mediation of Kris, he moved to Hamburg, eventually going to work at the Warburg Institute. The Nazi threat grew and the Institute moved to London in December 1933. Kurz set up home in England in April 1934, under very difficult conditions (cf. T, 239–40). He went on to work as the Institute’s librarian for many years. Having completed his previous work, in 1933 Kris wanted to develop another of the themes he had seen in Messerschmidt: a study of phys­ iognomic expression. He wanted to start with the famous statues of the founders at the cathedral in Naumburg. Kris believed that the artists had used expressive formulae; nonetheless, the result had been a very real expression, very marked and yet very ambiguous. Kurz suggested

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that he ask Gombrich for help. Gombrich, who had completed his PhD thesis that year, was out of work at the time and began working with Kris (cf. 103, 129). After Kurz left for the Warburg Institute, Gombrich stayed on as the sole assistant. The research on expression brought Kris into contact with an authority from the Vienna of the time: Karl Bühler, a scholar of language and expression in general. In an exchange of assistants, Gombrich served as an experimental subject in Bühler’s seminar (cf. T, 227). Gombrich mentions that the collaboration was only made possible thanks to Kris’s political gifts, since Bühler was manifestly opposed to psychoanalysis (cf. 6, 163). At the time, Bühler was completing the works that were to make him famous, Ausdruckstheorie, 40 a theory of expression, which he published before completing the aforementioned experiments – which he cites in the book – and Sprachtheorie, 41 a theory of language, based on an article from 1933 and on his academic courses that Gombrich had had the opportunity to read (cf. 6, 163–4). He also met some of Bühler’s assistants who would later become famous in their own right. In March 1933, Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss dissolved the Austrian parliament; in July 1934, he was assassinated by a Nazi group. The situation was becoming increasingly tense. A chance event – Kris told a joke in the Museum on the situation and no one laughed – suddenly inspired him to change the theme of his research; he would make a study of caricature, the visual joke. Kris proposed to Gombrich that the two should write a book on caricature, and from that time on they worked hand in hand. This provided Gombrich with an opportunity to get to know Kris well and to become very familiar with his ideas. This was the period between 1934 and 1935. Gombrich recalls his admiration for Kris’s capacity for work. During this period, he continued in his post in the museum, whilst also working as an analyst and editing Imago. And he still had time left over to publish and conduct research. He was close to exhaustion (cf. T, 228). Gombrich would collect material during the day and, after a quick dinner, he would turn up at Kris’s home at nine at night, where the two would work late into the night, propped up with large doses of strong coffee. Gombrich has fond memories of these sessions.

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When it came to writing we really wrote together, he sitting on one side of the desk and I on the other. Usually it was he who held the pen but we would jointly formulate every sentence before he wrote it down. During this joint work I learnt something about the workings of his extraordinary mind. (T, 229) There was a marked contrast between some days and others: on good days, Kris would discuss at length the development of the human mind, of which caricature was an eloquent example; on others, he would be filled with misgivings about what they had written the day before, and even about the organisation of the entire book. Powerful imagination alternated with extraordinary caution. Gombrich guessed at the reason for those misgivings: on the one hand, Kris strove to be absolutely faithful to Freud; on the other, he detested the simplistic interpretations of psychoanalysis. ‘It cannot be denied that this constant awareness of the complexity of problems, together with his desire never to appear disloyal to the legacy of Freud, occasionally inhibited the free flow of his style’ (T, 229–30). The political situation in Austria made life very difficult and Kris realised that the time had come to go into exile. He advised Gombrich to leave. By a stroke of luck, the Warburg Institute, which had moved to London, was looking for someone who knew German to sort the enormous number of preparatory notes and writings that Aby Warburg had left on his death. During a visit by its director, Fritz Saxl, to London, Kris recommended Ernst Gombrich. Gombrich appears to have taken some time to make up his mind, but eventually decided to emigrate. And so, Gombrich came to work for the Warburg Institute. He travelled to England on 1 January 1936. That same afternoon, he examined Warburg’s papers (cf. AW, 2). For this commission, Gombrich received a small scholarship which enabled him to get married (cf. 103, 130). He and his wife had to go to live in a loft. But the plan for the book on caricature had not been abandoned. Kris and Saxl had agreed that

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Gombrich would continue work on it until it was completed. He had to cut short his honeymoon and get to work immediately on his return. The typed draft in German came to 250 pages with copious notes and illustrations. It was finally completed by the beginning of 1937 (cf. 54, 2). In spring of that year, Kris travelled to England, where he delivered two lectures; one to a group of psychoanalysts, on ‘Ego Development and the Comic’42 and other to the Warburg Institute on ‘The Principles of Caricature’.43 This second lecture included part of the material used in the book. Kris later published this lecture, acknowledging Gombrich’s collaboration. As for the book, it would have been impossible at that time for two people of Jewish ascendancy to publish in German and the theme – and their approach to it – proved unsuitable for an English audience. In the end, the book was not published. When Kris emigrated to England in 1938, they tried to produce a shorter version, but this did not seem suitable for publication either. The only parts of the initial project to see the light of day were Kris’s lecture and a short educational book Caricature.44 War had broken out. Gombrich joined the BBC’s listening service, a job which took up all his attention from 1939 to 1945. Kris moved to America in 1940. After the war, in 1949, Kris obtained a Rockefeller fellowship for Gombrich, which enabled him to spend a few months in the US, where he tried to complete the work; this visit was followed by others (cf. T, 251–2). But it was all in vain: the work was never completed and Gombrich kept the manuscript (cf. 103, 130). Nonetheless, this apparently failed intellectual venture would provide a fertile field for many of Gombrich’s later ideas. Years later, he remarked that ‘I learned a tremendous lot from Ernst Kris at the time’ (57, 25). And we shall now examine some of them. 7. Kris’s Influence I have already noted that Kris was polarised by his loyalty to Freud and his dislike of the simplifications of psychoanalytical theory. It is therefore no surprise that Kris instilled in Gombrich an immense respect for the figure and work of Sigmund Freud. He had to overcome

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a certain initial reticence; Gombrich recalls that, on one occasion, he made fun of Ernst Kris’s allegiance to Freud (cf. T, 230). Through Kris, Gombrich developed a certain familiarity with psychoanalytical theories, sufficient at least to feel comfortable before an audience of analysts, and he displayed some understanding of the basic concepts of psychoanalysis (cf. T, 229; SO, 272). Above all, Gombrich learned from Kris to include a psychological perspective when addressing problems of art. ‘I was introduced very early in my life to the general problems of images rather than of great works of art [. . .]’ (84, 215). Caricature raised many questions that affected psychology. One of them, perhaps the most important, was to establish why caricature was such a recent phenomenon. At that time, Kris and Gombrich, in an article on the principles of caricature (83), provided an answer which they would later rectify. The answer holds little interest now, but the question does; as Gombrich recognises, this question led him to another that was to prove central in his life. Why does art have a history? The answer Gombrich finally came up with is related to Kris’s ideas. Art has a history ‘because’ artists and their publics have to learn step by step, ‘because’ their capacities are limited (cf. T, 15): they have to learn to know, and learning requires will, capacity and time. However, it is not the artist who determines ‘what has to be done’ and how to do it, but the situation in which the artist finds himself. For this reason, a study of the context in which a work of art is created is fundamental. This idea is clearly expressed in a quote from Kris which Gombrich gives pride of place to in Art and Illusion. We have long come to realize that art is not produced in an empty space, that no artist is independent of predecessors and models, that he no less than the scientist and the philosopher is part of a specific tradition and works in a structured area of problems. (AI, 30)45

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Note that this contains the ideas that ‘art is born out of art’, and the need for traditions and conventions. Kris, in any case, contributed little more than to highlight this need. This examination of the structured area of problems led to another idea: the artist faces his work as if it were a particularly complex problem, in which he has to deal with an endless number of conditioning factors. This idea can already be found in Kris46 and Gombrich placed great importance on it (cf. e.g. NF, 148 n. 38). The way in which the artist solves such a complex problem refers directly to what Gombrich considers to be one of Kris’s great contri­ butions. 47 Kris ‘pointed’, says Gombrich, ‘to Freud’s book on The Wit [. . .] as the germinal model for any account of artistic creation along Freudian lines’ (38, 35). In effect, the model of creation intuited by Kris is based on the fact that the artist calls on the mechanisms of the primary process: ‘regression in the service of the ego’. The images he stores in his head are combined in chance form until he achieves the miraculous solution that solves all the conditioning factors imposed.48 However, such a process can only be experienced in a state of regression. And this state of regression is only excusable in the artist’s eyes, if his audience approves it. This is another of Kris’s contributions: the notion of ‘aesthetic illusion’. This aesthetic illusion, or aesthetic reaction, is the premise by which the public also approaches the art work. Viewers must submit to a state of regression, must partially break with reality, a ‘willing suspension of disbelief ’, to use the expression that Coleridge applied to poetry and that Gombrich and Kris borrowed. And this attitude is analogous to that required in a game.49 Kris could only hint at these ideas which were enveloped in longwinded psychoanalytical arguments, concluding, as we have already seen, that there was nothing to be said on the creator genius;50 no theory of style had been developed;51 ‘our attempt at discussing the aesthetic illusion apparently does not enable us to differentiate between the reaction to Hamlet and to the thriller – and worse cannot be said of a psychological approach to the study of art’.52 Kris was unable to account for the value of a work of art.

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8. A Psychoanalytical Theory? All of these ideas can be found in Gombrich’s work, and can be considered, to a greater or lesser extent, to be a legacy of Kris, a legacy of Freud’s ideas, completely transfigured, but not denied. However, it would be a mistake to think that Gombrich’s aesthetic is a psychoanalytical one; from no perspective can this be considered to be the case. Despite Gombrich’s efforts to highlight the importance of Freud’s aesthetic, Gombrich is not an expert on psychoanalytical theory. He himself said as much in an important context, his introduction to a season of lectures he gave in Yale in 1979, in memory of Ernst Kris: I am neither a psychoanalyst nor a systematic student of the corpus of Freud’s writings. My one and only contact with his teachings came through my collaboration and friendship with that extraordinary man, to whose memory these lectures are dedicated [. . .]. (54, 1) Gombrich’s words must be seen as a rhetorical formula: a form of courtesy and at the same time a captatio benevolentiae. Nonetheless, they are also sincere. Indeed, Gombrich frequently mentions Freud; but many of his references can only be understood as commonplace; thus, when he mentions a Freud as being the discoverer of the mechanisms of the dream,53 or of the reasons for the ‘discontents of civilisation’,54 he is alluding, without saying as much, to works that are universally known: The Interpretation of Dreams and Civilization and its Discontents.55 Apart from these, Gombrich practically never refers to other important works,56 other than Der Witz . . . the joke. And when he does mention that work – as he does often – he never quotes from it or gives any page reference.57 This is in contrast with authors from the psychoanalytical world, who tend to go overboard in giving references to Freud. Indeed, it is an exception in Gombrich’s work too. He is normally immensely fastidious in his

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quotations, even of authors with whom he is very familiar: Karl Popper, George Boas, Otto Kurz and Ernst Kris. One exception can be found, of course, in his writings expressly devoted to the book on jokes: ‘Freud’s Aesthetics’ (38) and ‘Verbal Wit as a Paradigm of Art’ (T, 93–115). However, it is a relative exception, since the former contains not one literal quote from this book, except for a formula with no bibliographical reference. For the time being, we shall draw a line here under our examination of Gombrich’s relationship with Freud’s work. On the influence of Freud’s ideas, there are a number of qualifications that should be made. Firstly, with regard to the formation of intelligence, Gombrich does not share Freud’s theory of the evolution of the human mind throughout history. Gombrich provides a testimony that leaves no room for doubt: his lectures in memory of Ernst Kris (mentioned above) which start with a clarification in this respect (cf. 54, 1). Secondly, with regard to the processes of the mind, Gombrich does not share Freud’s theory of knowledge: associationism. Evidently, it is incompatible with the theory of preliminary hypotheses based on Popper. Gombrich has expressly said as much on some occasions (cf. 51, 216–17). Thirdly, with regard to specific acts of intelligence, anyone can see that Gombrich does not employ psychoanalytical terms with any great rigour – for example, transfer, sublimation, condensation, over­ determination, etc.; and in his work he does not speak at all about the complicated processes of the different destinations of the instincts, the games of the cathexes, hypercathexes and countercathexes and many other common notions in psychoanalytical literature. Fourthly, with regard to the foundations of aesthetic pleasure, Gombrich rejects the idea that beauty or admiration necessarily have a sexual root. In a review on the finest sculptures in Greek art, he states: ‘We know far too little about these things, less than ever perhaps, since talk of sex has replaced talk of beauty’ (RH, 17). Gombrich finds beauty in those Greek figures without the need to look for a sexual foundation. On another occasion, commenting on a work of art entirely unconnected to Greek beauty – Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights – he argues that

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‘perhaps recent interpretations have concentrated too much on the sexual element and too little on the other theme that appears to pervade this enigmatic panel, the theme of instability and imper­ma­nence’ (HA, 81). 9. Dark Points in Freud I believe one might argue that Gombrich shares some of the bipolarity he himself noted in Kris: veneration for the figure of Freud and, at the same time, an awareness of the complexity of the issues involved. However, Gombrich has no clear association with psychoanalysts’ theses in any but the most general terms. Yet, his admiration for Freud is so manifest that it can clearly be seen in his writings. It is this interest in Freud’s work which has probably distorted the image disseminated of Gombrich’s ideas. Gombrich seeks to highlight Freud’s contribution to aesthetics, even though he is perfectly aware of the limitations of his theories. His insistence on trying to show Freud to be right on certain issues, combined with his frequent praise of Freud as a person, can be misinterpreted; it would be easy to conclude that Gombrich tries to assign ideas to Freud that he never actually had. But the issue becomes much clearer when one understands Gombrich’s purpose. Firstly, Gombrich wants to clear Freud’s image; he wants to free him from the responsibility of having introduced or contributed to the dissemination of harmful ideas in the art world, among artists and scholars. And Gombrich has been a leading critic of the abysmal existence of such ideas. Freud is the source of the searchers for symbols, who try to find unconscious hieroglyphics in every art work. Gombrich states at the beginning of his article ‘The Use of Art for the Study of Symbols’ (111): thanks partly to the interest which Freud’s writings have stimulated in all aspects of symbolism, art historians during the last few decades have also increasingly turned to this field which had previously been

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neglected if not despised by the formalist schools of criticism [. . .] In short, emblems and allegories, only recently dismissed as abstruse aberrations, are all the rage, and the hunt for symbols threatens to become another academic industry. (111, 149)58 For a work of this kind, Freud’s Leonardo can act as a suitable precedent. The second idea applies to artists: it is expressionism; expressionism should be taken as referring to the claim that works of art immediately manifest the depths of the artist, his or her unconscious longings. Freud’s ideas were immediately echoed in art-related media. One need only consider ‘surrealism’, to understand the extent of that influence. Gombrich levels some extremely harsh criticism against these ideas in his Story of Art. There is the idea of self-expression that goes back to the Romantic era; and the profound impression made by the discoveries of Freud, which were taken to imply a more immediate connexion between art and mental distress than Freud himself would have accepted [. . .] The interests aroused by psychology have certainly driven both the artists and their public to explore regions of the human mind which were formerly considered repellent or taboo [and] has prevented many from averting their eyes from spectacles which former generations would have shunned. (SA, 486–7) I would now like to examine the way in which Gombrich gets round those difficulties, leaving the figure of Freud untouched and demonstrating the potential contained in his writings.

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10. Approaches to Freud Gombrich discusses the possibilities of psychoanalysis in art history and Freud’s aesthetic theories, mainly in four works: ‘Psycho-Analysis and the History of Art’, a lecture read before the British Psycho-­ Analytical Society in 1953 (MH, 30–44); ‘The Mystery of Leonardo’, a review of the second English edition of Freud’s monograph on Da Vinci which Gombrich published in 1965 (RH, 62–7); ‘Freud’s Aesthetics’, a long study published in 1966 (38); and finally a work given as a lecture to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the birth of Sigmund Freud, at the University of Vienna in May 1981 (T, 93–115); in addition, there are some other minor works, included in their entirety as citations in different articles. There are also many others related to caricature which I shall not discuss here for the time being. One immediately notices the differences between the first lecture and the other works. ‘Psycho-Analysis and the History of Art’ comments on the theory on art traditionally attributed to Freud that I have mentioned; it offers an excellent example of the author’s perception; standing before an audience of psychoanalysts, he delivers the lecture masterfully. He begins by warning that it is not possible to make a psychoanalytical examination of an artist from the past, for the simple reason that it is impossible to bring him or her to the psychoanalyst’s couch, and ‘it is a commonplace that there is no substitute for the psycho-analytic interview’ (MH, 31). It is therefore necessary to give up any idea of knowing the artist’s intentions as set out in his work and what it signified for him; such attempts ‘can never be more than a jeu d’esprit, even if the performance is as dazzling as Freud’s Leonardo’ (ibid.).59 If art were pure expression, there would be no further way forward. But art is much more complex than that. There is a relationship between artist and world, private and public signification; in short, the private signification is almost entirely absorbed by the public one. In other words, what matters is the public meaning: a religious picture, a cantata, etc. In our Western society, the rise in representative skills requires not only the artist’s ability to depict but also the spectator’s to see. And this is the core of Kris’s aesthetic theory. The spectator is

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included in the artist’s creative process and enjoys it with him: in other words, he participates in the ‘aesthetic attitude’. But Gombrich also accepts, and says he has learnt from Kris, the compensatory nature of aesthetic satisfaction. The erotic appeal enters the spectator unhindered in the guise of artistic quality. Gombrich’s thesis is that a necessary balance must be struck between aesthetic activity and regressive pleasure: an image that is too facilely erotic, causes nausea; it is not accepted, not so much because of the internal reservations of the ‘ego’ or social pressure, but because as a game it is too crude and simple for what our capacity demands. In short Gombrich rejects the simple interpretation contained in Freud’s theses. Firstly, the artist cannot express his unconscious. And even if he could, we would not be able to understand it; its desires are not transmittable. Secondly, he accepts the existence of reward, but the important thing is the balance between aesthetic attitude and regressive pleasure. There is an astonishing gulf between this analysis and those contained in the three later works. The change appears to coincide with the publication of successive volumes of the complete works of Freud, Gesammelte Werke by Anna Freud between 1940 and 1968,60 and particularly a selection of his letters published in 1960.61 Gombrich’s review of the second English edition of Freud’s Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood (RH, 62–7) is interesting. Gombrich lamented the fact that even at this stage – in 1965 – there were no proper notes on the discovery of the vulture/falcon confusion, and the controversy it aroused. He mentions some sources of error and states that the pages leading up to the unfortunate vulture offer ‘a fascinating and coherent psychological portrait of Leonardo based on Freud’s wide reading of the literature then available to him’. And adds: ‘But even though the portrait is in need of retouching nobody can deny that this first attempt to make psychological sense of the scattered evidence about this mysterious genius has guided and fructified the historical imagination ever since’ (RH, 65). And Gombrich speaks of Freud’s story­telling, noting its consistency and the interest it held for psychoanalytical theory. And he adds the evidence provided by the

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publication of Freud’s letters. He ends the review by saying that, in any case, Freud noted in a letter in 1914 that this was ‘half a novelistic fiction’ and that, indeed, if one reads between lines, the essay contains many caveats.62 The two following works also make reference to Freud’s Da Vinci. Gombrich said in 1966 that in light of the large number of works criticising or defending the way Freud operated, the letter in question came as a consolation for a sceptical historian (cf. 38, 33). In 1981, he added that ‘a good deal of ink could have been saved if that remark had been known before the publication of Freud’s correspondence in 1960’ (T, 95). Gombrich thus neutralised the possible effects of the Da Vinci: Freud is passionate and coherent and inspiring, although he has evident faults (cf. SI, 17). In any case, it should be noted that Gombrich does not use this interpretation when speaking of Da Vinci. And he highlights the danger of searching fanatically for a deeper meaning. 11. The Joke as a Paradigm ‘Freud’s Aesthetics’ (38) and ‘Verbal Wit as a Paradigm of Art’ (T, 93–115) are very similar in structure, despite the fifteen-year gap between the two texts. In both, Gombrich seeks to show that Freud had the artistic taste that was to be expected of an educated Central European who had studied according to Bildung tradition. And numerous quotations, many from his letters, draw a clear image of a Freud with a deep attachment to tradition, reluctant to accept modern movements. Both refer to frequent warnings by Freud on the limitations of his psychoanalytical technique when it comes to studying the artistic skills or mastery of a musical performance or an artistic technique. The second part is dedicated to showing the possibilities contained in the model of the joke Freud proposes. There are also differences. The most striking is that the first text, as its title suggests, ‘Freud’s Aesthetics’, seeks to assign to Freud what Gombrich calls ‘Freud’s “centripetal” theory of wit’ (38, 38), a theory that underlines the role of the medium in artistic creation. This allocation of these ideas to Freud must have raised some doubts in Gombrich’s mind, since he concludes the essay

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talking humorously about the ever present risk of the ‘Talmudism’, in other words, the temptation of reading into a text what one wishes to see in it. The second work, ‘Verbal Wit as a Paradigm of Art’, as the name suggests, discusses – more tactfully – Freud’s contribution, as contained in his book; jokes can serve as a paradigm for art. Here, ­Gombrich’s theory is somewhat more developed than in the previous case: jokes teach us that it is impossible to separate form from content. And he places more stress here on another thesis, implicit in the previous version: the social aspect of art. This joke is distinguished from the dream in that it is communicable, and therefore it can be evaluated. Indeed, the artist is concerned with the effect his work may have on the public. Nonetheless, I believe that when Gombrich speaks of Freud’s aesthetic, he is not referring so much to a coherent corpus of ideas as to his tastes in art. That taste inspired his ideas although it did not come to form a coherent theory. In short, Freud must be absolved of any participation in expressionist or surrealist theories. Moreover, perhaps without knowing, the model of the joke he presented contained a whole theory of artistic creation, which combines the possibilities of fear, the possibilities of the artist’s ingenuity and the response of his public. I am not well placed to judge whether Gombrich’s interpretation is close to Talmudism. There can be no doubt, based on these writings, that Freud’s preferences lay within a traditional conception of art. Nonetheless, as Gombrich presents it, the model of the joke is not very Freudian. Moreover, in some regards it links in with some of the themes I discussed when speaking about Popper. And it is certainly true that the joke as presented there is a magnificent paradigm for art. In any case, accepting this model does not mean accepting psychoanalytical aesthetics, only certain elements of it. 12. Art or Dream In one of his letters, Freud argued that when we class something as a work of art we presume that, in the concept of art, the quantitative proportion of unconscious material and preconscious preparation must

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be kept within certain limits. This really enables us to extend the conclusions Freud draws from his study of the joke. The joke is also, to use the formula employed by Gombrich to summarise Freud’s words, ‘a preconscious idea [that] is exposed for a moment to the workings of the unconscious’ (38, 35). What distinguishes dreams, their processes of condensation of images, the processes that occur in the preparation of the joke, is the intervention in the latter of the ‘ego’ which knows how to draw out the clever witticism. This intervention of the ‘ego’ indicates the tremendous distance between an involuntary dream, which vanishes, and a witty joke anchored in language. The joke can allude to underlying situations, but what matters is not the relationship with the author’s unconscious, the dark motivations that have led to the germ­ination of the idea. What matters is the idea; in other words, what the ‘ego’ is looking for and, if lucky, finds. This – no more and no less – is its value. And in pointing to the model of the joke and not that of the dream, Freud is absolutely correct. For this reason Gombrich argues that when we speak of good and bad dreams we surely mean something very different from calling a joke good or bad. The problem of value, which no theory of art can ignore, stands in this brief and highly personal book in the centre of attention [. . .]. (T, 104) And, as Gombrich was to show, that model also includes the reference to the medium, to the mastery, to the technique and to the style. Thus, the above quotation continues: ‘and I believe that some light is thrown in it even on the problems of technique and of style’ (ibid.). The reasoning is parallel in the two works. . ‘The joke [. . .]’, says Freud, ‘is the most social of all psychic achievements aiming at pleasure . . . thus it is bound by conditions of intelligibility’. And Gombrich remarks: ‘This intelligibility – if I may pursue this thought – rests

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of course on the common store of culture, most of all on the common possession of language’ (T, 105). But there is more: ‘the joke simply does not permit us to separate form from content’ (T, 107). And this is because, with some exag­ger­ ation, Gombrich says that ‘the code generates the message’ (cf. 38, 36). On the one hand, it serves as a vehicle that can only carry a given series of messages; and therefore the message is poured into it, or rather, it is constructed with its elements. But moreover ‘it is the accident of the medium that permits its condensation into a joke’ (cf. 38, 36). And ­Gombrich says: a good joke is not an invention but a discovery. The identity or similarity of speech sounds on which the pun rests did not have to be invented: it had merely to be discovered, though one might quarrel over the word ‘merely’. In a letter to Jung Freud speaks in this connection of language meeting us half-way [. . .]. (T, 106) When we try to find the right phrase, the joke comes out to meet us; it is not possible to ‘plan’ a joke. Here we have the latent formulation of the autonomy of mediums, an autonomy that arises from unintended consequences, which ‘were already there’ and which expected to be ‘discovered’ by anyone with the capacity to do so. And precisely ‘the capacity to do so’ requires us to address the other part of the issue. ‘It is the mastery of the writer, moreover’, says Gombrich, ‘that gives the joke such a concise and memorable form’ (38, 36). Mastery is another of the key themes. We have mentioned, when discussing Gombrich’s lecture to English psychoanalysts, the ability that led to aesthetic activity. It is an ability that the artist requires to give a sophisticated form to underdeveloped dispositions and repressed desires, and which therefore requires a complementary ability in the spectator.

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Mastery can be seen as an acquired disposition in that ‘the ego gains control and mastery of the primary process and learns to select and reject the formation that emerge from the welter of the unconscious’ (38, 36). A master is one who manages to extract the result of the unconscious process. A master is one who has dominion to let the imagination loose; to start off the primary process, to try out the solution and extract it. But, how is this done? Gombrich believes that Freud gives us the key with the discussion of the role of the child’s pleasure in playing with language which, to Freud, is a functional pleasure connected with the acquisition of mastery. Surely it is convincing to think that such accidents of sound and meaning as make up the perfect pun are discovered by those who cultivate the childhood pleasure of experimenting and playing with word and nonsense syllables. (38, 36) For Gombrich, this is ‘Freud’s theory of ingenuity’, or rather ‘Freud’s centripetal theory of ingenuity’. It is a theory that determines the relationship between the unconscious contents and the medium, inversely to the expressionist theory which is, therefore, ‘centrifugal’. Here, for the artist ‘it is his art that informs his mind, not his mind that breaks through in his art’ (38, 38).

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3. Play Play is unquestionably one of the most effective analogies or paradigms for understanding art and Gombrich makes frequent references to this analogy. Its effectiveness can be understood when discussing mastery in art, but it also affects the evolution of style, creation and contemplation.1 1. Gombrich and Huizinga In tackling the issue of play, we should remember one of the most profound thinkers Gombrich had the opportunity to meet: Johan Huizinga. Huizinga’s book Homo ludens2 is considered to be the best treatise on the theme. It is clear that, when discussing play, Gombrich alludes to Huizinga’s work.3 As with the other figures discussed, Gombrich had a personal relationship with the author, albeit, in this case, a small one. In February 1937, Gombrich attended Huizinga’s lecture at the Warburg Institute, which would form the basis of his book Homo ludens. He has said that

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on that occasion he was not even introduced to Huizinga. Years later, in 1972, Gombrich was invited to give a speech at the University of Groningen, as part of the events to mark Huizinga’s centenary. For his theme, Gombrich chose homo ludens. He began his lecture as follows: Like all of us who are interested in cultural history I have had frequent occasion to remember that inspired coinage of Huizinga’s which matched the idea of homo faber with that of homo ludens. Long ago I wrote a little essay entitled ‘Meditations on a Hobby Horse or the Roots of Artistic Form’ which developed into a book entitled Art and Illusion, largely concerned with that most elusive of mental states, that of fiction. Later, when I studied the idea of personification of such entities as Fama and Fortuna, I remembered the pregnant pages Huizinga devoted to this strange twilight of ideas between mythology and abstraction in his study of Alanus and Insulis and again in Homo ludens. Now I am once more in the orbit of his problems in a study [he is referring to his book The Sense of Order] that is to deal with decoration, ornament and the grotesque. (T, 139) This is a very interesting statement. Gombrich found himself obliged to define his own position vis-à-vis Huizinga’s theses. Homo ludens is an essay on the ‘play element of culture’, and Gombrich notes that this was how the author expressed it: ‘of culture’ and not ‘in culture’. His purpose was to examine the scope of viewing culture as play. Before going on to discuss Gombrich’s commentary, there are a number of observations I would like to make about this work.

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Huizinga’s Homo ludens is undoubtedly a remarkable book. The author seeks to examine the extent to which culture can be viewed as play, and to what extent play is one of the main bases of civilisation.4 Huizinga notes that his work should not be seen as an improvisation5 or a brilliant rhetorical exercise.6 Any intelligent reader will certainly realise that Huizinga is right. Huizinga seeks to study play seriously, and to study it as a cultural phenomenon and not as a biological function. He therefore makes no use of psychology or physiology, rightly arguing that neither science has managed to explain the primary importance of play, the intensity with which people play, its power to madden.7 Play, Huizinga believes, is linked to the aesthetic.8 He describes the general features that can be ascribed to play, taking care not to over­ extend the field and limiting himself to social play, since he considers that personal play cannot have the same impact on the creation of culture. Huizinga shows that there is a clear relationship between play and competition: social play may be representation or competition; and, precisely, it is out of forms such as sacred performances and festal contests that culture as play arises.9 He develops this idea in several chapters specifically dealing with different aspects of culture: Play and Law, Play and War, Playing and Knowing, Play and Poetry, Mytho­ poiesis, Play-Forms in Philosophy and Play-Forms in Art. These themes are developed at a leisurely pace, with mentions of interesting nuances and numerous examples from the most diverse places and eras. However, the pace changes in the chapters on poetry; it immediately becomes obvious that this is the core of his discussion. The nature of poetic creation, says Huizinga, is, in a sense, at the heart of any discussion of the relations between play and culture, for while in the more highly organized forms of society religion, science, law, war and politics gradually lose touch with play, so prominent in the earlier phases, the function of the poet still remains fixed in the play-sphere

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where it was born. Poiesis, in fact, is a play-function [. . .] To understand poetry we must be capable of donning the child’s soul [. . .].10 Poetry is plays, he writes, more than the conscious satisfaction of a desire for beauty.11 Myth is also poetry, and for this reason it moves between the conceivable and the inconceivable, mystical belief and humour.12 In poetry, word play and image play meet. And it is in his discussion of this area that we find the finest paragraphs in the book.13 Why does man subordinate words to measure, cadence and rhythm? If we answer: for the sake of beauty or from deep emotion, we are only getting out of our depth. But if we answer: men make poetry because they feel a need for social play, we are getting nearer the mark.14 Huizinga adds that allegory and personification also share the nature of play: that believing and not believing at the same time. In the chapter on art, Huizinga’s preferences are clear. His main focus of attention is on the musical arts. Music is played every time it is produced; and the musician belongs to the world of play. He views the plastic arts as being quite different. Given the nature of its production, he says, a well-ordered job or a craft intended to achieve a final product cannot be seen as play. At most, the ludic nature of creation can be seen in that careless, instinctive urge to adorn that can be seen on so many occasions: We may leave it to the psychologists to attribute what unconscious ‘drives’ they will to this supreme art of boredom and inanition. But it cannot be doubted that it is a play-function of low order akin to the

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child’s playing in the first years of its life, when the higher structure of organized play is as yet undeveloped.15 No conclusions can be drawn from this on style, he says. But Huizinga added an idea that is of greater interest: the picture changes if we turn from the making of works of art to the manner in which they are received in the social milieu. Here we are clearly in the field of play, of competition. Such competition is recorded in legends telling of great feats and examples from art history concerning the creation of many masterpieces. And we have the case of Brunelleschi, whose cathedral dome, designed not solely on utilitarian grounds, won him a competition against thirteen rivals.16 The book takes a brief look at the play factor throughout historical civilisations, particularly ancient Greece and Rococo France. It ends with a chapter on the play element in contemporary civilisation. Huizinga argues that the serious and the play-related have become confused. Nearly everything is simply child’s play and, therefore, false play. And in four final paragraphs, Huizinga hastily sets out his conclusions. Culture must contain a certain element of play. Like all play, it will be an end in itself: therefore its limits must be recognised; it is not everything, not even the most sublime. And, certainly when one considers the treasures of the human spirit, one can see that basic limitation. Yet playing means developing the condition of man; the only means, and the only opportunity to do so. For this reason, one must play the game of culture with complete seriousness, entering fully into it. And one must play a good game, without cheating; one must play by the rules. Otherwise, culture is destroyed. Man, chained to play, is saved from precariousness when he adds moral conscience. In itself, play is neither good nor bad; the player must question his own conscience to know whether he is permitted or seriously forbidden from playing. Moral conscience gives meaning to play. ‘The human mind can only disengage itself from the magic circle of play by turning towards the ultimate.’17

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2. On Homo ludens In his lecture in Groningen, Gombrich severely criticised Huizinga’s work, while at the same time trying to safeguard his prestige. The gist of his statement, therefore, is that, while he does not agree with either the underlying philosophy or with the approach Huizinga employs, this approach reflects a defiantly personal stance adopted for noble reasons (cf. T, 151 and 156); and the book has much to teach us, if read with sympathy and understanding (cf. T, 161 and 163). Huizinga, says Gombrich, has adopted a metaphysical posture. His book is, in reality, a meditation on the justification of culture in the eyes of God. This attitude reflects a personal position. Huizinga, an excellent historian, had to struggle to maintain the balance between the fantasy he possessed and historical rigour. Out of that tension, was born his famous The Waning of the Middle Ages.18 In it, he established the three paths a society could take to escape cold reality: the dreamland of the fantastic and of art; Christian asceticism and material progress. The society of the late Middle Ages chose the first path: flight from the real world; the modern world has chosen the third: facing up to problems and trying to resolve them. The Waning of the Middle Ages develops this idea. However, in time, when having to face the positivists, Huizinga discovered that the third path, progress, disregarded the achievements of culture for an absurd utilitarianism and a rabid rationalism. Reason without limits ultimately led to irrationalism. And so, Huizinga spurned the path of progress. He became a critic of his time, taking refuge in nostalgia for times past; championing the need to respect the rules of the game. But respect for rules required good faith. And the faith that Huizinga thought he needed to justify his compliance with the rules was the Christian faith. This, then, is Gombrich’s criticism of Huizinga’s philosophy: it is metaphysical and it is meta­ physical for subjective reasons. As for the method, Gombrich argued that Huizinga had gone over to ‘essentialism’. He postulated a priori the ‘essence’ of play as a noble activity and then sought to apply it to different aspects of culture, going so far as to remove any facts that did not match his idea. And so,

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Huizinga replaced the interesting idea discussed in the The Waning of the Middle Ages, ‘pretending’, because of his interest in the rules, and he refuses to include love play or erotic games in his noble concept of play (cf. T, 157–8).19 Huizinga thus acted deliberately, seeking to protect himself from the ‘reductionism’ of sciences such as psychology or ethology. Homo ludens raises many questions but offers few answers (cf. T, 158). Huizinga was coherent in his attitude, but he had the wrong strategy. And yet, for several reasons, Gombrich feels he was right to highlight the presence of the play factor in culture and art. I shall briefly summarise. In my own field, the history of art, we have become intolerably earnest. A false prestige has come to be attached to the postulation of profound meanings or ulterior motives. The idea of fun is perhaps even more unpopular among us than is the notion of beauty. (T, 161) Gombrich, then, feels that a proper treatment of art history, in our time at least, must consider the idea that in art there is also something of the practical joke or game. A work of art does not require mysterious references to be art. Secondly, this idea of play reminds us ‘the fact that conventions belong to culture and to art as much as rules belong to games [. . .]’ (T, 161). It is true, Gombrich says, that there are activities that can be understood as play; but there are others in which the game requires the existence of a goal. Clearly, this distinction Gombrich20 makes to some extent mirrors Huizinga’s allusion to the categories of game as representation and competition, as we have seen. And having indicated these differences, Gombrich seeks to identify the human roots that can be found in that play attitude. Competitions can be easily explained: it is rational for there to be a goal; and if there is a goal, one can understand the attitude of the players. It is more difficult to understand using Huizinga’s method the

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attitude of pretending,21 ‘the flight into a world of fantasy that had much in common with the attitudes of a child at play’ (T, 154). This is an interesting point and I must make an aside. Gombrich undoubtedly exaggerates Huizinga’s shift in emphasis from pretending to play with rules. Both are to be found in Homo ludens, as I have said.22 And in the chapters on poetry, we find pretending presented as the play attitude par excellence, which requires ‘donning the child’s soul’. However it is also true that Huizinga dismisses the plastic arts, and art creation as play, comparing them to a child’s game that lacks the superior organisation of social play. He also makes a clearly derogatory reference to those psychologies that claim that these arts are rooted in subconscious urges. The reference is certainly to Freudian psychology, but probably also to Bühler. Gombrich turns Huizinga’s approach on its head: the most interesting contribution that emerges from considering play as a factor of culture is precisely the attitude of pretending, the playful simulation. And this attitude is linked to basic biological and mental functions. Huizinga was wrong to dismiss, or at least pass over, this aspect; since, in this way, the game only serves to cut play loose from that anchorage in the emotional life [. . .]. Pretending is surely deeply rooted in our need to find an outlet for our emotions. To learn to play is to learn that such outlets can be constructed in safety. (T, 160) When the primordial attitude of pretending is accentuated and when its biological-mental foundation is accepted, we can find plenty of references and reasons in sciences such as ethology, which have given us some important concepts, such as ‘ritualisation’ and the ‘pecking order’ (cf. T, 159). This is Gombrich’s argument. And I would like to add my own commentary.

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3. Social Compact Evidently, the core of Gombrich’s criticism lies in the metaphysical affiliation of Huizinga’s ideas, which Gombrich cannot accept. However, the presence of Homo ludens in Gombrich’s work is significant. For Gombrich, Huizinga is one of the greatest historians of culture (cf. II, 45), together with Burckhardt. And like him, he is tinged with Hegelianism (cf. II, 45ff.). He is also a true artist in that he describes the panorama of a culture (cf. 35, 882). This appreciation outweighs any reticence about his work. Although Gombrich expressly criticises Huizinga for ignoring the biological bases of play and dismissing the sciences of animal behaviour, when Gombrich seeks to ground artistic illusion on these foundations – in his article ‘Illusion and Art’ (51) – he mentions Huizinga’s Homo ludens in reference to the idea of man at play. Likewise, in his Sense of Order, when he discusses the pleasure of decorating, which Gombrich likens to a game, he includes a reference to Huizinga, the great interpreter of human culture who identifies homo faber with homo ludens (cf. SO, 166). And in ‘Icones Symbolicae’ (SI, 123–95), when introducing the characteristic ambiguity with which we view symbolic images (we believe and at the same time pretend to believe in their magic) Gombrich refers to The Waning . . . for all matters related to the interpretation of the primitive element, but to Homo ludens for the element of play (SI, 60 and n. 100). Elsewhere – in his major article ‘Personification’ – he will refer to Homo ludens, to see what children call pretending (cf. 80, 255). Thus, Gombrich refers to Huizinga when he wants to discuss the human attitude to art – the artist’s attitude when he creates and the spectator’s attitude when he observes. The element of play, of wanting to play, is the gateway to the world of fiction that is art. This idea evidently has links to the model I have outlined above of the joke. But it does so in a peculiar way, since it emphasises the enjoyment that derived from that activity. Huizinga can also be found in another important part of Gombrich’s work, social play. This aspect – according to Gombrich – predominates in Homo ludens and one of Huizinga’s most important contributions as

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to highlight the importance of competition. The concept of art as social play brings competition to the fore; and competition allows us to understand the idea of artistic mastery, the supreme skill that achieves an unattainable degree of perfection. Gombrich references Huizinga and his book when discussing mastery; the idea of mastery as play is one of the most important in the formation of his theory. The master is the one who wins the competition (cf. II, 152 and n. 14). It is true that Gombrich’s essential text on competition as an engine of art – ‘The Logic of Vanity Fair’ – contains no reference to Homo ludens. Yet it was certainly on Gombrich’s mind; the article mentions the Potlach feasts of the American Indians and the growth in the size and embellishment of wigs in the eighteenth century, both examples taken from Homo ludens.23 Thus, Gombrich references Huizinga’s ideas when he wants to interpret artistic value as mastery and mastery within the context of a game. They can also be found when he speaks about the causes of artistic evolution, of which Gombrich considers competition to be one of the most important. Through the notion of pretending, the attitude of simulation that is required in both personal and social play, Gombrich finds one more idea in Homo ludens. In criticising Huizinga for refusing to recognise the biological foundations of play, Gombrich makes a passing remark. Huizinga had the right instinct in focusing attention on the spoilsport as a key to our understanding of what play is about. But here as elsewhere his wish to isolate play from the study of the human mind deprived him of some of the fruits of his insight. (T, 160). In his long introduction to Homo ludens,24 Huizinga mentions the figure of the spoilsport. Although he clearly considers it to be very important, it is equally evident that he does not consider it to be by any means the most important element of play. Yet, Gombrich is right in identifying the spoilsport as being the key, although, I believe, Huizinga does not say so expressly.

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A spoilsport is not the same as a cheat, says Huizinga; the cheat plays, even if he breaks the rules; and he is a cheat precisely because he is judged ‘by’ the rules of the game. The spoilsport, however, refuses to play; and, in refusing, he destroys the magic circle of the game. In Huizinga’s words: ‘By withdrawing from the game he reveals the relativity and fragility of the play-world.’25 But it seems to me that Gombrich’s real interest lies elsewhere: the spoilsport not only reveals the ‘fragility’ of the game, but, above all, he reveals its very ‘existence’. The spoilsport shows up the vast number of things ‘that are taken for granted’, precisely by refusing to accept them. In any cultural element, innumerable things are taken for granted. Culture is founded on that acceptance, but that acceptance is always tacit. And therefore the express denunciation reveals something which, perhaps, is unconsciously maintained, precisely because it is taken ‘for granted’ (cf. 35, 882). Ordinarily, no one calls into question the notion of greeting one another by shaking hands. But if someone refuses, it is not possible to find arguments with which to persuade them. There are no reasons; simply, it has always been thus and this is an elementary act. The same is true of art. Art needs conventions. Conventions are the tonal scale, the instruments and the forms of the sonata or symphony. The effective­ ness of these conventions is at least as obvious as those of social etiquette, yet they are even more fragile. If we were to be asked to find full grounds for the form of the symphony, the problem would seem insoluble. And I believe this is the idea that Huizinga brings to Gombrich’s theory. With the idea of play, a link is forged between the world of the personal response, of unconscious processes, the artist who experiences repression and gives free rein to the storm in his mind, and the spectator who recreates the work, i.e. the ideas of Freud, with the social context dominated by the logic of Popper’s situations. For play is maintained by the ‘willing suspension of disbelief ’, that is to say, – in psychoanalytical terms – by ‘regression in the service of the ego’, but this suspension or regression is performed in common; that is the kernel of his contribution. There is a group in which the rules not only are accepted, but are, simply, taken for granted. And they are taken for granted, to a greater or lesser extent, by all the members of the group.

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The fact that they are taken as read means that any breach of the rules is tacitly condemned by all the members. The figure of the spoilsport threatens an agreement that must necessarily be fragile. Any cultural element has a considerable charge of arbitrariness, or rather, of historicity; it could have manifested itself as something very different. And by reason of that very fragility, any culture or any cultural product requires a commitment – also tacit – that the rules must be observed: pacta sunt servanda. It is this commitment that Gombrich calls ‘social compact’: ‘what characterizes play [he says in ‘Illusion and Art’] is the element of social compact, the exclusion of the “spoilsport” whose uttered disbelief will “break the illusion” ’ (51, 224). For Gombrich the social compact constitutes one of the pillars of art, and this idea is also taken from Homo ludens.

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4. Rhetoric In previous chapters on science, the joke and play, I have shown how Gombrich – who is allergic to any philosophical argument – adopts paradigms and analogies from theories he has encountered throughout his life. And he derives his knowledge of these theories from his personal acquaintance with their originators or leading exponents. Needless to say, in this case, Gombrich never actually met Cicero in person. But I do believe that he has been profoundly influenced by one exceptional book: European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages.1 I do not know what dealings Gombrich may have had with its author, Ernst Robert Curtius, but its impact on Gombrich’s2 work is unquestionable. European Literature . . . is dedicated to Gustav Gröver and Aby Warburg; and it is the finest description of the continuity of literary forms from ancient times to the classical Renaissance tradition. The continuity of literary forms is based on the persistence of ‘commonplaces’.3 Curtius’s stated wish is therefore to create a Nova Rhetorica: a historical topics and a historical metaphorics. 4 In his introduction to Art and Illusion Gombrich remarks:

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student[s] of literature, such as Ernst Robert Curtius, have demonstrated the role of the topos, the traditional commonplace, in the warp and woof of poetry. The time seems ripe to approach the problem of style once more, fortified by this knowledge of the force of traditions. (AI, 24) However, despite his unquestionable influence, I cannot place Curtius in the same league as Popper, Freud or Huizinga. Curtius’s topoi are more ‘archetypes’ which owe much to Jung’s collective subconscious5 rather than the keys that open psychological locks, as Gombrich maintains. I must therefore refer back to classical rhetoric. 1. Rhetoric in Gombrich The third model for illustrating aspects of the visual arts is rhetoric. In comparison to the last two – play and the joke – this is a somewhat ­peculiar model and it may be somewhat forced to identify it as a model in Gombrich’s work. Rhetoric is an art form and one that has to some extent developed in parallel with the other arts throughout the history of Western culture. It is not an abstract institution but a historical ­development. The joke helps define artistic creation, a process in which the unconscious is involved through the decision of the ‘ego’; it also enables the spectator’s attitude to be defined. Play is a model of the social, inter­ personal framework between the artist and his public, who together form a world with rules of their own. Play and joke both involve an attitude of surrender, whose reward is the pleasure gained from the activity. However, art is neither a joke nor a game. Yet rhetoric is an art and Gombrich knows that today it is a discredited art. Ours is a decidedly anti-rhetorical age, and, in some way, our artistic judgements derive from that prejudice. This idea is reflected in some lines from Gombrich on figurative painting, which are also applicable to the other arts.

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Epithets such as ‘stagey’ or ‘theatrical’ are not necessarily words of praise when applied to works of art, and the gradual eclipse suffered by academic art with its ‘grand manner’ is closely linked with the reaction against classical rhetoric in favour of a less formal and less public display of emphatic emotion. (IE, 96) However, rhetoric was a fundamental art form in classical civilisation; classical culture awarded a special place to the domain of language and to rhetoric. And art and rhetoric were closely related. Hence Gombrich says that an author such as Croce, who based his theory on the radical insularity of the art work, with no other function, removing it from its context, ‘erected a formidable obstacle in the way of perceiving the arts of the past when he insisted on divorcing rhetoric from art. It is precisely the point that ancient theory did not know this distinction’ (SI, 129).6 The interaction between art and rhetoric is most evident in the figurative arts, where the parallels are clear. We can find many examples in Gombrich’s studies of the function of the image as the plausible evocation of a memorable or sacred event in classical antiquity and the Renaissance. The most outstanding can perhaps be seen in his articles specifically dealing with this theme, ‘Ritualized Gesture and Expression in Art’ (IE, 63ff.) and ‘Action and Expression in Western Art’ (IE, 78ff.), yet there are many others; indeed, one might go so far as to say that it is a subject he likes to discuss it whenever the occasion arises. He devotes one whole chapter of Art and Illusion to this parallel (AI, 9ff.). In an exemplary article entitled ‘Architecture and Rhetoric in Giulio Romano’s Palazzo del Te’ (NL, 161ff.) he draws a relationship between the two disciplines and even sets out a line to follow. Ornament, too, is closely related to classical rhetoric. Gombrich’s book on the subject, The Sense of Order contains numerous references, and he devotes an entire chapter to analysing the relationship (cf. SO, 19ff.). References to the relationship between music and rhetoric can be found scattered

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throughout Gombrich’s other work, for he has written very little specifically on the subject of music. Nonetheless, they are now without interest.7 Rhetoric occupies an important place in Gombrich’s ideas because it represents a study of the potential of the means. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Gombrich frequently uses language and rhetoric as a model. Language is one of the most complex of interpersonal institutions and probably the best studied. The formation, evolution and learning of language, together with many other aspects, are helpful as a model for art, since art is much more difficult to study because its function is more difficult to determine than language’s. Language provides, above all else, a model for understanding artistic expression as expression. And classical rhetoric delves further into such themes. However, rhetoric casts light on many other issues common to language and the visual arts. The joke has scarcely any rules; play invariably does have rules; rhetoric is a regulatory art, but the rules change, ways of speaking are renewed over time. The study of rhetoric introduces the time factor into Gombrich’s theory. ‘The study of language offers itself as the best testing ground. We need only return to those subtle students of speech, the ancient writers and orators, to find a storehouse of illuminating examples of inflation and its consequences’ (II, 68). This is an area in which language – specifically rhetoric – can provide an excellent model; at heart, the problem of change alludes directly to the problem of style; and style, clearly, is a term of classical rhetoric (cf. 105, 354). And, finally, rhetorical writers developed theories about their medium which are still valid today. In doing so, they drew on examples and notions drawn from the plastic arts. And so, in turn, the plastic arts took ideas and examples from rhetoric for their own theories. That relationship is still useful today. 2. Model of Expression Closely linked to style, classical rhetoric offers a model for expression. ‘In classical writings on rhetoric’, says Gombrich,

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we have perhaps the most careful analysis of any expressive medium ever undertaken. Language, to these critics, is an organon, an instrument which offers its master a variety of different scales and ‘stops’. Whenever they discuss expression, therefore, they speak of the rich choice of ‘expressions’. (AI, 374–5) All rhetorical art aims to arouse or extinguish, foment or moderate the sentiments of a judge in a trial. The orator incites the passions and does so with his words; there are devices of praise or disparagement, which seek to attract benevolence or provoke indignation, invite mockery or tenderness. The rhetorical speech must be expressive, and that expression must serve a purpose: to win the judge over to the cause. This being so, the art of oratory values the subtle relationship between a mastery of the means (the oratory devices) and the end (the favourable judgment). This is all very important; it is the resources that lead to the ‘expressions’. Whoever masters the resources and also masters the means, achieves the stated objective. Another important issue is the matter of the ‘oratory genera’; stirring calls to arms, funeral orations or legal defences are all different, and they require different devices in terms of intonation, attitude and vocabulary. In addition to the different genera, another fundamental concept is decorum. One of the basic skills required of the orator is his or her sensitivity to the appropriate. A funeral eulogy takes a different tone to a panegyric; the right thing for the moment, for the place, for the very dispositions, this is the magnificent wisdom of the classical tradition, the wisdom of prudence. But let us recap. There are clearly defined means and ends. The means of rhetoric are dependent on genera, and an acute sense of decorum is required to use them. And thus a thoroughly conventional art – one that is full of convention – and one that is thoroughly expressive, is developed. For the academic conventions of art, however arbitrary and illogical they may

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have been, were not only pedantic rules made to cramp the imagination and to blunt the sensibility of genius; they provided the syntax of a language without which expression would have been impossible. (NF, 121) We know how to distinguish the stirring tone of the call to arms from the grieved tone of the funeral oration. In both cases, the orator may cry out in distress, to convey either the magnitude of a threat to be vanquished or the depth of his despair. The tone may be the same in both cases, and thus the expression will depend on the context. The highly articulate context allows for subtle differentiations. In the case of another genus, that of the muezzin reciting the call to prayer, we know to interpret the clear shout from the minaret as being expressionless. These are the rules of the game. But, as we have already said, in rhetoric the rules change (cf. AI, 374–5). 3. Model of Change As an instrument, language is thoroughly sensitive to change; the orator who uses outmoded or overly modern language should be aware that this way of speaking will colour and qualify his discourse, adding or subtracting force to his oratorical resources; in other words, the very currency of that form of speech is in itself expressive, even if it is not intended to be. Today a sermon by Bossuet would seem out of place, and Demosthenes’s speech On the Crown would bomb if he delivered it to the European Parliament. Here, too, we have one of the great contributions of rhetoric; the rhetorical writers understood that rules changed; to paraphrase Tacitus – as quoted by Gombrich – ‘ears change’ (cf. AI, 10). This change in rules represents the emergence of a new phenomenon – artistic taste; the ‘natural’ appeal of the discourse is called into question: fluidity, profusion, novel words, shocking examples, etc. And precisely for this reason, aesthetic judgement becomes disassociated, although not entirely, from immediate appreciation.

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There is a word that describes this effect concisely: prestige. Gombrich does not use it any significant sense, but I think it helps explain his ideas. There are forms, ways of speaking, that acquire prestige. And when we use that magic word, we draw a pertinent distinction between aesthetic evaluation and a ‘natural’ foundation. It is not that we cannot appreciate good discourses, but that it is impossible to explain, beyond doubt, why they are good: quite simply, they use prestigious forms. We can see that evaluation depends not only on ‘things’ but above all on our ideas of those ‘things’. Obviously, this is one of Gombrich’s favourite themes, the relationship between norm and form. And it is broadly echoed in the oratorical tradition. The norm is not sustained by any type of immanent or transcendental principle. And consequently, in the rhetorical tradition, it becomes necessary to turn to the classics, to authors who have been considered masters. The classics teach us to master language. And tradition preserves their names, passes down the canon, the catalogue of established authors who serve as our model for composing, and our guide for judging. Bossuet is a magnificent religious orator, Demosthenes is supreme. The canon was and is inseparable from the rhetorical tradition and its need is founded on the same relative arbitrariness of stylistic evolution. And so, oratorical devices change; it all comes down to prestige. Forms receive prestige from the dominant ideas and so, new norms are established. Such norms allude positively or negatively to a canon. An orator with a sense of decorum can sense what best suits the new situation, adjust his devices and make his discourse expressive. If Bossuet or Demosthenes had lived in our times, they would undoubtedly have been magnificent members of parliament, using concise and incisive language. As we can see, rhetoric is a very complex model. 4. Rhetoric as a Precedent But rhetoric is not only a well-studied model. Rhetoric is the source and precedent for aesthetic theories. The ancient rhetoricians developed theories that positively influenced the theorists of the visual arts. For this reason, Gombrich notes that ‘no historian of any artistic evolution

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could fail to learn from the way ancient critics of oratory described and discussed the history of their art’ (113, 310). In effect, the great theorists developed a history of their art which made sense, a true history. In discussing Popper’s ideas as found in Gombrich’s writings, I have stressed the role of scientific evolution, of discoveries that produce progress in science. One might also consider that in some sense art progresses, provided it has the means to fulfil certain ends and that such means improve. The main historiographic pattern which classical antiquity bequeathed to the Western tradition is that of progress towards an ideal of perfection. The advantage of this pattern in giving coherence to the history of any art was demonstrated by Aristotle for the story of Greek tragedy, by Cicero for the rise of oratory and, of course, by Pliny for the rise of painting and sculpture. (NF, 100) Demonstrating progress, the contributions of historical individuals to the common enterprise that runs through history, provide historical consistency. History and, specifically, the history of art does not consist of a series of unconnected deeds, isolated works of art, responding to prevailing, capricious and sporadic tastes. Naturally, however, the notion of progress is not merely an effective historiographical device for stringing facts together into a coherent account. I have mentioned Gombrich’s interest in the influence of dominant ideas on specific deeds. When the notion of progress spread, it had the virtue of altering the entire panorama of art. This is not an easy theme to discuss. 5. Levels in the Idea of Progress The idea of progress towards an ideal of perfection is the theoretical subject on which Gombrich has spent most time. And it is not easy to speak of this idea, because frequently in Gombrich various levels of

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analysis become blurred. The idea of progress towards an ideal of perfection is one of Aristotle’s historiographical discoveries. It was taken up, as we shall see, by the rhetorical writers, and from there by art theorists. Gombrich endeavours – successfully – to relate the writers of treatises on art with this idea. At the same time, he shows how this idea influenced artists themselves. And when it influenced them, the artists became engaged in a chain of progress. This chain had to be discussed by any historian wishing to provide a historical panorama of art. Gombrich himself has written his history of art, as a history of progress towards an ideal of perfection, and is therefore not indifferent to this idea (cf. SO, 210); he is a decidedly interested party. And so, the idea born out of historiography becomes a fact that has to be included in history. The idea of progress, on the other hand, arouses immediate opposition. After all, any progress is seen to be relative. Any change entails a loss or transformation of the initial state. And progress will mean replacing one initial state for another advantageous final. But who will measure that advantage? It is part of the nature of things, that neither in rhetoric nor in art in general can it be demonstrated that one thing is better than another (which is not to say that it is not better). The idea of progress polarises positions in the Western world, says Gombrich. ‘Progressed’ things will be opposed by the idea that the original, the primitive, was better, purer. Naturally, this idea also comes from the classical rhetorical tradition and spread to art theory; it is primitivism. This idea influences certain artists, whose works launch another history of art. Here, too, Gombrich does not sit on the fence; he has been critical, at least, of those historians who have exalted artists who opposed the notion of progress. And so two great cycles, of different kinds and various levels, clash. I shall now set out Gombrich’s view of Aristotle’s idea, focusing on the debate between the writers of classical rhetoric on progress and primitivism. This development shows the influence of the rhetorical tradition on Gombrich. The theme of the second part of my work is the notion of progress. Gombrich believes that this is a key notion in the theory – and thus the history – of Western art.

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6. Aristotle and Plato It was Aristotle, ‘the great biologist’ (NF, 71 and 87), who first applied the idea of progress as organic growth. This is what Gombrich calls ‘organic metaphor’, in which the development of any art is identified with the life cycle of an organism from youth to maturity and thence to decline and death. We have taken our model of human progress from science and technology. One needs only look at science-fiction to see how progress is considered to be infinitely extensible. The old model – particularly the Aristotelian model – was different: it was one of organic growth. The oak develops from an acorn into a mature tree, transforming its potential­ ities into actualities. According to Aristotle, Greek drama also developed in this way, from the crude writings of Thespis to the master­works of Sophocles and Euripides. ‘ “Little by little”, he said, “tragedy grew as people developed whatever of it came to light and, going through many transformations, came to rest when it had attained its own nature” ’ (82, 243). When Aristotle speaks of the natural form, he is referring to the achievement of tragedies that fulfilled the task of all tragedy: ‘these developing means were harnessed in his view to a desired effect, which he defines in half religious, half medical terms as katharsis, or purgation of the passions’ (IE, 219). The purpose of tragedy, the end it has to some extent achieved in its development, is to provoke catharsis, the desired effect. Thus tragedy can be considered good or bad insofar as it achieves this effect. As Gombrich noted, this same idea of progress was already applied in art history. The lost treatise of Duris of Samos may have been built on this idea. In any case, ideas of progress towards a natural form, an ideal, or the quest for a lost state of innocence, primitivism, took root in rhetoric theory from very early times. In rhetoric, as Gombrich masterfully explains, the idea of progress, robed in a special aura, will again be placed at the disposal of the visual arts. Classical education was interested in the capacities of expression and persuasion. Thus, the treatise writers analysed the psychological effects of oratorical devices and worked to create a suitable terminology

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containing the categories of expression. But this could only be done with metaphors. And the visual arts provided a perfect example of the influence of taste on expression. And so, a bridge was built which would soon be used also in the opposite direction (cf. AI, 10). The treatise writers of the visual arts were to draw from the theory of rhetoric. In rhetoric, however, the idea of progress is transformed, it takes on a moral sense. If rhetoric is the art of persuading, rhetorical devices will be used to defend the truth, and also the untruth, with the same degree of effectiveness. At the same time, the pleasure caused by the mastery of language leads us to forget its original purpose. The figure of the orator is confused with the scorned classical image of the sophist. And this is, of course, the theme of the most famous classic argument against the corruption of language, Plato’s Gorgias. Gombrich highlights Plato’s position on several occasions. Plato represents ancient primitivism, a primitivism charged with moral reason; in him one finds a condemnation of empty sophism and corrupted visual arts. Plato disproved of the effective development of the figurative arts in the Greece of his time. In the chapter ‘Reflections on the Greek Revolution’ (AI, 116ff.) Gombrich recalls the famous declarations in the Laws and the Republic. For Plato, Gombrich argues, art is also an aesthetic of effects. In ‘Experiment and Experience in the Arts’ (IE, 215 and ff.), he adds: A thinker such as Plato judged art, dancing, poetry, music and to some extent image making by its effects [. . .] Art for Plato is like a drug, its effects can be rousing or tranquillizing, invigorating or debilitating and it is precisely for this reason that in his view it had to be strictly controlled by the state. Gombrich uses Plato and his Gorgias as the starting point for his article ‘The Debate on Primitivism in Ancient Rhetoric’ (27). The title is a clear reflection of the contents, and it is significant to find Gombrich in a

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field apparently so far removed from his usual hunting grounds. I shall follow his argument. The baton was passed from Plato to Cicero. 7. Cicero Cicero was at the heart of the most important part of this debate. Towards the end of his career and at the height of his fame, this, the greatest of Roman orators, had to confront a growing group of predominantly young orators. They rejected all ornament and sought to restore to rhetorical language the simplicity of their Greek precursors, particularly Lysias and Thucydides. As a result, they became known as the ‘Atticists’. They were led by Marcus Junius Brutus, a friend of Cicero’s, who shared his political ideas and was eventually to be one of Caesar’s assassins. Cicero found himself at the centre of the controversy. He rose to the occasion with two of his most famous works, Brutus and Orator, both dedicated to Marcus Brutus. The first was a history of Roman eloquence before Cicero’s time, and the second was a study of the qualities and knowledge an orator needed to possess. Years before, he had published his De Oratore which was unrelated to the controversy. The three, De Oratore, Brutus and Orator, constitute the greatest Roman contribution to the theory and history of rhetoric. Let us now turn to Gombrich’s interpretation. Brutus (cf. 27, 28–30) contains the thesis that progress really exists. If certain resources are provided to achieve certain aims, the aims can be achieved. Progress can therefore exist in an art, and a moment may arise when perfection appears; the means achieve the end. Nonetheless, says Gombrich, Cicero argues that perfection in one art need not be simultaneous with perfection in others. Gombrich considers this all to be defensible, especially when the results are obvious; success can be measured by the effect that the speech has in court. ‘Cicero did not rest his claim on any vague or elusive idea of aesthetic excellence but on the downto-earth conception of oratory as an instrument of persuasion’ (27, 29). In Orator (cf. 27, 30–1) Cicero, argues Gombrich, changes the argument. Absolute perfection cannot be achieved. There are in fact three different modes, three styles: the grand, the plain and the medium

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style. The orator must maintain the right tone, the one required by ‘decorum’. The mistake of the Atticists lies in their exclusivity. Yet the good orator must know how to strike a balance. A constantly grand manner is tiring; one that is always plain proves boring. Gombrich considers De Oratore (cf. 27, 31–3) to be the most serene of Cicero’s expositions and to contain the most important reflections on the topic of primitivism. The growth in oratory devices leads to the oldest – the plainest or most elementary – being identified with nobility. The ancient acquires an aura of superiority. And for this reason, old ways live on and are coloured with a new expressivity: to the powerful archaicising effect is added the prestige of the ancestral. However it is important not to abuse this expedient; an orator who speaks only in archaic fashion, will look like a yokel. Here then, we find many of Gombrich’s favourite themes. In Brutus the progress provided by the means; the mastery which is capable of using them; achievement viewed as an ‘aesthetic effect’. Cicero’s oratory, says Gombrich, is a ‘theory of response’ (82, 245), an ‘aesthetics of effects’. Secondly in the Orator we find different manners of speech, or genera – the grand, the plain and the medium – and the sense of decorum an orator must possess to choose the right tone for his discourse according to the circumstances. The cultivated sensitivity of orator and audience makes the choice from among several manners significant; there really is a solemn tone, and others that are joyful, festive, superficial, profound, etc. It is the conventions that place the artist in control of an instrument of expression. Finally in De Oratore the change in style is analysed. Ancient examples become outmoded and are superseded by increased skill. However taste, which can call for ever greater virtuosity, can also suddenly change direction; an excess of skill becomes cloying; virtuosity may be accused of corruption and pure showmanship. And in comparison to this surfeit of effects, primitive, antiquated manners can appear solemn, noble, strong and forceful, and also innocent and youthful. The outcome depends not only on the skill of the orator, but on the skill of the spectator. And in that subtle balance, theories on art itself have an undisputed importance.

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8. Quintilian and Tacitus One of the most important authors to take up the controversy on primitivism was Quintilian, who shared Cicero’s line and for whom Gombrich has expressed a certain esteem. The situation Quintilian faced, and the approach he adopted, is reminiscent of Gombrich himself. Quintilian, in the midst of the debate, composed his Institutiones Oratoriae as an educational manual, placing the domain of language at the heart of the education of any cultivated person. Gombrich believes Quintilian to have been right in his diagnosis of the situation: the insistence on introducing new frills has ended up wearing down the orator’s prestige (cf. II, 68). And he chooses the middle way, ‘not running after every innovation but not resisting those that had become generally current. It was a rational course to take’ (II, 69). He knows how to make concessions, when they need to be made (cf. II, 91). His position on the orators and artists of the past is reasonably eclectic. We see how for Quintilian the ideal recedes from his grasp. There is always too little of something or too much of the other in every artist. As beauty comes in, dignity goes out; as truthfulness increases, beauty suffers. The result is a cautious pluralism which is aware of the variability of taste (27, 34). Gombrich adds that Quintilian hits the nail on the head when he analyses the appeal of primitivism among lovers of the art:8 ‘There are people [. . .] who prefer the promise of an art to its fulfilment [. . .] He suspects an admixture of snobbishness in such a preference: “Such people, I think, want to show off their connoisseurship” ’ (cf. 27, 34–5). Finally, in his reference to art history, Quintilian clearly applies an instrumental view of art. ‘When Quintilian called the contorted attitude of Myron’s Discobolos “particularly praiseworthy for its novelty and difficulty”, he codified a standard of criticism that linked art with the solution of problems’ (AI, 141).

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In short, Quintilian makes an incisive and pertinent analysis and his position is rational. Particularly attractive for Gombrich is his cautious, critical and pluralistic attitude to a time that is capable of appreciating the value of each work in its context, and that is aware of the danger of extreme positions (cf. II, 91; 47, 14). Gombrich refers to Tacitus, a contemporary of Quintilian’s, only to highlight the same ideas. However he does add the ‘fascinating’ intuition that the rise and fall of oratory are closely linked to the exercise of public freedom, a condition that allows it to be used. Elsewhere, Gombrich reminds us that Tacitus was responsible for ‘the first fleeting contact between the psychology of style and that of perception’ (AI, 10), in that he argued that ‘our ears change’, in other words, that the same speech may sound different as the years go by.9 Gombrich devotes brief, secondary references to Demetrius and his treatise on Style. Longinus, on the other hand, occupies a central place. Gombrich finds his treatise On the Sublime to be one of the most important, particularly because of its subsequent influence in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Longinus separates oratorical achievement, the sublime, from technical skill; he directly links expression to the orator’s intentions. The true sublime is not a manufactured effect, it is, in his famous phrase, ‘the ring of a noble soul’. It was this stand in favour of an ‘expressionist’ theory of style which secured for Longinus his mounting prestige among ancient critics after his re-discovery in the late Renaissance. His greatness is not in doubt; and yet it could be argued that his solution amounted to little more than a surrender to what I have called ‘the physiognomic fallacy’. (27, 36) Anything old or archaic could approach the sublime; Longinus’s thesis leaves no place for the fine critique of the previous orators. Cicero,

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Quintilian and Tacitus knew that the old is often shrouded in an aura of innocence or youth, simplicity or strength, and they guessed at the cause. Its very coarseness or imperfection contrasts with more elaborate and complex modes that succeeded it; modes of speech, says Gombrich, ‘acquire not only the “pathos of distance” but the halo of solemnity’ (27, 36). On many occasions, the sense of the sublime only emerges from a position of hindsight, when looking at a work from the remote past. When this is the case, such a sense tells us nothing about the quality of the work; rather, it tends to disguise it. We are left with Vitruvius. Gombrich’s depiction of Vitruvius varies little from the traditional view. Vitruvius was, of course, the chronicler and orderer of the ancient architectural tradition. Two aspects stand out in Gombrich’s quotations. Vitruvius was the author who condemned excess, the champion of restraint, and Gombrich often cited his moral condemnation of the excesses of painting in Book VII. His Sense of Order is built around the denunciations of Vitruvius and many other authors who came after him: Vasari, Milizia, Bellori, Winckelmann (cf. SO, 20ff.; NF, 83ff. and 119ff.), and, astonishingly, Focillon (cf. SO, 204–11). The other aspect that Gombrich mentions in his article on the debate on rhetoric is certainly novel. Vitruvius, says Gombrich, deals with the succession of architectural styles, Doric, Ionian, Corinthian, as a range of orders available for the architect’s choice according to the character of the building with which he has to deal. Here too the evolution is interpreted in terms of expressive features. – and Gombrich cites the well-known Doric/Male, Ionic/Female, Corinthian/Young girl analogy. And he goes on to say: ‘with this transformation of history into a succession of modes the way was clearly open for the appreciation of archaic art and primitive styles’ (27, 33). In a certain sense, Vitruvius set a precedent for interpreting historical styles as different expressions at the service of the architect.

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Nineteenth-century architects would add more possibilities to the list. Elsewhere Gombrich clarifies this position: Even this morphological approach has its roots in Vitruvius. It derives from his treatment of the orders [. . .] Why should this range not be extended to embrace the Gothic or the Baroque order as well, and thus merely increase the languages of form the architect learns to speak? (NF, 87) This brief exposition should serve to show that ancient rhetoric contains the finest – and most valid – analyses of style, and on the way in which it evolves; on the relationship between dominant ideas and prestigious forms, on the power of snobbism, the range of the notion of progress and the temptation of primitivism. Moreover, Longinus can be seen to be a forerunner of expressionist theory and even of the Hegelians themselves, for behind art there beats a spirit that is not that of the artist, but of his age. Vitruvius unwittingly established a precedent for the historical device of presenting a series of styles with their own modes, their own expression.

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Part II Approaches to Progress Topics of Western Art

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5. Vasari and the Classical Theory The author most often cited by Gombrich is Giorgio Vasari. It should come as no surprise to find him making constant reference to the writer of the most complete collection of biographies of figures from the Floren­ tine artistic renaissance, given that many of Gombrich’s own works are related to the Renaissance, particularly in Florence. For Gombrich, Vasari is an indispensable source. And the sheer number and appropriateness of his citations reflect Gombrich’s familiarity with the Vite. However, Vasari is also the great theorist of classical art. And at the heart of his theory, structuring all his biographies, is the same organic model used by Aristotle. Art, he argues, develops from the initial periods of childish scribblings through to full maturity; according to Gombrich, one can also trace its subsequent decline. 1. Vasari and the Rhetorical Conception In classical antiquity, there were writers who specifically applied this model to art history. Nearly all their treatises have now been lost. Even

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in the best of cases, one can only gain an approximate idea of their contents. However, one very famous treatise has been conserved, the Natural History, written around 77 AD by a true erudite, Pliny the Elder. Of course, as we know, this is not really an artistic treatise per se, but a vast encyclopaedic exposition, which touches tangentially on painting and sculpture. Pliny placed the ancient painters and sculptors in order of their periods of maturity. He was a highly valuable source for Renaissance artists. As Gombrich has shown, Ghiberti himself was heavily influenced by Pliny’s ideas (cf. NF, 4–8), and in his Commentarii, he paraphrased the Roman writer. Vasari was familiar with Pliny’s work and drew on it when writing his Vite. However, in a famous article, ‘Vasari’s Lives and Cicero’s Brutus’ (113), Gombrich showed that in choosing his schema, Vasari was mainly inspired by Cicero. In his article, Gombrich quotes from the marvellous preface to the second part of Vasari’s Vite. Having carefully weighed these matters in my mind, I have come to the conclusion that there is a property and a particular nature inherent in those arts that from humble beginnings go on to improve by small degrees and finally attain the peak of perfection. And I have come to this belief because I have seen this to have happened with other faculties; since there is a certain kinship between all the liberal arts, this fact is no minor argument in favour of its truth. (113, 309)1 Vasari goes on to use the example of the parallel between the development of ancient sculpture: Canachus, Calamis, Myron and Polycleitus, who achieved perfection, with the great painters Zeuxis, Polygnotus, Timantes and Erion, Nicomachus, Protogenes and Apelles. As Gombrich notes, the same examples, in the same order, can be found in Cicero’s Brutus, to demonstrate that perfection can only be achieved after a period of trials and attempts.

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Vasari uses this arrangement to order his account as a path towards perfection, in which each step has a precise position. Vasari creates a true history of art. And this is Vasari’s great contribution: he adopts an analogy that makes sense of the succession of events. And he himself says as much. Gombrich adds that ‘his ruling conception of art as a solution of certain problems certainly provided him with a principle of selection that alone enabled him to write history rather than a mere chronicle’ (HA, 115). Vasari describes the history of Florentine painting as being the development of skills until a supreme point was reached in Michelangelo. His conception is that progress in representation exists; that this progress occurs in Florence; and that it is progress because everyone can see that the works of the masters of their time are better than those of previous masters. In short, he applies the schema of classic rhetoric to the history of art. And in this arrangement, we also find good and bad. Thus Gombrich comments that the restoration of good letters is a constant theme of the humanists, and Vasari, as we know, applied it not as the first but as the most detailed and persuasive historian to the history of art. The part of the Asian villains is taken by the Goths, and once more Italy came to the rescue and allowed a new cycle towards perfection to begin again, which leads ‘da Cimabue in puoi’ to the perfection of Michelangelo. (NF, 101) This conception of art, Gombrich recognises, may be a simplification. We all know the oversimplifications underlying the schema of progress adopted by Vasari from Pliny and accepted with little change by subsequent centuries. But the schema would not have survived

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so long if it had not brought the advantage of an ordered hierarchy into the teeming world of art. (II, 200) Because Vasari’s view was identified with rhetoric, it underwent a substantial change. The traditional view presents Vasari as a defender of mimesis – the greatest verisimilitude, the perfect representation. And such a goal requires progress in the means. The means are, clearly, greater verisimilitude, or rather, a mastery of the techniques of repre­ sentation: foreshortening of the human body, perspective, or a coherent depiction of space, chiaroscuro, etc. Gombrich would have shared the traditional view. This is reflected in his remarks on Vasari in the introduction of one of his most important books, Art and Illusion. Vasari, in other words, saw the invention of the means of representation as a great collective enterprise of such difficulty that a certain division of labor was inevitable [. . .] I hope to show in the course of this book that this view is by no means as naïve as it is sometimes made out to be. It appears naïve only because Vasari, too, could not disentangle the idea of invention from that of the imitation of nature. (AI, 11–2) Gombrich’s habitual moderation and his recognition of Vasari’s virtues perhaps obscure the full weight of these words. The subject of the book is the difference between imitation and invention. But what is significant is that he reduces Vasari to this dilemma. Earlier, in a passing allusion, he classed any vision such as Vasari’s that ignored the context of art as being ‘superficial’ (cf. MH, 36). However, there is an evident change in Gombrich’s writings following his publication of ‘Vasari’s Lives and Cicero’s Brutus’ (113). Gombrich

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argued that Vasari’s view may appear superficial or naive, but this is because it is based on a misconception. Vasari is commonly believed to have tried to equate the development of figurative art with progress in semblance, in the realism of depictions. In the same issue of Warburg Institute’s journal containing Gombrich’s article showing Cicero’s influence on Vasari, Svetlana Alpers also published an interesting article on Vasari. Gombrich appears to have felt this article to be especially important. He referred to it in a review of a book by Alpers: More than two decades ago Svetlana Alpers placed us all in her debt by publishing a strikingly new analysis of Vasari’s famous Lives of the . . . Painters (1550). She taught us (or in any case me) that we misread and therefore undervalue that foundation charter of art-historical studies if we fail to distinguish between what Vasari sees as the means of art and what is its purpose. Far from naively regarding the faithful imitation of nature as an end in itself, Vasari saw the development of representational skills as the perfection of means which always served their main social function – the evocation of a sacred or edifying story, in other words: dramatic narrative. (RH, 115) Gombrich’s words make clear that this thesis is of great importance to him. The ‘illusion’ that can be created by a picture or a statue is not an end in itself, but a means to introducing the spectator into the scenes being depicted. The main function of figurative art, therefore, is this dramatic evocation. In short, the purpose is to involve the spectator. This change of perspective makes Vasari not only the most important historiographer of the Renaissance, but above all a historian who hits the nail on the head in his history. And so, he becomes the best

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historical testament of the appropriate way of analysing Western ­classicist art (cf. NF, 92; NL, 95). 2. Vasari’s Contributions Vasari, says Gombrich, was ‘a highly intelligent and highly successful artist right in the centre of things’ (HA, 126): It has always seemed strangely moving to me that it was Vasari who designed the Uffizi in Florence, where so many of the works he admired are now enshrined. Vasari was a good architect, but as a painter his gifts were certainly unequal to the tasks with which he was confronted during a very successful career. (MH, 108–9) He was therefore ideally placed to write the Vite, a task which Gombrich feels he completed very successfully (cf. MH, 108). I would like to comment on some of his achievements, as Gombrich sees them. First of all, his approach to art required him to be a critic as well as a historian. However, his very awareness of progress gave him an insight into the artists who lived before him and allowed him to assess their contribution positively. ‘His work amply shows that he could give credit even to buildings or painting which he found less than perfect from his point of view’ (NF, 84). This is the first lesson to be learnt from Vasari: the historian must appraise and calibrate the quality of works of art, because he seeks to build an account whose narrative is the search for perfection, achieved perfections. And a task such as this is possible because in some way it is possible to measure each artist’s contributions. However, in order to make that assessment, it is also necessary to provide a response to works of art from times gone by – superseded, perhaps, but still valid. Vasari knows how to do this. And his history is a history of those men and deeds, whose importance he sets out, without categorical outbursts – not his style – or philosophical digressions.

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He recorded the lives and habits of these earlier masters, masters who, in his view, had led the arts to the heights, with a love and admiration that was much more laudatory and understanding than anything the Romantics could find elsewhere. Moreover, he told the history of art in human terms. He described the piety of Fra Angelico, the simple habits of Donatello, the escapades of Filippo Lippi, and the oddities of Piero di Cosimo. He presented the picture of an environment where art was still practised as an honest craft. (82, 280) Gombrich sees Vasari as a fine interpreter of art works. When he has to describe a picture on a religious theme, or when he himself depicts a scene: Of course he imagined things, but this is what he was expected to do. In responding to the biblical narrative he added something of his own. Would we not all do this if we were asked to read the narrative aloud? We must interpret the text or it would be dead; the actor, even more than the reader, adds inflection, gesture, and expression to the lines he is asked to speak, just as the musician interprets the score by filling it with life and meaning without doing violence to what is there. In that sense Vasari deserves good marks for entering into the action and identifying with the figures, for I am convinced that this unfashionable way of interpreting a narrative painting is the intended one. (39, 73–5)

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Vasari in his Vite uses a form of exposition that is still unmatched today. He could do so precisely because he knew what means each artist had at his disposal and he knew their goals; and these goals and means can only be understood within each artistic tradition. Vasari reveals the driving force behind the process of achieving perfection when he suggests that criticism is the cause that drives progress in representation. He shows Donatello, working at a remove from Florence, who feared that he might lose his desire to better himself because of the praise being showered on him. Perugino, in contrast, satisfied himself with his initial successes by not accepting criticisms and removing himself from the process of improvement (cf. HA, 119– 20). Vasari had noted that criticism and competence were the engines of progress, as Gombrich indicates in a section called ‘Vasari’s Vite: The Power and Perils of Hindsight’, in his article ‘The Leaven of Criticism in Renaissance Art’ (HA, 111–31). Vasari, because of his position, became fully aware of the value of tradition and of the sense of individual contribution against that context. ‘Nobody knew better than he did, how much tradition counts in art. His whole framework of organic growth rests on the conviction that one artist learns from another and can add to his achievements and discoveries’ (MH, 112). Vasari himself, Gombrich believes, was probably ‘the first systematic collector of drawings [. . .]’ (NL, 110), which brought him into conflict with the problem of types and models and gave him a first-hand knowledge of the debt owed by some great artists, such as Da Vinci, to their masters and predecessors. In this same context, Vasari – Gombrich believes – also realised that the problem of artistic creation was a process of trial and error. The artist draws and corrects, he is his own critic (cf. IE, 227). And finally ‘Vasari is supremely aware of the existence of objective standards [. . .]’ (HA, 127); this is also his success – he knows how to decide whether something is good or bad, whether it can take its place in history or should be rejected; albeit although he sometimes does so with a surfeit of conviction and a certain air of superiority (cf. NF, 84). As we can see, Gombrich afforded Vasari a unique position. Vasari was not only the great historian of Renaissance painting and compulsory

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reading; he was, to some, Gombrich’s forerunner; and while I shall identify some major differences, in general terms, Vasari’s conception of art may be concluded to be Gombrich’s: a rhetorical conception. And it is revealing that Gombrich chooses Vasari as his forerunner. No other art historian has the same importance for him, let alone a contemporary historian. It is appealing to see him entering into art history and considering the precedents – Vasari and the rhetoricians – not as a mere object of study because of their influence on artists, but as writers who managed to analyse correctly their environment, authors who ‘got it right’. I do not share the tendency towards relativism which is so much the fashion today. Just as I believe that Vasari was right in describing the development of representation in terms of increasing fidelity to nature, so I also accept his claim that in what we called the Third or Perfect Manner of art in the Renaissance the problem of Beauty was mastered as it had not been mastered before, at least since the days of classical antiquity. (NL, 119) It is true that Vasari wrote much that was unreliable. In several essays on the Renaissance, Gombrich reveals some of Vasari’s interpretations to be pure invention: a pragmatic reconstruction that needs not be taken seriously (cf. HA, 103). Gombrich, a student of Schlosser, is familiar with Vasari’s limitations and has taken a close interest in the discovery of the sources of some of his stories (cf. 58, 13) which, in some cases, are actually small stories. And so, before drawing too much from one of his stories, he warns: ‘To those who know Vasari’s methods the ingenuities of these attempts to rescue his story seem rather misspent. Vasari was notoriously reckless in these as in other matters’ (NL, 18). This same knowledge gives Gombrich the authority to analyse Vasari.

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Gombrich is also aware of a limitation in Vasari which results directly from his approach to history. I have already mentioned the section from an article significantly entitled ‘The Power and Perils of Hindsight’ (HA, 115ff.). But though we must acknowledge these perils of hindsight, which have vitiated more recent histories than Vasari’s and have tended to reduce the history of art to the story of how the past strove to become the present, we must not allow our awareness of these limitations to dismiss Vasari’s whole account as unhistorical. (HA, 117) Vasari attributes to artists from the past a desire to learn techniques and master skills of which they had never heard. Yet this does not invalidate his thesis. Gombrich’s principal difficulty with Vasari was related to this matter of the retrospective view. And it is manifested in two issues which were, at the same time, to be of great importance in Gombrich’s work. The process that arose in Florence, like that in ancient Greece, broke with a conception of figurative representation found around the world. Classical Greece and the Renaissance are exceptions. What was it that was launched this process? For Gombrich, the answer – which he takes from the Vite – is an example of ‘incidental nonsense’ (cf. MH, 113): The spirits of those who were born, aided in some places by the subtlety of the air, [. . .] the heavens were moved to have compassion with the fine minds which the Tuscan soil brings forth every day and returned them to pristine form. (MH, 113) In Vasari it is excusable, says Gombrich, since at the end of the day, Galileo had not yet been born. Gombrich evidently takes this answer as

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a joke. He recognises that Vasari intuitively grasped that it had some relationship to criticism (cf. HA, 118), but could add little more. The second issue also arises from a consideration of progress. If, as Vasari thought, progress is organic, there is a point at which the peak of perfection is attained. As in the previous case, Vasari here shows a certain prejudice, since he considers the process to be inevitable; the seeds develop in the tree. Indubitably, this is Vasari’s weak point. The ascension of the arts stretches from its birth in Florence to its culmi­nation in Michelangelo, a gift from the heavens. Naturally, observes Gombrich, the same schema must also include an inevitable decline. ‘And he felt, though he did not quite dare to say so, that the tremendous achievement of Michelangelo indicated that the life cycle of art had reached its climax and was heading for decay’ (MH, 109). Gombrich, obviously, cannot accept that the process is inevitable, that there is some type of intrinsic need or law. And this is the main divide between Gombrich and the organic view: I have argued that the theory I spoke of before of the life cycle of arts is not rational. Unlike Vasari and his followers, I do not believe that the arts flourish only to wither, or that there is an inevitable tendency to mature towards decline, however often this idea may be posited. (47, 12).*

*  Editors’ note: ‘ho sostenuto che la teoria sul ciclo vitale delle arti di cui ho parlato prima non è razionale. A differenza del Vasari e dei suoi seguaci consapevoli o meno, io non credo che le arti fioriscano solo per appassire, o che esista una ine­ vitabile tendenza della maturità verso la decadenza, anche se lo si afferma di continuo.’ (The note referent in the text indicates a quote in its original language or a translation added by the editors and not present in Joaquín Lorda’s original text.)

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3. The Issue of Decline The problem of the decline of the arts, a direct consequence of organic progress, is indissolubly linked to the problem of ‘mannerism’. Here too the article by Svetlana Alpers casts some light on the issue: Nobody could surpass Michelangelo in the rendering of the human body. But Prof. Alpers has shown that we misread Vasari if we interpret his glorification of this victory as the feeling of an epigone who believes that nothing remains to be done any more. (HA, 128) Indeed, Gombrich presents the well-known solution in particular detail in his article ‘Mannerism: The Historiographic Background’ (NF, 99–106). Despite its brevity, this article has an important place in Gombrich’s oeuvre. In it, he recalls Vasari’s option. For Vasari was not only an historian, he was also a critic, and being himself a painter of the epigonic generation he gave a much clearer idea of the way ahead than he is usually given credit for. [. . .] It is true that Vasari saw in Michelangelo the master who had brought the most noble and most central task of art to unsurpassable perfection, the rendering of the beautiful human body in motion. But as a practising painter Vasari shows himself very much aware of the fact that there are other tasks, slightly less exalted perhaps, but no less useful to the painter, and in these Michelangelo had left the field to others, notably to Raphael. If

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Michelangelo is the highest peak, Raphael is a neighbouring range only slightly less high but much easier of ascent. (NF, 101) In short, other problems appear that require other means. Another process begins, and as a result, the idea of decline seems disorientating. As Gombrich notes, ‘to those who lived through those years this would have seemed an entirely false and artificial alternative. While they subscribed to the idea of artistic progress, they certainly did not yet subscribe to the idea of a final culmination’ (NF, 103). Michelangelo represents a peak, but other problems were still waiting, art had not finished. Vasari, the maximum exponent of the historiography and critique of classicism, has a singularly pertinent view: he validly adopts the schema of organic progress and, thanks to it, he writes an art history. He believes that the goal of the arts is dramatic evocation, the moving represen­ tation of sacred or mythical events. Therefore, progress consists of an improvement in the media: perspective, foreshortening, anatomical rigour, composition, expressivity of face and hands, etc., to move the spectator. Such progress is performed by trial and error, and is spurred on by the criticism of the work made by the painter himself, by his audience and, in particular, by his fellow painters. This is the traditional view, with which Gombrich concurs. Having identified the doctrine in Vasari, we must now analyse the results. The result of art is beauty. And we must speak of beauty. For Gombrich, beauty was truly achieved in Western art.

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6. Beauty as the Objective I have already cited Gombrich when he said that Vasari was correct to present the history of art as progress in representation and within it in the Third or Perfect Manner – ‘the problem of Beauty was mastered as it had not been mastered before, at least since the days of classical antiquity’ (NL, 119) – was achieved. Hence, beauty is added to the dramatic evocation. Introducing this notion may overcomplicate this outline; at the end of the day, the link to the classical theory of rhetoric may be somewhat precarious. Nonetheless, if there exist moving speeches, then there also exist beautiful words. In short, that ideal of beauty accompanies the capacity of representation which enables dramatic evocation; wherever there is mastery in representation, beauty is represented. Beauty as such plays an important role in dramatic evocation. If we look at the conquest of appearances in art in the light of this central function, it cannot escape us that it includes more

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than the imitation of everyday reality. For the tasks of religious painting obviously demand the representation not only of natural but also of supernatural beings, angels no less than the Holy Virgin. A realistic image of the Virgin must be an image of a woman of surpassing beauty. The words of the Song of Songs were applied to her, ‘Thou art fair my beloved, there is no spot in thee’, and liturgy dwelt on this theme. So does the image of the Holy Virgin on the Ghent Altar [he is referring to the altarpiece of St. Bavo’s Cathedral, the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb by Van Eyck] with the inscription ‘Hec est speciosior sole’ – she is fairer than the sun. Surely any art that strove for visualization had to strive to do justice to that exalted theme. (NL, 96) Beauty was an indispensable requirement in this representation. Elsewhere, where Gombrich uses exactly the same example, he says that ‘ “she is lovelier than the sun”, [. . .] and she is. Who ever said that beauty itself could not be a fitting symbol?’ (111, 155). The image really is bellissima, of a proverbial delicacy. And its beauty advantageously supplants the attributes that might be added by indicating its perfections: a mystical rose or a well of living water, etc. Van Eyck’s image is a truly celestial dramatic evocation, or, at least, as celestial as can be achieved with earthly means. Nonetheless the representation of beauty need not be linked to people or holy objects; even the representation of the vulgar, the anodyne or even the repugnant and terrible can also attain the perfection of beauty. And this, it is true, has been the goal of the Western tradition. But, what is beauty? I shall try to answer that question. I shall then show how beauty has occurred, based on ­Gombrich’s ideas.

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1. The Meaning of Beauty Gombrich believes in beauty. This should come as no surprise. I have already mentioned beauty as a goal of Western painting; it is more problematic to find allusions by Gombrich to other arts, and I must therefore deal separately with beauty in the figurative arts and in the non-figurative arts. In any case, Gombrich firmly believes that one cannot discuss Western art without alluding to the concept of beauty (cf. 96, 260). For there is authentic beauty in Raphael (cf. NL, 89–92), in Mozart’s music (cf. II, 16) or in the ancient cities (cf. RH, 198–9). Even such marginal arts as the history of caricature need that reference point (cf. 90, 207). Certainly, one should not expect from Gombrich anything like a definition of ‘beauty’. To the modern critic of language the so-called problem of beauty provides an easy target. In certain situations, he would argue, we are apt to say ‘this is beautiful’ or simply to exclaim ‘ah, lovely’; but does it therefore make sense to speak of the ‘nature’ of ‘beauty’ any more than it would to speak of the ‘essence of ahness’ or of the ‘laws of loveliness’? But though the historian of art can perhaps afford to watch the Hunting of the Snark with some detachment, the art critic is in a less comfortable position. He is appointed as a cheer-leader and arbiter, and the greater his sense of responsibility, the more he will feel the urge to render account for his use of language. (RH, 186) Thus Gombrich begins his review of a book entitled The Meaning of Beauty.1 The only thing one can clearly draw from the text is that the

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impression of beauty is related to ‘a feeling of balance which derives from very different sources’ (RH, 188). But for whatever reason, beauty has occurred. Take Raphael, now rather a remote deity in our Pantheon, but one whose name was once almost a synonym for divine beauty. To study him in the context of our culture is not only to study a historical figure but to examine our own relation to ideal beauty (II, 16). These words, in which Gombrich relates Raphael to divine beauty, will serve us as our gateway to a somewhat thorny issue: the ideal of beauty and its relationship to Platonism. Gombrich tackles the most widely disseminated theory in the Western world on the essence and meaning of beauty, the Platonic idea. The beauty of things is only a pale reflection of some other transcendental beauty. Here we must first take cognizance of the Platonic tradition which paradoxically dominated Western philosophies of art – paradoxically because Plato, as we know, had banished the artist from the ideal Republic as a mere conjuror whose skill could never reach the intelligible world of ideas, which is also the world of values. And yet it was the faith in the existence of such a world which inspired the artist with an idea of transcendent perfection against which alone they wanted their art to be judged. (II, 123) Gombrich argues that, with a number of variations and distortions, this theory held sway in the Western world until the eighteenth century

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(cf. T, 94). ‘This philosophical conviction spread among the studios of the artists in the Renaissance and became the academic doctrine which was formulated in its authentic Platonic form by Winckelmann’s friend Anton Raphael Mengs in his Reflections on Beauty in 1762’ (II, 124). Winckelmann was markedly Platonic. And Winckelmann, Gombrich notes, bequeathed this legacy, among other things, to Hegel, where it became what Gombrich calls ‘aesthetic transcendentalism’, the presence of the divine in human work (cf. T, 52). Naturally, it was to have extensive repercussions. However, the existence of the idea, the ideal prototype that remains in the heavens, was contested by the English empiricists of the eighteenth century, who turned the theorists towards psychology, a new branch of knowledge that was beginning to take hold. Among these was Edmund Burke, who published his Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, in 1757.2 Gombrich considers it to be ‘one of the most interesting books ever written on aesthetics’ (47, 18).* And I shall explain why: Burke believes that the impression of the sublime was born out of the individual’s fearful reaction to a threat; in other words, it is a reaction that is linked to our survival instinct. At the same time, the beautiful is related to sexual attraction, and ultimately to the preservation of the species. It is therefore, says Gombrich, an aesthetic ‘on biological foundations, and he thus struck a note which still reverberates in Freud’s writings’ (T, 94). And on that point, there are certain similarities between Burke and Gombrich, who also emphasises the biological bases of the aesthetic response. However, Burke – unlike Freud (and Gombrich) – was interested only in the observer. ‘As a student of emotional effects he is indebted to the tradition of ancient rhetoric, to which he also owes the concept of the sublime’ (T, 94). Gombrich allied himself with this tradition. But he first needs to identify the mistake that has been maintained by Platonic doctrine for centuries.

*  Editors’ note: ‘uno di libri di estetica più interessanti che siano mai stati scritti’.

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2. The Idea It is important to note from the outset that the idea of artistic beauty has two different faces; on the one hand, that which artists judged to be beauty, and on the other, the beauty that they could create, and the specific way in which they achieved an undisputed beauty. We need no doubt that painters experienced this very thrill. And yet one suspects that the pattern they found behind the visible world was not the one laid up in heaven but the remembered shapes they had learned in their youth. (AI, 156) This quotation from Art and Illusion alerts us to the fact that, to some extent, the confused but exciting image that artists believed they were pursuing was not exactly the Idea, but distant and appealing memories. Gombrich has explicitly addressed the Platonic ideal, referring to Raphael, in his article ‘Ideal and Type in Italian Renaissance Painting’ (NL, 89–124). The title alludes to one of the most famous works by Erwin Panofsky, Idea,3 which shows different interpretations of the Platonic ideal throughout art history. Gombrich’s article takes a clearly controversial line. Nonetheless, although he takes Panofsky as his starting point, he makes no further mention of him. Gombrich simply proposes an alternative, even if he masks his position. He states that what has interested me during the recent decades are not so much the problems of aesthetics as those of the history and psychology of image-making, and I should like to look at the concept of the Ideal from this point of view. For this purpose I have chosen as my starting-point a famous

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letter by Raphael of 1514 which has been quoted again and again by academic critics, but I have tried to go outside the well-trodden ground of metaphysical debates in order to ask what this text may teach an art historian interested in psychology. (NL, 89) In the famous letter to an equally famous character, Baldassare Castig­ lione, Raphael says that he will avail himself of ‘a certain idea which comes into my mind’, which will serve as a model for his Galatea. According to Gombrich, Raphael does not appear to be referring to Platonism. ‘There is no reference to this sublime conception in Raphael’s letter . . .’ (NL, 92). Rather, he is referring to the debate in Renaissance rhetoric on the imitation of the ancients – either as copy or inspiration. Again, the theory of art ties in with rhetoric. And probably through rhetoric, Gombrich believes, Raphael encounters a concept of inspiration that was widely discussed in his times: nature configures the image of beauty in our mind. Similarly, artists of that time would argue that ‘no painter could paint a beautiful figure if he were not born with a standard of beauty’ (NL, 93). However, at the same time, the artist captures or ‘imitates’ the beauty of things and especially of works of art. The debate between mere imitation and inspiration finds an equilibrium in the idea that the artist takes the elements from his tradition and time – the only way of obtaining them – and adjusts them until they fit his standard of beauty. In other words, he alters them until he finds them to be beautiful. This notion is entirely different to the Platonic ideal; it claims a biological foundation for beauty. And Gombrich shows that if Raphael did adopt this theory, he was right to do so. Just as the verisimilar image is achieved through trial and error, testing and correcting until one approaches verisimilitude, so too is beauty extracted. One bases oneself on the traditional type, shaped by forerunners in the trade, and improves on it. In his article, Gombrich uses a series of examples to back up his argument:

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It would be easy to jump to the conclusion, therefore, that when in the letter which was my starting-point, Raphael claimed that he had modelled the beautiful nymph on a certain idea he had in his mind, he was simply referring to his training and practice. Whatever metaphysics his friends may have foisted on him, you might say, he derived his image not from a Platonic idea of Beauty, but from a type which he owed to tradition. (NL, 118) In short, there is no ideal beauty, no aptitude for beauty, with a biological base. The Platonic idea of beauty had a great impact among artists. However, even whilst publicly defending it, in their everyday artistic practise they operated in a different way. What is more, Raphael probably knew that his idea of beauty and the means of achieving it owed more to tradition than to philosophy. Beauty is created gradually, through approximations. And the fact is that beauty exists, as I shall now discuss. 3. Realised Beauty Gombrich firmly believes that the ideal of human beauty not only exists, but was pursued, and, to some extent, achieved in classic Greece and in the late Renaissance. A new appraisal of this beauty is all the more urgent today when artistic beauty arouses suspicions of gratuity (cf. II, 16). And, Gombrich adds, these types of perfection at which Raphael aimed have become somewhat suspected of being hackneyed or cheap. I happen to believe that this is a very superficial judgement, born from the fear of liking

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something obviously beautiful rather than merely interesting. (NL, 117) In Greece beauty was pursued and attained. We must accept, says ­Gombrich, that Greek art tries to place us face to face with the illusion of beauty at its most enthralling, most human and most unreal [. . .] Granted that the canon varies, to deny the common core in this experience would mean to deny the unity of mankind. (RH, 17) And something similar was achieved in the Renaissance. I believe that if we describe Giorgione’s Venus or Michelangelo’s Adam – both painted around 1510 – as ‘beautiful’ we are not simply expressing our subjective preference. I realise that ideals of physical beauty have varied from culture to culture and will continue to vary, but I am not sure that this observation warrants a complete relativism in these matters [. . .]. (100, 27) Although the ideal of beauty has changed, we can appreciate beauty; to deny this would be – as I have said – to deny the ‘unity of mankind’. Gombrich had more to say. Moreover, however much taste may have fluctuated, the ideal represented by classical art was much less subject to change than modern historical relativism likes to postulate. Who knows? Probably Botticelli and Canova might easily have

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agreed about standards of beauty – in statuary and in life. To both of them the antique surely represented a miraculous achievement, the embodiment of an ideal. (96, 259) Beauty incarnate, a statue or a physical person, is possible, indeed it occurs, and it is objective to appreciate it. The capacity to appreciate it, says Gombrich, has a biological basis. In contrast to such relativism I hold that there is an identifiable human response which is the response of beauty, or if you like, the delight in beauty [. . .] We do not have to learn this response, it is inborn, inborn as a capacity to categorize and to discriminate between various kinds of visual or physiognomic impressions. (NL, 122) Elsewhere Gombrich described the response to beauty, availing himself of the beautiful words that Xenophon ascribes to Socrates: ‘The most pleasing sight of all [. . .] is that of a human being who looks beautiful, good and lovable’ (RH, 17). Nonetheless, Gombrich warns that it does not necessarily have to be a response from the sexual instinct (cf. RH, 17). In art too, there is beauty; Gombrich’s review of The Meaning of Beauty ended with a remark that may help cast some light on this issue. The author, Eric Newton, insisted on rationalising beauty by making it dependent on a series of factors, inter alia mathematical proportions, and geometric patterns. Gombrich chooses one of his examples, Veronese’s Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine, and rejecting Newton’s interpretation, remarks: This is an altar painting and one must be able to pray to its Saints. Ideally they should be turned to the beholder as are

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the Saints on Byzantine icons. But they are also engaged in a story without which they would not be recognizable and thus their heads and gestures are turned towards each other. Everything centres on the symbolic gesture of union [. . .] This visible concentration on the sacred theme should make us pause. Is the religious conception of the picture really as ‘absurd’ as we were told? Is there any truth in the Romantic confusion of the primitive with the mystical and in the Puritan identification of Renaissance beauty with ‘worldliness’? Can there be anything more mystical than angels, as tangible and alive as Veronese’s? (RH, 188) They are ad hoc questions framed to fit the facts. Veronese’s purpose, evidently, was to create a religious picture, and anyone who saw the picture understood that aim. Moreover, it is a very beautiful picture, and the (truly mystical) angels are vivid and tangible. And yet, they are not carnal; they are a suitable image, the most suitable possible, of those spiritual beings: they are, simply, beautiful. Veronese has created images of authentic beauty and has placed them at the service of the end – the religious end – of the picture. The painter can recreate his world a thousand times and present it anew before our eyes. That is the conclusion Da Vinci reaches in his Paragone (cf. AI, 93 and ff.), which Gombrich finds particularly compelling. And thus, to a certain extent, Da Vinci exemplifies, by extension, the world of artists, and specifically of painters, who are capable of making us dream a ‘dream for those who are awake’. When the painter creates or when he presents us with a transformed nature, however familiar it may be to us, he reveals a new aspect and ‘we can be sure [. . .] that this revelation is experienced as a new kind of beauty’ (29, 237).

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The painter creates beauty even where none appears to exist: the artist who wishes to depict a beautiful figure does not copy from an ideal, but instead directs his creation, based on prior achievements, testing and correcting until the result brings a revelation of beauty. I would now like to mention some lines in which Gombrich speaks about Velázquez. He has shown little interest in the Spanish painter, aside from some marginal references. But they are accurate and they will suffice. Gombrich tell us that ‘Velázquez turned his portraits of the dwarfs and jesters of the Spanish Court into poetry’ (RH, 210). The freaks paraded through the court in Madrid have gained a place in the world of art, begging our comprehension, and arousing our admiration. Velázquez turned them into poetry. And it was not only the jesters who experienced the magic of painting. We are also indebted to him for his portraits of their masters, royal figures with such unattractive features; ‘Velázquez transformed these portraits, as if by magic, into some of the most fascinating pieces of painting the world has ever seen’ (SA, 320). And even the vulgar individuals and ordinary things of his time, which in their vulgarity and ordinariness would inspire only indifference, are transported to a kingdom of beauty. One example is The Waterseller of Seville, no one who stands before this picture feels inclined to ask whether the objects represented are beautiful or ugly, or whether the scene it represents is important or trivial. Not even the colours are strictly beautiful by themselves. Brown, grey, greenish tones prevail. And yet, the whole is joined together in such a rich and mellow harmony that the picture remains quite unforgettable to anyone who has ever paused in front of it. (SA, 319) Finally, one might also mention Gombrich’s view of painters such as Vermeer and De Hooch, which, I think, also applies to Velázquez. They

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Figure 6.1  Diego da Silva Velázquez, The Waterseller of Seville, c. 1620. Apsley House, London. Copyright © Historic England

‘were able to combine them all without stridency or ostentation and thus to transfigure an ordinary sight into a thing of beauty’ (RH, 112). 4. Beauty and Sublimity Nature, like the human body, has found its place in art through the powerful magic of the creation of images. And as we have seen in earlier sections, Gombrich maintains that there is a universal human response to the sublimity of landscape, albeit there may be differences and preferences (cf. RH, 19). However the problem of landscape, like others which I shall address below, brings to the fore the ambiguity of the notion of beauty as Gombrich sees it. Beauty exists, nature prepares us to discover it; beauty is achieved in art and it is achieved by a process of continuous rectification.

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Is the ‘sublimity’ of the landscape beauty? One cannot be certain; it appears to be, yet sometimes Gombrich distinguishes the beautiful from the sublime. On one occasion, Gombrich mentions in passing St Thomas Aquinas’s famous expression in which he defined beauty as being that which ‘pleases the eye’, quod visum placet. One wonders how much is gained by this formula, which would deny beauty to music; but even in its application to the visual arts the postulation of ‘pleasure’ is notoriously risky since it would exclude everything that shocks and moves us. (RH, 170) It is clear that the moving and the shocking must also be defined as beauty. Yet on another occasion – the article on ideal and type mentioned above – Gombrich ends his discussion by arguing that beauty exists, and it can be found in the late Renaissance. And he goes on to say, there are other effects which works of art can exert. After all, even the eighteenth century elaborated the distinction between the beautiful and the sublime. In recent years I myself have been much occupied with these alternative values which have revealed to us the forces of the demonic and the primitive in the arts of all times and made us recognize, for instance, the nightmarish Aztec Earth Goddess from Mexico for all its horror as an incomparable achievement. Even within the experience of Beauty itself there are many varieties, above all that pleasure in decoration and ornament to which I also devoted a study. (NL, 124)

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Clearly, the lack of definition prevents Gombrich, as often happens, from being more precise. In this case, it is impossible to draw the boundary between our reaction to beauty and other reactions. A ter­ rible storm-tossed landscape may shock and it may have beauty. And a bright spring landscape beneath a radiant sun also has beauty. A Greek goddess and The Waterseller of Seville have beauty. Nonetheless, because this reaction to beauty has biological roots, whether or not it is difficult, beneficial or useless to define it, beauty occurs. Finally, I must inevitably address Gombrich’s ideas on beauty in the non-figurative arts. Beauty is very important for Gombrich. Of course, the conclusion he draws here is also that beauty in the non-figurative arts has a biological foundation. Let us first look at the relationship between beauty and ornamentation, which can be found in all arts and, in particular, in those of the most primitive societies. it is a matter of course that the symbols of faith and power must not be profaned by unworthy presentation [. . .] For the holy only the most precious may serve [. . .] It is not, I believe, an illicit expansion of meaning if we call beauty here a symbol of divinity and power – nor need we worry too much in this context what is meant by beauty; we can take the medieval definition quod visum placet [. . .] and assume that glowing colors, sparkling jewels, and intricate symmetries meet that definition [. . .] Such idea of beauty is fairly widespread and occurs independently in various cultures [. . .] This visual aspect is much reinforced by the knowledge that the material is precious and the workmanship rare and expensive [. . .] Gold shows this confluence of meanings which makes it the natural choice for the rendering of the divine [. . .]. (111, 156)

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There are plenty of examples. Perhaps the first images that come to mind when one speaks of gold and dazzling objects are those described in De Ceremoniis by Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos – the immense area of the Hagia Sophia entirely covered in golden mosaics, illuminated by rays of light from countless windows; hangings and carpets, and the dazzling liturgical vessels; and in procession, the dignitaries solemnly enter the nave, dressed in sumptuous garb. Without doubt, this is a vision of beauty. When we try to extend this way of understanding the beauty of primitive and ancient societies to our Western society, the issue becomes more complicated. Gombrich discovers here a new dimension, unique to Western art. The classical West is to some extent separate from these splendours. One would of course have to qualify what is meant by ‘separation’ and how far that ‘certain extent’ extends. In any case, Gombrich maintains that the classical West has experienced ‘a thorough process of sophistication that, for good or ill, has divorced the art of Western civilization from a simple appeal to the senses’ (MH, 17). 5. The Ideal of Simplicity Art in Western society sets off on a new path by rejecting the visual satisfaction derived from elementary effects, very close to biological dispositions. Primary visual satisfactions are understood by people with no training: ‘The confidence with which we speak of “barbaric splendour” betrays our deep-seated conviction that non-barbarians have other standards of excellence. A deliberate rejection of ornamental profusion has always been a sign of classical influence’ (SO, 18). From its earliest days, our civilisation realised that there were more noble forms of art than mere sensed beauty, and that in those forms, brilliance and profusion must be replaced by serenity and severity. ‘In the history of Western Art the aesthetic ideal of restraint is inextricably interwoven with the classical tradition’ (SO, 18). Yet restraint, the eschewal of immediate appeal, was only applied to defend a higher ideal, beside which crude appeals to the senses seem like attempts at seduction. In his essay ‘Visual Metaphors of Value in

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Art’, Gombrich carefully argues how this renunciation is based on the connection between aesthetic and moral values that has been a feature of Western art and how, precisely for this reason, renunciation takes on a moral value; it is a metaphor for another higher renunciation. Of course this negation is only meaningful when it demonstrates a renunciation in favour of ‘higher’ values. In the non-conformist meeting house the rejection of glitter and colour is done in the name of a pure religion, and the aesthetic factor is pushed to the very fringe of experience. (MH, 17) The aesthetic function derived from the contemplation of those elementary forms is sacrificed in the interests of a higher beauty which is no longer merely plastic. And yet, the pleasure that is experienced in that renunciation is a genuine, authentic pleasure. It is not a question simply of renouncing, but of doing so for something higher. That ‘something higher’ confers the strength that makes the renunciation possible. And the awareness of having triumphed over the easy temptation causes pleasure; we are gratified by the experience of our own self-control. Gombrich alludes here to ‘ego control’ (cf. MH, 23).The easy enjoyment of the beauty of the material and the detailed execution has an element of primitivism, infantilism and regression. ‘The enjoyment of simple rhythms and exuberant flourishes is closely associated with what psychoanalysts call regression’ (SO, 19). On the contrary the control of the ‘ego’ relates to another property. ‘Psychoanalysis speaks of sublimation when describing the distance from immediate gratification and the compensatory rewards of increasing mastery’ (T, 87). When one blocks the path to instant satisfaction, one avails of other means of capturing it indirectly. It must solve the problem of how to shift the aims of the drives in such a way that

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they cannot be affected by the denials imposed on us by the environment. Here the sublimation of drives will help. The optimum is achieved when one knows how sufficiently to increase the pleasure gained from the exercise of mental and intellectual faculties. (T, 114) For Gombrich, however, the pleasure obtained from the sensation of self-control is not all. Renunciation objectively allows subtle but objective values to manifest themselves. ‘The noble renunciation in art is renunciation of part effects for the sake of submission to the larger structure’ (MH, 23). And so, when discussing one of his favourite themes, music, he refers to a concert conducted by Toscanini in the following terms: When we are told, for instance, that Toscanini ‘never overpaints a phrase’ we understand that he never yields to the allurement of a moment, as minor performers do, that he renounces the ‘cheap effects’ that may provide immediate gratification but disrupt the architecture of the whole, and that the gain from this austerity in the presence of intense emotion is that ‘divine simplicity’ that becomes a musical metaphor of highest values. (MH, 23) As Gombrich notes, this is a process of refinement, in which the form is of interest as a metaphor for something more profound. The craftsperson and the spectator make and expect from the art work a new role that transcends the mere ornamental function, or rather, that sublimates it by adding to the ornamental devices the nobility of simplicity and renunciation. The nobility of simplicity, of clarity, of containment

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was to form a touchstone against which all artistic epochs would test themselves, although on occasions they may have left that ideal far behind. Gombrich argues that the classic ideal of containment can be found, at least as a critical argument, throughout the development of all Western art and particularly since the Renaissance. There is an idea of the classic that allows one to judge momentary deviations, to surrender to them or deplore and criticise them. Nothing of this would have been possible if that ideal had not persisted, and if it had not had – at least potentially – a moral charge at all times. Any deviation, any concession, is an example of degradation; all excess may be depraved, all exaggeration vulgar. To the process of gradual searching for formal beauty is added a new moral dimension, which demands attention to a higher mode of beauty.

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7. Art and Progress To this point, I have discussed – at perhaps too great a length – Gombrich’s ideas on beauty. He reached the conclusion that classical beauty in all the arts is linked to biological disposition. However, Western artists have been continuously advised by writers of the risks of excess, a warning based in a certain association between artistic and moral purpose. Things that are excessively attractive are seen as cloying and childish. However, the more art works remove themselves from the immediate appeal to the senses, the less obvious become the criteria for appreciating beauty and, therefore, the more sophisticated becomes the criticism. To the same extent, art lies at the mercy of new theories. In his introduction to the compilation of articles Norm and Form, Gombrich seeks to highlight that dependency in Western art. ‘They all’, he said, deal with what may be called the Renaissance climate of opinion about art and with the influence this climate has

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exerted on both the practice and the criticism of art. This approach runs rather counter to a current assumption that art is always far ahead of systematic thought, with the critic distantly following the artist and trying as best he can to record and explain what has emerged by unconscious creation. This book attempts to test the opposite hypothesis from various angles. Not that it seeks to minimize [. . .] the artist’s creativity, but it does try to show that this creativity can only unfold in a certain climate, and that this has as much influence on the resulting works of art as a geographical climate has on the shape and character of vegetation. (NF, vii) Idea dominates form. This occurs with the fundamental idea of progress, which, as we have seen, was furnished by Aristotle and developed by the rhetoricians. When it spread, the idea of progress had an immense effect ‘for it belongs to the class of ideas which act like eating from the tree of knowledge – once you have a notion of good and evil you are for ever cast out of the Paradise of Innocence’ (NF, 9). Later on, as Vasari describes, the progress of art towards an end was dominated by the critical environment, which established the goals and assessed the achievements. This approach stressed the role of the critic, the scholar and the historian, whose opinions marked the path along which artistic development was to run. Thus one can understand Gombrich’s advice to Ivins, whose famous book Prints and Visual Communication1 defended the primary role of printed pictures in the progress of Western science. Gombrich said that classical civilisation stood out for being a verbal culture rather than it did for any technique of ‘doing things’ (cf. 91, 169), a warning that leads us again to the predominant role of language and oratory. Art is also a question of ideas;

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in reality, it is a question more of ideas than of forms. For this reason Gombrich warns that ‘norm and form’ cannot be separated (cf. NF, 81). In the following sections, we shall examine the potential that lies hidden behind the idea of progress. Once the model of progress has been demonstrated; once art theorists have advocated the prestige of inventions and discoveries and the idea has spread, we are cast out of the Paradise of Innocence. To explore this issue, I shall refer to some ideas by Popper and in particular to The Open Society and Its Enemies. The idea of progress bears with it the idea of criticism. For Popper, there is no progress without criticism. Gombrich attests to the validity of this idea in the development of Western art. 1. Open Society I have referred above to Popper’s notion of the Closed Society versus the Open Society. Gombrich presents the birth of Western art, which he says arose from a closed society that was bound to certain rigid trad­ itional conventions. In the field of art, Greek art broke the mould, by sublimating the objectives of art; with it appear new functions of art, new ends. I have already remarked that for Gombrich, Greek art – at least in some of its manifestations – is oriented towards the creation of effects. The act of proposing new goals, arising from new problems, gives Western art its peculiar dynamic. For Gombrich, this dynamic is only possible within the Open Society. He says that ‘some idea of progress (as a possibly rather than as an impersonal force) is inseparable from the Open Society. Its members must believe that things and institutions can be discussed and improved’ (II, 79). People, artists and spectators, must believe that things can be improved upon, that solutions can be debated. And this characteristic – the freedom to argue – is what defines Popper’s Open Societies: free enquiry, or to use his favourite term, criticism. Criticism is the capacity to debate the validity of a solution with regard to a given problem. Censorship, on the contrary, defines the impediment to exercise it; Closed

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Societies practise censorship, which is a prohibition on criticising artistic conventions because these conventions give the desired results, aesthetic satisfaction, or ritual efficacy. To alter them means breaking with tradition and possibly even committing blasphemy. There is a vital difference between censorship and criticism. Greek culture opted for the second rather than the first. The distinctions of the critic cannot be based on blanket approval or disapproval but on a verdict of good, better and best. (IE, 219) Indeed, the criticism that the people, other artists or the artist himself level against his work is based on a more or a less; otherwise, it would be impossible to link all the works together in a chain of improvements. If things are good, but could be better, they can be corrected. If they are good or bad, each new work is a leap into the unknown. However, the Greek artists knew what they wanted and could judge whether they had or not come close to their objective, or if they had come closer than on another previous occasion. Now the idea of skill is only applicable to art if you look at art from an instrumental point of view as trying to achieve a particular end, and this was certainly the Greek approach [. . .] [The Greeks] had no word for art in our sense, because techne meant skill in any aspect of culture, in fortification no less than in image making. But maybe it is precisely because all arts were seen as skills that the decisive element entered the situation [. . .] – I mean criticism. To criticize is to make distinctions and the critic is the professional fault-finder.

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Remembering what we have heard about the importance of negative feedback, this detection of mistakes is no minor function. (IE, 218) The same was true in the Renaissance. There is a purposeful direction to be observed [. . .] which clearly suggests the existence of rational standards by which works of painting and sculpture were judged. Only the existence of such standards and the awareness of failures as well as of successes can explain that spirit of rivalry and of experimentation that marks the ‘rebirth of the arts’. Without a tendency to faultfinding there can be no such desire for the improvement of certain qualities. (HA, 111) 2. Progress and Superseding Criticism spurs the development of science by preventing the scientist from resting on the encountered solution. Everything is trial and elimination of error; and detecting the error is the work of the critic. In this way, says Popper – and Gombrich concurs – science advances by proposing increasingly complex theories that replace the previous ones, superseding them. Behind each theory is a history of testing, of failed trials and eliminated errors. ‘There is a sense’, says Gombrich, in which the arts are ‘cumulative’ in the same way in which science can be. At least there exists a minimum of skill, a minimum also of complexity in most arts

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below which we cannot expect any very interesting achievement. We are confident that such achievements rest on traditions, even if these are lost as is the case with Homer’s predecessors. (40, 268) In art, as in science, an achievement presupposes a long chain of assumed trials. Art is accumulative because the artist belongs to a tradition to which he himself adds his discoveries. But he must necessarily receive much more than he gives. The aims of a seventeenth-century artist may be more ambitious than those of his fifteenth-century counterpart. The former knows the means employed by the latter and their outcomes. Moreover, he possesses the knowledge that has been added to them. He can resolve a more complex problem. And yet, not every society has been capable of incorporating new achievements and seeking new objectives. This, says Gombrich, is what distinguishes Western society and art from any other. A Closed Society can evolve imperceptibly. However, what characterises the Open Society is ‘some idea of progress’. And that means improving the means; keeping free from obstacles to trying it. One can find sudden, abrupt changes in all artistic traditions. But in many of them, such deviations have no consequences. ‘They do not become part of the tradition to be improved and extended, as they do in Greece’, says Gombrich. ‘On the contrary, one has the impression that they are accidents, random mutations which are weeded out by a process of natural selection’ (AI, 143). In Western art, from Greece on, there is a desire for continuous betterment, which is only possible when one believes in progress. In effect, both in classical art, in Greece and Rome, and in the Renaissance, artists are aware of contributing to the development of art; they want to contribute their work to the progress of their craft and their desire is immediately reflected in a new attitude. ‘The artist who believes that the arts progress is automatically taken out of the social nexus of buying and selling. His duty lies less with the customer than with Art. He must hand on the torch, make his contribution [. . .]’ (NF, 4).

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There had been artists in classical antiquity who were aware that their task went beyond merely attending to a commission. In the schools of thought of their tradition, they had to overcome the past in order to be considered great masters in the future. Here we see an exact parallel with the process initiated in the Renaissance. ‘The idea of progress’, says Gombrich, resulted in what might be called a new institutional framework for art. In the Middle Ages, as social historians always remind us, the artist was really a craftsman, or rather – since this word has acquired a certain Romantic lustre – a tradesman who made paintings and sculptures to order and whose standards were those of his trade-organizations, of the build. The idea of progress brings in an entirely new element. Now, if I may put it epigrammatically, the artist had not only to think of his commission but of his mission. This mission was to add to the glory of the age through the progress of art. (NF, 3) 3. Art and Science That attitude makes Western art an exception within the panorama of universal art. When the purposes of art can be proposed, it is possible to improve the means. Artists turn to rational methods to link means and ends. The development of art becomes a rational quest in which artists have a commitment to their public, to history and to themselves. For this reason, Western arts see a continuous improvement in tech­ nical procedures; there is a scientific ingredient which the artist is required to master. And the evolution of art in the west came to resemble, to a certain extent, the development of science. ‘In the first Open

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Society, that of Greece, a technological and even scientific element did indeed enter art, as can always happen where one rational purpose is regarded as overriding’ (II, 79–80). In Greece, artists knew what goal they were pursuing: they must try to approach the sacred mysteries through painting or sculpture, to achieve a greater verisimilitude which would induce in the spectator the sensation of participating in the scene. From that overall objective there immediately emerged another secondary one – representation of gesture, light, movement, a distant landscape, etc. Such results cannot be achieved in a single day, nor even by a single artist, but through a long chain of trial and error, in which the procedures are gradually improved. Art thus enters a different domain, science. Certainly, Gombrich recognises that art is not truly a science, but Greek art contains a scientific ingredient which is the cause of its vast and singular development. We are constantly warned against indulging in parochial pride, and against seeing our culture as superior to other varieties. I confess that I am an unrepentant parochial. I believe that the birth of critical rationalism in Greek culture gave mankind a new tool towards the shaping of its own destiny that other cultures lack. We call it science. The evolutionary series of Greek and Renaissance painting differs from other evolutions precisely through the admixture of science. The science of anatomy, the science of projective geometry and of optics were called in to hasten the experimentation towards recognizable images. In the end, as we know, science overtook art in this respect through the evolution of photography, the color film and the wide screen. (29, 227)

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The artist of the classical tradition, resembles (or believes himself to resemble) a scientist, in his desire to discover peculiar effects. There he conquers the true prestige of knowledge. As Gombrich says: ‘Henceforward there will be a growing gulf between the intellectual pursuits of Art and the “applied art” of the craftsman’ (NF, 8). The artist’s mission is to history, and everyone knows that. There is something more in his work than the jealously-conserved craft learned from tradition. ‘The artist’, says Gombrich, works like a scientist. His works exist not only for their own sake but also to demonstrate certain problem-solutions. He creates them for the admiration of all, but principally with an eye on his fellow artists and the connoisseurs who can appreciate the ingenuity of the solution put forward. (NF, 7) ‘In other words, the stronger the admixture of science in art, the more justifiable was the claim to progress’ (NF, 8). The artist must have the spirit of ‘demonstration’. He must test over and over again, experimenting with all the means at his disposal; obtain all the advances and keep up to date with the developments of fellow artists in his surroundings. Naturally experimentation must be followed by a checking of the results. In an aesthetic of effects, this process of verification is not as simple as in a scientific experiment. ‘The artist seeks [. . .] not a true proposition (as in science), but a psychological effect. Such effects can be discussed, but they cannot be demonstrated’ (IE, 228). 4. Criticism and Art This is the value of the critic. Here, as in Popperian science, the test will be negative: intended to bring out the defects: ‘negative feedback’. The psychological effects can be seen by the spectators, and it is they who criticise. Gombrich spoke of ‘professional fault-finding’: ‘We have the

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proof in the further development of Greek art that professional fault-finding led to progressive solutions’ (IE, 221). As one might expect, criticism in a science leads to accepting or invalidating theories or solutions which leave in their wake new solutions or problems, which in turn lead to others. This is what Gombrich, forcing the term somewhat, calls ‘directed experimentation’. There is a goal and criticism channels the solutions. For Popper and Gombrich, criticism has that astonishing capacity to promote the process. The best examples are painting and sculpture. ‘What might be called directed experimentation had led Greek artists towards the solution of the problem of how to evoke a convincing and moving vision of this episode’ (IE, 221). Given the goal of a verisimilar or improved representation; given the objective of creating in the spectator the sensation of participating in the representation of a myth, criticism, negative feedback, launches a process in which solutions are achieved and discoveries made, whilst unconvincing proposals are eliminated and rejected. The role played by criticism in the evolution of art is clear. Criticism, new solutions, new problems, new goals. This is a ‘directed research’. Naturally the advantage in the case of evoking ‘the plausible narration of sacred events’, is that it is very easy to find defects. The motive force we may imagine as underlying the growth of naturalism is not the wish to imitate natural appearances as such, but to avoid and counter the critic’s impatient questions: ‘What does this onlooker feel?’; ‘What sort of fabric is his cloak?’; ‘Why does he throw no shadow?’ (29, 224) Criticism may also be exercised in other artistic forms, although perhaps it may prove more difficult. In the same Greek sphere, we have Vitruvius’s testimony (referred to by Gombrich) on the thorny issue of the positioning of triglyphs in the Doric entablature: the corner spoiled

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the perfect internal order of the elements. After various alternative solutions were tried, the issue had to be shelved. Many architects preferred to replace the Doric with the Ionic, which in turn created its own problems, such as the arrangement of the volutes in the capitals on the corner. However it is not only the connoisseur or the spectator who criticises. First and foremost, it is the artist himself. ‘He is’, says Gombrich, his own experimental guinea-pig submitting the inventions of his mind to the critical judgement of his eyes. The more an artist ventures into the unknown by abandoning the well-tried methods of tradition the more vital is this procedure likely to be. Indeed it may be claimed that this discipline of self-criticism has become the most precious heritage of Western art. (IE, 228) And the artist also progresses through trial and error. As he executes his work, he examines it critically, continues with it or corrects it. He systematically criticises the solutions. And in that criticism, certainly, new suggestions arise that he may accept and incorporate or reject; and he proceeds once again. The artist, then, goes about his work like the scientist, subjecting his work to empirical falsification. But in an aesthetic of effects he cannot have the same certainty as in science. The artist trusts that the effect his work has on him will be similar to that it has on others. But he cannot be certain. He can only place his trust in his own sensitivity. ‘He has to grope his way to come as close as possible, but he has only his own “corporeal eyes” to tell him how far he has realized his vision. Other eyes may or may not be satisfied’ (IE, 229).

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5. The Ideal as Balance I have already introduced the feeling that beauty is, at heart, ‘a delicate balance’, equilibrium between multiple aspects. This notion is in line with Gombrich’s understanding of classicism as a matter of delicate balance. One might venture to say that there appears in that concept to be agreement between the traditional artistic doctrine – academic or whatever one likes to call it – relating the classic work with containment and with the domain in itself and those psychoanalytic theories that present equilibrium as the difficult mastery of rationality over instinctive forces. Moreover, Gombrich argues that ‘the “classical solution” is indeed a technical rather than a psychological achievement’ (NF, 95). In other words, ‘solutions’, classical works, exist objectively and it is rational to recognise that fact. There is something approaching a definition in Gombrich’s article on style, which may serve as an introduction: The perfect harmony between means and ends marks the classical style; periods in which the means are not yet quite sufficient to realize the ends are experienced as primitive or archaic, and those in which the means are said to obtrude themselves in an empty display are considered corrupt. To evaluate this criticism, we would have to ask whether display could not and did not develop into an alternative function of art with its own conventions and code. (105, 356) The classical style is marked by achieving the right relationship between means and ends. And, therefore, if such a balance is achieved at some point in time, anyone observing the development of art will necessarily consider the early periods to be archaic and the periods of virtuosity corrupt. However, in the latter case, one must be sure whether in fact

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that final stage does not pursue another goal, and therefore should be assessed in different terms. This is the most complete ‘definition’ to be found in Gombrich. Because it is found in his article ‘Style’ (105), it appears to refer to art in general, although it is an exposition on painting. In painting, it is much easier to understand Gombrich’s intention. I would like to cite the best discussion of this theme, which can be found in his article ‘Norm and Form’. There is something like an ‘essence’ for the classic that permits us to plot other works of art at a variable distance from this central point. Is there not a contradiction here? Have I not tried to banish essentialism? I have, but I would plead – and here, too, I have learned from Popper – that there is one kind of essentialism which is innocuous and even legitimate. We have a right to talk in Aristotelian terms when we discuss what Aristotle called ‘final causes’, that is, human aims and human instruments. As long as painting is conceived as serving such a human purpose, one has a right to discuss the means in relation to these ends. There are indeed quite objective criteria for their assessment. The idea of an ‘economy of means’, even the idea of perfection, makes complete, rational sense in such a context. One can say objectively whether a certain form serves a certain norm. (NF, 96) And I would like to add the following warning. This conception is based ‘on a particular normative ideal, an ideal moreover far less precise than I may have made it appear for the purpose of its justification’ (ibid.).

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In any case, it is only rational to define the classic moment, even if it is not within everyone’s scope. In painting, moreover, it is easy to define. If dramatic evocation and beauty are the ends of painting, the classical artist, the classical work or the classic moment occur when they are in balance, because to a certain extent perfect dramatic depiction may be incompatible with perfect beauty. It is this ideal of compromise between two conflicting demands which was subsequently felt to be classical, in the sense of presenting an unsurpassed solution that could only be repeated, not improved upon. Deviation on the one side would threaten the correctness of design, on the other the feeling of order. (NF, 95) If the representation contains too much pathos or agitation, it impairs the order; think for example of the Adoration of the Magi. The stable, the Holy Family, the mule and the ox; kings in fabulous garments with their retinue. Think of Rubens or Benozzo Gozzoli. Gombrich’s argument seems evident. But is Rubens less classical than Benozzo? Aristotle’s notion of progress in the arts, like Cicero’s, can be explained rationally, because, as Popper says, we can speak in terms of final causes. Men set goals for themselves and provide the rationally appropriate means of achieving them. As Gombrich notes, the classical theory of each particular art regulated the different demands that a perfect work of art had to satisfy. For Aristotle, tragedy required fable, manners, diction, sentiments, decoration and music; for Cicero, the perfect speech contained inventio, collocatio, elocutio, actio and memoria. Vitruvius had a similar list of requirements for perfect architecture: order, arrangement, proportion, symmetry and fitness (cf. NF, 75). Although in practice it is not so easy to apply these criteria, or even to define them, they nonetheless set out something that every art work must meet. Among all the goals that a classical work must pursue, there are some that are incompatible in practice. The easiest example can be

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found in architecture: is it possible always to coordinate distribution and symmetry? It was, certainly, one of the problems that led to the classical tradition of architecture. But there can be no doubt that it was a real problem, and the great architects knew how to resolve it. Peruzzi composed a masterful plan for the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, on a confoundedly difficult site, that met all the requirements of symmetry, proportion and appropriateness. But the solution could not come on its own. Hence Gombrich’s insistence that it is firstly a question of balance, and, secondly, it can only be achieved in a slow process of approximation, in which the errors are gradually eradicated. As I have already mentioned, seen from this point of view the ‘classical solution’ is indeed a technical rather than a psychological achievement. It can be seen [. . .] as the result of countless experiments finally coming to fruition. There is according to this conception an optimum solution beyond which one cannot go with impunity. (NF, 95) 6. The Classical Moment If there are classic works, then there must also be ‘classic moments’, that is to say, points at which the means are sufficiently developed to achieve the ends – and ends that are suitably ordered hierarchically. In each of the arts, the classical tradition is developed until it attains a point of balance. Gombrich employed an example from the history of painted ceramics in Greece. There is no more wonderful application of decorative discipline known to me than the famous wares which emerged from the Attic workshops of the sixth and fifth centuries out of a long tradition of

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geometric styles. Most of the black-figured vases still exhibit this marvellous decorative balance and, even with the arrival of the more naturalistic red-figured style [. . .] the design is not disrupted by the new freedom of dramatic narrative. [. . .] But it has always been felt that this perfection was threatened by the further advance of naturalism. When Greek painting developed foreshortening and modelling in light and shade, these inventions introduced a disturbing element in the finely calculated balance between pattern and dramatic evocation. Those who accept Aristotelian terms will describe fourth-century vases as decadent. Of course, there is a subjective element in this judgment, and yet I think it could be argued that the new inventions objectively disrupted the art of vase-painting [. . .] It had been spoilt by demands which, artistically, could not be assimilated. (82, 312–13) It was evidently a question of balance; the excessive power of the means led to ruin. But as long as it was maintained, there existed a classic moment. It is important to realise that the attainment of balance is a technical issue. It is neither a psychological problem (it is not my feeling of balance) nor a metaphysical one (it is not an ideal balance). This being so, there can be said to be peak moments in the arts, just as there may moments of decline. It should be added that such phenomena do not necessarily have to exist, but that they have sometimes occurred. Likewise, and for the same reason, those peak moments, classic moments, need not all coincide in the same period. And, finally, the same argument serves to demonstrate that high points and moments of decadence in the different arts have nothing to do with a civilisation’s levels of public morality.

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It is clear that from the normative point of view there is an intrinsic destiny which artistic styles are likely to follow and that this will overtake different activities at different points in time. The classic moment in epic poetry may have been achieved in Homer; that of tragedy, in Sophocles; that of oratory, in Demosthenes; that of sculpture, in Praxiteles; and that of painting in Apelles or Raphael. Symphonic music may have reached its perfect balance between ends and means, its classic moment, in Mozart, three hundred years after Raphael’s paintings. (105, 356) 7. Progress and Decline When discussing Raphael, in his article ‘La Madonna Della Sedia’, Gombrich judged this theory as ‘something like a vindication of the academic theory of art [. . .]’ (NF, 79). And it would appear to be so; nonetheless, it differs from the traditional theory in the element of unpredictability it entails. This unpredictability in the development of each of the arts determines which rises, which falls and which changes direction. And it is also the unpredictability of each artist before each work, under the same conditions. We began this chapter with Gombrich’s assumption that, to some extent, ‘norm dominates form’. I then went on to set out the ideal of the classical as a ‘delicate balance’ between opposing ends; and finally I have referred to Gombrich’s objective assertion that there are ‘classic moments’. In the following section I shall discuss how Gombrich believes progress can be explained in rational terms. There remains, however the complicated issue of judging progress and decline. A classic moment exists. It seems rational for this to be the case. And, however, it is not always possible to recognise it. Aristotle, notes

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Gombrich, was not sure that it was Sophocles who attained perfection (cf. NL, 129). Nonetheless, he could at least be sure that his works were more perfect than those of Aeschylus. Gombrich qualifies this statement: in the field of the History of Art the idea of progress is something of a skeleton in the cupboard. It has been banished into that cupboard together with other lumber such as the idea of decline. Every first-year student knows that Michelangelo is not better than Giotto, just different. I agree with the first-year student [. . .]. (7, 4) Nonetheless it is always possible to say whether a form corresponds to a given norm, and therefore, ‘it would not be too difficult, I believe, to translate the traditional eulogies of such classical artists as Raphael into a terminology of a great purpose perfectly fulfilled’ (NF, 96). From this perspective, then one can certainly speak of perfect works. One can even speak of works that are more perfect than others: ‘we know what we mean when we call Raphael’s Madonnas more beautiful than Rembrandt’s, even though we may like Rembrandt’s better’ (NF, 96). The real problem arises when discussing decline. In previous sections I have discussed the marvellous example of painted vessels in classical Greece. Greek pottery reached a highpoint, with truly wondrous items, whose beauty anyone could appreciate. The pieces found in digs at Crimea and in Gaulish tombs testify to this universal agreement. And this art was objectively spoilt when a demand emerged for dramatic representation in the figures, which came to be incompatible with their function as decorative patterns. Decline is also objective. However, one cannot always adopt a unique point of view. What may appear to one critic as the classic moment of an art may carry, for another, the seeds of corruption, and what

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looks like the final stage of exhaustion of a style to one interpreter may be seen from another point of view as the groping beginnings of a new style. (105, 357) This plurality makes it compatible to measure the works in terms of their ends and to appreciate works that have other ends, or which in some way offer a variation on previous periods. And Gombrich uses a musical metaphor to refer to this purpose: Perhaps art progresses less like science than in the way a piece of music can be said to progress, each phrase or motif acquiring its meaning and expression from what has come before, from the expectations that have been roused and are now fulfilled, teased or denied. (NF, 10) 8. Mannerism We can use this musical metaphor to address the issue of the evolution of the classical tradition, its birth and the succession of stages. I have defined classicism in accordance with Gombrich’s ideas, as a balance between contrasting norms. However, if one starts from the premise of the power of the established norm, one finds that it is strangely difficult to establish the norm with any great precision. Nonetheless there are aspects that can be very clearly defined. It was the classical tradition of normative aesthetics that first formulated some rules of art, and such rules are most easily formulated negatively as a catalogue of sins to be avoided. Just as most of the Ten Commandments are really prohibitions, so most rules of art and of style are warnings

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against certain sins [. . .] The disharmonious, the arbitrary and the illogical must be taboo to those who follow the classical canon. There are many more in the writings of normative critics from Alberti via Vasari to Bellori or Félibien. Do not overcrowd your pictures, do not use too much gold, do not seek out difficult postures for their own sake; avoid harsh contours, avoid the ugly, the indecorous and the ignoble. (NF, 89) An eagerness to avoid mistakes took hold, Gombrich argues, from the beginning of the classical tradition, in antiquity. The Renaissance too can be viewed in the same terms. The Renaissance represents a novelty, and Gombrich wonders would it not be correct to say that the novelty lies frequently in the avoidance of mistakes that would infringe the classical norm? This avoidance in its turn springs from the new freedom to criticize the tradition and to reject anything that seems ‘a crime and a sacrilege’ in the eyes of ancient authority. (HA, 106) The Florentine Renaissance and its spread into the European renaissances marked an important volte-face as compared to previous artistic traditions. But, it also entailed negative rules: pointed arches should not be used. Gombrich gives special treatment to the Renaissance. Yet once the classical tradition had taken hold or simply been cleaned up, we find a different world. In short, Gombrich argues that, in Western art history, the classical norm may have varied but it has not been invalidated. If the ‘delicate balance’ was established between order, symmetry, etc., the scales

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tipped more towards one aspect over the other, and a new balance has been reached between the components. The new norms, perhaps formulated in negative terms, have altered the relative weight of the ends. And this is Gombrich’s interpretation of Mannerism. It is of interest to record his theoretical stance. In Mannerism, artists who had seen Michelangelo achieve the goal of representing the beautiful human body in motion devoted their efforts to other tasks. It is the same tradition, but the respective weight of the different ends has changed: ‘what we witness is perhaps less a new anti-classical norm than a shift in priorities’ (NF, 97). Gombrich said that Mannerism is above all else a historiographical category that ‘was created a priori, as it were, to meet a historiographic need, and that it finally triumphed as an idea that had as yet scarcely proved its value in contact with the facts of the past’ (NF, 100). This need was born out of the desire of critics and historians to separate certain works from an ideal of classical perfection. But strictly speaking, it is only a ‘local disturbance’ (cf. NF, 9) that has displaced some priorities; the tradition remains the same. The artist pursues the same goal and appreciates the same models, even if the balance has been altered. Gombrich has on occasions used the example of Giambologna’s Rape of the Sabine Women. The twisted figures of the sculpture have been repeatedly related to the tensions of the sixteenth century. The fact is that Giambologna wanted to show off to his critics by demonstrating his mastery of anatomy and composition, on a large scale, without even considering what the entwined figures of the virile young man, the beautiful woman and the decrepit old man might represent. The title was only conferred later by a scholarly friend of his, Borghini. Gombrich remarked that ‘the story of its subsequent naming and placing, tell us more of the background of Mannerism than all the religious tracts of the Counter-Reformation taken together’ (MH, 91). After all, Gianbologna has sacrificed much of the order and moderation to the movement of the composition, to the deployment of the bodies in difficult positions. There is a shift in priorities, but not a break. The statue took its place alongside those of other great sculptors in the

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Piazza della Signoria in Florence, because the Florentines knew how to appreciate it. 9. Renaissance Mannerism is above all a category invented by contemporary histori­ ography. It designates a period in classical art which saw a shift in priorities: some values were sacrificed, although not entirely denied, to highlight others. Seen from this perspective, Gombrich concludes that ‘Mannerism’, as a stage in history, does not possess a ‘spirit of its own’. And what about the Renaissance? I shall try to set out Gombrich’s ideas as briefly as possible. The Renaissance marked a certain break, a break which is more evident outside Italy than in Florence itself. The Warburg school, if one can call it that, has gone to great lengths to highlight the many ties between the Renaissance and previous periods, and this is not difficult to understand. However the Renaissance, I would repeat, represented a certain break. There is a normative break, and this is the first characteristic: some features are strictly avoided. Gombrich uses the expression ‘avoidance of mistakes that would infringe the classical norm’ (HA, 106). Naturally, this trend is related to classical renunciation, and is a consequence of the birth of criticism, the capacity to denounce errors, which would have extensive implications (cf. HA, 111ff.). The Renaissance, like the birth of classical antiquity, represented above all a specific change in the ends of art. Gombrich often refers to the effect of this change in figurative painting. It is a theoretical principle which is difficult to date with any accuracy. In his later writings, Gombrich has moved this change back in time. It is a ‘change in function’ of art: the depiction of sacred events, which in the Middle Ages became clear pictograms, easily recognisable even by the unlettered, now becomes dramatic evocation, a verisimilar account of the events that seeks to introduce the spectator into them and move him. The long path to the stellar moment of Raphael begins, Gombrich believes (as does Émile Mâle) with the preaching of St Francis, who invited the spectator to expect more from sacred images.2 However, in

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the Renaissance this vision of art attained its perfection. The two characteristics referred to above – criticism and the avoidance of errors and the demand for verisimilitude in sacred evocation – were met by the idea of progress, and an effective progress, a chain of achievements took place. Renaissance art attained perfect representation of the human body and sublime beauty, triumphs that contemporaries could not help admiring. Italian art gained an objective superiority in those fields over the artistic panorama of its time. But the Renaissance is not a new spirit, or a new manifestation of the human spirit; it is, above all, a movement, and not simply a period, but a stage. Movement and period are two terms used by Gombrich to refer to different categories such as the Renaissance and Mannerism. The Renaissance is a movement; Mannerism is not – it is a period. And here I shall let Gombrich speak. The words are taken from his essay ‘The Renaissance, Period or Movement’ (100, 9ff.): What I think we can say, what I wanted to clarify a little, is that the Renaissance was not so much as ‘Age’ as it was a movement. A ‘movement’ is something that is proclaimed. It attracts fanatics, on the one hand, who can’t tolerate anything that doesn’t belong to it and hangers-on who come and go; there is a spectrum of intensity in any movement just as there are usually various factions or ‘wings’. There are also opponents and plenty of neutral outsiders who have other worries. I think we can most effortlessly describe the Renaissance as a movement of this kind, but, needless to say, a description is not an explanation. What the historian would like to find out is rather what it was that made the Renaissance such a successful movement that it spread throughout Europe. (100, 25–6)

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For Gombrich, the Renaissance is a movement. The Renaissance was a successful movement. There are numerous reasons for its triumph and they are difficult to explain. It triumphed as all movements triumph: because it offered advantages. The novelties involved in any technical progress – allowing the pursued goals to be attained with great certainty – impose themselves on their own, although sometimes they meet opposition from attitudes anchored in the past, from taboos (cf. HA, 93–110). In artistic tasks, however, other components come into play. Gombrich remarks on this difference in his article ‘From the Revival of Letters to the Reform of the Arts’: ‘What “movements” offer their new adherents, however, is generally something a little less tangible but psychologically more important. They offer them a feeling of superiority over others, a new kind of prestige [. . .]’ (HA, 94). In this article, Gombrich seeks to demonstrate how the growing interest in philological problems, in recovering the pristine purity of Latin, served to spur on the recovery of original forms in arches and columns, figures and ensembles. And when the standard of Italian achievements in the classical languages was raised in Europe, it brought with it an interest in ancient forms. And once that interest had been created, it had to be recognised that the artists of the Italian Renaissance had produced undeniable achievements.

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8. Winckelmann and Hegel In preceding sections I have addressed Gombrich’s ideas on the repercussions of the idea of progress: I started by examining the possibilities Vasari managed to develop in his history. I added that beauty is an achievement that has to be pursued step by step. I showed how those steps could occur, spurred on by criticism and what the goal of progress consisted of: the classical ideal, balance between ends and means. Finally, I referred to the classical stages of the Renaissance and Mannerism. I shall now examine the transformation wrought in this idea by the work of Enlightenment theorists. That transformation ended up turning the idea of progress – which in the classical stages facilitated the achievement of beauty – into a force of an entirely different kind, which would lead to the dismantling of the classical tradition. If Vasari is shown here to be the great protagonist, in the decline of the tradition the most important authors are Winckelmann and Hegel.

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1. Divine Beauty Gombrich reserves a special place in his ideas for Johann Joachim Winckelmann and one must state from the outset that he holds a very negative view of him. To a certain extent, Winckelmann is held up as the reverse of Giorgio Vasari. I have decided to examine him in detail because Gombrich’s criticism helps to outline some ideas that might otherwise be confused. Winckelmann is a fundamental element in Gombrich’s studies of the current situation of art and its history. The importance Gombrich bestows on him is a sign of the extent to which he believes his influence to have been harmful. Gombrich sees Winckelmann above all as a poet or a prophetic spirit. On more than one occasion he compares him to Ruskin, although I believe he feels some sympathy for the latter (cf. MH, 78–9), and also with Warburg (cf. T, 135). It is precisely because Winckelmann was not simply a writer or a scholar that his work was so influential. Behind the writer there is a relevant personality. For this reason too, Gombrich’s criticism extends to both the person and the work. Winckelmann, like Ruskin, was a ‘backward-­ looking prophet’; he presented his contemporaries with an image, an embellished image, of an ideal past, which he used to denounce the degeneration of the present. One of Winckelmann’s most indelible legacies is his style; his works are written in a poetic prose which had a great impact in his time (cf. 82, 279; MH, 45). Gombrich views them as ‘justly famous, but understandably they are not much read, for their mixture of antiquarian learning and high minded enthusiasm is not easily digestible’ (7, 18). Yet this emphatic form of speech was echoed among art history scholars of all eras. His emphasis reveals his position. Winckelmann looked to Greek art as an ideal. And he treated it with a truly religious veneration. His attitude, too, has left a deep mark. It is to Winckelmann that we partly owe the belief that the contemplation of the art ennobles and uplifts the person, an idea that holds particular sway in German-­ speaking countries. He ‘set the key for a response to classical statuary which bordered on religious rapture’, says Gombrich,

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an almost pagan worship of beauty. Thus many generations of art lovers learned through him to find in the sublime serenity of the Greek Olympians and in the untroubled sensuality of satyrs and nymphs metaphors for their own psychological aspirations. (T, 82) His emphatic tone matched his quasi-religious outbursts. However, such an approach to art entailed numerous risks. Winckelmann was tricked on a number of occasions, going into raptures over forgeries, some of which had been especially manufactured for the purpose of fooling him. Although he is far from going to these extremes, Gombrich shares with Winckelmann an admiration for the beauty of classical statuary. Precisely for this reason it is worth noting Gombrich’s analysis of the beauty Winckelmann believed he had found in Roman copies of Greek originals. 2. Gombrich and Winckelmann Evidently, from at least the Renaissance on, classical statues were universally admired by artists and patrons, and coveted by collectors. One of the outstanding tasks of the members of the Warburg Institute has been to appraise the real influence of that classical legacy. From Winckelmann on, however, the classical models took on another status. To the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was a matter of course that the laws of beauty had been discovered once and for all and were enshrined in the famous statues of antiquity. But it was Winckelmann in the eighteenth century who stripped this assertion of its metaphysical armature and openly praised

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the erotic charm of Greek statues. Like his contemporary Edmund Burke he took it for granted that the feeling of beauty has its instinctual roots in our reaction to a healthy youthful body. (RH, 17) This is an interesting point, if not a very agreeable one. As we have seen, Gombrich has noted the existence of the ‘compensatory nature of aesthetic satisfaction’, in concordance with analytical theories of art. But, as I have already mentioned – and this is the proof – the contemplation of art, including contemplation of the classical nude, is not limited to erotic attraction. The erotic response is more or less universal (only more or less, because, as Gombrich went on to recall, the canons of beauty, even from this perspective, have not always been identical. Yet they are instinctive, and therefore universal.). As well as the erotic appeal, we have the authentic sensation of beauty; this, too, is more or less universal and does not necessarily overlap with erotic appeal, or at least is not reduced to it. The following quote from Gombrich may seem quite harsh, yet I think it is worth quoting. It is taken from one of his publications, The Ideas of Progress and their Impact on Art (7); which contains what is probably the most extensive study he has made of Winckelmann. Like Shaftesbury, whom he had read, and like others writers of the Academic tradition Winckelmann was a Platonist who saw the essence of art in the attainment of Ideal Beauty. Indeed his History of Ancient Art of 1764 would not have had the influence it had, were it not for its concentration on the ideal of beauty which Winckelmann finds embodied in the classical creations of Greece. He acknowledges in true Platonic fashion that supreme Beauty is in God, but the concept

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of human beauty becomes the more perfect the more it can be conceived as harmonising with the Supreme Being. Like Plato, again, Winckelmann who was a homosexual, saw this reflection of the divine in the perfect male body; and his detailed discussion of these physical characteristics are not among the most attractive pages of his book. (7, 18) Gombrich’s position has something of the personal about it; all the more so given that he is a firm defender of allusions to beauty when speaking of works of art. Winckelmann’s ideas concur in some points with Gombrich’s; beauty is one of them, although in Gombrich it has another scope; the recognition of Greek perfection is another. At the same time, Winckelmann was an enormous admirer of Raphael, and in his time Raphael was considered to be the model of absolute beauty. The differences that Gombrich tries to establish with Winckelmann are found in his concept of beauty; firstly, the distance of beauty from erotic appeal. In the case of Raphael, there is another clear difference. For Gombrich, the beauty of art consists of the mastery of the means, the master’s dominion over his craft. This thesis is contained in his excellent article on the Madonna della Sedia (NF, 64–80) which I have quoted on several occasions. Beauty is achieved, albeit not always, by whoever is prepared to receive it. Precisely in the lines preceding the quote above, Gombrich makes mention of Vasari. As I have said before, for Gombrich, Vasari represents the classical historiographical tradition, which sees the achievement of the figurative arts to be a mastery of the means to achieve a better dramatic evocation. This technical point, in the classical sense of ‘technique’, marks a clear difference. Raphael has also earned his place for having achieved an astonishing balance between the requirements of formal composition and the demands for verisimilitude of the anatomical drawing. But Winckelmann’s praise ignored this mastery; emphatically praising ideal beauty with a religious fervour, he cloaked all beauty in a suspicion of insincerity for the

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next generation and caused such a strong reaction against Raphael – against all classical beauty – that the consequences can still be felt today (cf. 7, 18; II, 16; RH, 17). 3. Winckelmann’s Legacy This reaction could be placed within the context of a series of more ­general movements, including one which Gombrich likes to call ‘primitivism’. Through his writings, Winckelmann helped to spread the ideas that would deal a fatal blow to the classical tradition. His writings, says Gombrich, bore ‘the seed of their own destruction’ (cf. 7, 18). Winckelmann’s emphasis on Greek art and civilisation represent a moral appeal since, in the background, they provided an ideal model against the degeneracy into which he believed Western art had fallen. The artists of what we now call the Baroque, Bernini and Borromini, summarised all possible dishonesty. The moralising nature of Winckelmann’s writings owed much to Lord Shaftesbury, but above all to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The French philosopher set nature and affectation in opposition, at a time when France was still caught in the delirious splendour of the Rococo. Winckelmann’s influence is due to the fact that he presents a model, an idealised model, but, at the end of the day, a primitive one. We know that Winckelmann’s teaching was later crystallized in the formula of ‘noble simplicity’, and although the superiority of the simple over the complex is not identified with a preference for the primitive over progress, the two concepts can easily merge. (47, 22)*

*  Editors’ note: ‘Si sa che il vangelo di Winckelmann fu poi cristallizzato nella formula della “nobile semplicità”, e benché la superiorità del semplice sul complesso non si identifichi con la preferenza per il primitivo piuttosto che per il progredito, i due concetti possono facilmente fondersi.’

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Winckelmann was one of the factors of neo-classicism (cf. SO, 24) and one of the first links in the chain of the primitive. But in addition, Winckelmann developed the concept of art as a history of styles. It was he who postulated the relationship between the pure art of the Greeks and their noble history. In short, Winckelmann defends the idea that art affords a window into the spirit or nature of a people or race. ‘In Greek art he saw the immediate expression of the noble Greek soul [. . .]’ (47, 24).* This is the most important notion, contributing to a long series of authors who presented art history as a succession of civilisations whose idiosyncratic art summarises the spirit of civilisation. Gombrich argues that this is a ‘physiognomic fallacy’ of the mirage that invites us to presume a character – surly or friendly – in any configuration that will allow it. Finally Gombrich argues that it was also Winckelmann who, unwittingly, came up with the idea that was to enable isolated accounts of civilisations to be strung together through a single process. Winckelmann offered a model of evolution. He was faced with the problem of bringing order to a vast quantity of material – with major gaps – from classical remains. He turned to classical models of evolution, such as Aristotle’s Poetics (where he discovered the development of tragedy), and other classical authors. Greek art might be described as being in three stages: the first, the coarse style, more sublime and grandiose than beautiful; the second, the style of grace, which in turn could be divided into sublime grace; and seductive grace. In this way, Winckelmann introduced the notion of decline into each isolated period of art history (cf. 47, 22ff.; 7, 16–40 passim). In short Johann Joachim Winckelmann was responsible for launching several ideas that have proved to be harmful for art history. It is to him that historiography owes the idea of a divine dignity of art which sets the activity of art outside its context. A second idea is that all art represents the soul of a people; its consequence is to see art as the expression of a collective spirit. A third idea is that there exists an *  Editors’ note: ‘Egli vedeva nell’arte greca l’espressione immediata della nobile anima greca [. . .].’

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irresistible impetus that drives art from its infancy to its decline; an idea that involves a concern for the future. These first three ideas were Winckelmann’s legacy to Hegel through Herder. Hegel would include them in a system capable of explaining the entire history of culture. Winckelmann offered another idea, which was also taken up by Herder; the need to return to the past in the face of contemporary corruption. This idea directly involved artists, since as well as denouncing degradation it presented a model. The idea of primitivism, of going back, held sway for two hundred years, dissolving or trivialising the framework of conventions on which the classical tradition had been built. For Gombrich, Winckelmann stands in opposition to Vasari. Winckelmann with his desire to extol classical statuary unknowingly sowed the germ of self-destruction. 4. Hegel and Gombrich Having touched on Winckelmann, we must now turn to Hegel. Hegel is ultimately responsible for a vision of history – and within it, art history – that offers a well-rounded solution, so well finished that any contradiction with reality is in itself incorporated into the system. In it, the terms used to refer to deviations from the classical norm are filled with content to such an extent that the established succession will serve as a pattern with which to measure reality, art and all else. The success of Hegel and his successors has been so overwhelming that there is hardly any handbook of art in which his influence cannot be found. Perhaps for this reason, Gombrich believes this influence to be disastrous. Gombrich’s position on Hegel’s ideology is a question of principle. But when it comes to art history, at least during one period of Gombrich’s writing, the growing net of Gombrich’s ideas might be said to be built on Hegelian ideology. Gombrich weaves it for different purposes, as a critique of Hegel, until finally believing that it has become consistent enough to stand up on its own without help. I consider that from this perspective one can properly understand Gombrich’s statement that ‘the history of art should free itself of Hegel’s authority, but I am

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convinced that this will only be possible once we have learned to understand his overwhelming influence’ (T, 51). In any case, Gombrich barely analyses Hegel’s ideas in the round, when referring to the art of recent periods. One gets the feeling that Gombrich sees Winckelmann as a closer and, perhaps, more influential figure on artists and critics. Nonetheless he speaks of Hegel’s theory and its influence in two very important works: ‘The Father of Art History’ (T, 51–69) and ‘In Search of Cultural History’ (II, 24–59). In 1977, Sir Ernst H. Gombrich was awarded the Hegel Prize by the city of Stuttgart. The accolade did not go unnoticed. E. H. Gombrich had marked himself out for his antipathy to Hegelian theses, but judging from previous winners the prize seemed to be intended for people whose work showed an influence from the great philosopher. However, Gombrich has often argued that levelling harsh criticism against an intellectual’s work presupposes taking it seriously. And taking a thinker’s work seriously is the greatest honour that can be bestowed on him. On that occasion, Gombrich publicly acknowledged not only that criticism of the Hegelian legacy played a not inconsiderable place in his writings, but that the study of Hegel was even more indispensable for the student of contemporary art than for one wishing to examine medieval art or the Bible. For Gombrich, Hegel is the first author to systematically address the aspects that define a culture within a historical overview. Although he of course had his forerunners, cultural history has Hegelian foundations: ‘Kulturgeschichte has been built, knowingly and unknowingly, on Hegelian foundations which have crumbled’ (II, 28). Gombrich says that Hegel can rightly be called the father of art history, for his lessons on aesthetics, drawn up and dictated between 1820 and 1829 ‘contain the first attempt ever made to survey and systematize the entire universal history of art, indeed of all the arts’ (T, 51). There is, of course, a close relationship between these two facts. For Hegel, the history of art forms part of cultural history, and cultural history is the history of mankind as an incarnation of the Spirit. Art history has a relevant place in the development of the Spirit, notes Gombrich, and this position is referred to in one of Hegel’s first text,

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his 1807 Phenomenology. The extreme sublimity of art is to be found in Winckelmann, and through him in Herder and in Schelling from whom, perhaps, Hegel took it; but in this its takes a key position: art is theo­ phany, and thus the process of manifesting the Spirit to itself is performed, at least partly, through art. Gombrich clearly notes the role of art in Hegel’s philosophy; nonetheless, he tries to dissociate the aesthetics from the rest of it. I believe that it is perhaps for this reason that Gombrich’s analyses and criticisms may seem somewhat superficial when they address the giant Hegelian construction. However, if that imposing structure is immensely complex, one of its supports is its theory of art. And if one cannot require an art historian to address all of Hegelian metaphysics, any spadework he does to rescue art is important; with it, a hard blow is dealt to the system. At the same time, Hegel’s aesthetics form, as he himself said, a system within other systems. Gombrich says that contemporary historiography has seen how Hegelian aesthetics broke away from metaphysics and continued to subsist. Hegelian subsistence can be explained by its quest for a total vision, which will resolve all issues. Few alternatives exist today for this relatively facile view of learning, and those that do are neither complete nor accessible. In particular, Gombrich believes that the pertinence of Hegel’s aesthetics lies in the fact that he conveniently united two basic notions in modern aesthetics which are in reality two principles. Each stage of history, each civilisation, has certain defined characteristics which distinguish it from all others. And at the same time, art experiences progress. Note that these principles affect the two problems we referred to when discussing style: the unity and character of each historical stage, and the reasons for the change. This contains one of the most beloved ideas of art history: the feeling that everything is related: dress and cosmology, literary genres and geographical discoveries, appearance and philosophical ideas. And, at the same time, it also contains another sensation which forms part of the classical baggage, but which, after the first years of the Renaissance, takes shape around scientific discoveries and, somewhat later, technical advances – everything ­progresses; mankind is ceaselessly improving.

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Let me briefly summarise Gombrich’s analysis of Hegel’s ideas. His criticism of these ideas is pushed to the background; it is diluted. When one tries to set out Gombrich’s ideas coherently, the initial impression is that his programme to combat certain Hegelian ideas forms part of a more general scheme. Moreover, Gombrich made the surprising discovery that in reality the successive historical stages into which we usually divide Western art are the result of a curious later classification which only signifies the survival of a normative classical ideal. This deals a fatal blow to the notion of the spirit of the times. 5. The Five Giants Hegel knew how to see behind each stage a unified principle with its own identity which extends to all manifestations: in other words, the spirit of the age. But that spirit is no more than a moment in the evolution of the Spirit, one more step in the knowledge of itself that the spirit of the world experiences through its exteriorisation at a concrete stage. Describing the process is therefore actually a history; because accepting progress means recognising a before and an after, and particularly in Hegel the process has a beginning and leads to an end. It is, then, a history which has an unequivocal sense, and each deed contains a raison d’être, and a place to occupy. In his Hegel Prize lecture, Gombrich presented five characteristics of Hegel’s aesthetic theory. They were like five giants which he kept running up against all the time, everywhere. Recalling Don Quixote, he said that this obsession led him to suspect that they were in truth windmills, which only to him seemed like monsters. But experience has confirmed that were indeed giants. And he gave them strange, witty names, presenting them not exactly as Hegel views them, but as dominant, frequent and active ideas in our world. In these paragraphs, I shall draw on Gombrich’s description (cf. T, 51–69). The first giant is aesthetic transcendentalism: the art work is something else. There is a deep truth which is concealed behind superficial appearances to which the connoisseur has access. That is the truth that needs to be revealed and to dwell on appearances is pure naivety. With

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that mentality, indeed, all individual art work can be seen in terms of style. The second is historical collectivism: each art work manifests the spirit of the age; or later the spirit of the race, the nation, etc.: there is something higher to which the manifestations of particular artists can be attributed. The great artists can be the great interpreters, whereas the lesser ones are indeed dissolved within collective anonymity. The third is historical determinism and it originates in Hegel as a consequence of the other two. The primitive organic cycle of progress, formation, maturity, decline is incorporated into a wider process. The march of time is inexorable. And in it, so too are the realisations of the spirit. The march is dialectic; it is performed with the opposition of contraries. The new eventually vanquishes and takes the place of the old. The fourth is metaphysical optimism. The Spirit advances towards its own knowledge: progress is not only inexorable, but positive: in reality all progress is. Everything that happens is necessary, and everything that happens brings a better future closer. The new winds that blow, the new times that are coming, announce new improvements: a blind confidence in the future is demanded, a future that will necessarily come. Gombrich stresses that there is here a soteriological religious element: salvation is promised to everyone who wants to see it. And the fifth giant is relativism. Every failure, every artistic decline is only a necessary step, an interlude which history provides to change the stage set. Naturally successes are also relative. What really matters is not the present, let alone the past, but the future. One should stress, as noted in the first three ideas, that Hegel ushers in a history of artistic styles which better correspond to a history of civilisations than any previous approach. He establishes something which, with time, will end up seriously affecting art. The principal interest of the art work is as a symptom; and that symptom is often transformed into a voluntarily symptomatic attitude, a manifesto. The great artist is elevated to the role of interpreter of the spirit, standing infinitely out amongst his contemporaries, the medium-range artists and the general public, isolated in his role as a genius. Gombrich notes

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that if such a role exists, and only the future can judge that, then it is logical to find a multitude of pretenders. This is what Popper called ‘metaphysical opportunism’, and in some ways it is related to the suitors of Penelope: as long as their fate remained undecided, they all lived – and hoped to live – like kings. One can thus see the role that Hegel has had in contemporary art. Finally one should mention the situation in which Hegel places the art historian. It is an agreeable one. The historian starts from a great system, which is already built and where everything is related and explained. He must a priori submit to the system in order later to receive the specific information in the appropriate place. Each stage has a given essence, which is manifested in all its aspects. One must try to make the facts see reason until they adapt to that essence. The dialectic nature of the process makes it possible to integrate any contradiction, since everything that does not correspond fully to the stage may always be considered to be a resistance that has yet to be overcome, or a premonition which has not for the moment attained its fullness.

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9. Primitivism Gombrich has regularly expressed an interest in the idea of the primitive and its influence on Western art. Primitivism is an immediate consequence of the ‘polarisation’ created by the idea of progress in Western art history; not everyone sees progress as being positive. The idea of primitivism can already be found in Plato and in the rhetorical doctrine; later, with the advent of the Renaissance, art theorists frequently warned against the overuse of the many resources the Western arts had developed. Generally, the term ‘primitivism’ is used to refer to a predilection for archaic, elementary, unevolved artistic models. However, the idea of primitivism is particularly linked to the revolution against the classical tradition. We use the term ‘primitive’, in principle, to refer to the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Italian painters who preceded the great masters of the Renaissance. This preference reflected an attitude of rebellion, shared by artists, critics and historians, which undermined and ultimately demolished the classical tradition. I have already examined Gombrich’s ideas on that tradition and this chapter is meant as a counterpoint. In it I describe Gombrich’s analysis in general terms and try to cast some light on many of his appraisals. 186

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For Gombrich, primitivism was an essential episode which demonstrated the priority of ideas over artistic forms, norm over form. Primitivist schools of thought were driven by art theory and had a definitive influence on artistic practice. ‘It is the job of the historian to make intelligible what actually happens’ (SA, 482) said Gombrich in his Story of Art. There is another reason: primitivism does not belong to some remote past; primitivist schools are active in our own time and their influence can be seen to be harmful. Gombrich believes that it was the historian who handed the artist the poisoned apple of theories that promised to turn him into a god, free to be accountable to none for his actions. And it was up to the historian to repair the harm done. Gombrich wound up the last of four radio talks on primitivism, commissioned by the BBC in 1979, by saying that the dilemma of the artist is the result of intellectual rather than purely artistic ambitions. If I am right that this applies to much of the art of our time, then intellectual arguments may also offer a remedy. I have always seen myself as a historian rather than a critic, and I would never want to tell artists what to do as long as they, and their public, are happy. But I think that, in the present malaise, even the historian of art can make a contribution because it was he, as I tried to show in these talks, who first appeared in the guise of the serpent, tempting the artist to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. (82, 350) In the following sections I shall draw extensively on these talks, entitled ‘The Primitive and its Value in Art’ as well as two lectures delivered to the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture in New York in 1971, which make up his book The Ideas of Progress and their Impact on Art (7) and another lecture in the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, in Naples in 1984, under the title Il Gusto dei Primitivi: le radici della ribellione (47). I shall also use quotations and ideas from other works 187

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where appropriate. I cannot ignore one of the clearest and most complete analyses Gombrich made of contemporary art, which can be found in the closing pages of his Story of Art (SA, 476–509). Nonetheless, it should be noted that the deposition of the classical tradition has been one of Gombrich’s favourite themes throughout his academic life, and even earlier. In 1928, in his final year before university, aged just eighteen, he competed in a convention of schoolchildren with an essay analysing the evolution of ideas on art from Winckelmann to the present. Sixty years later, he is now writing a book to be called The Preference for the Primitive. 1. Skills and Attitudes Gombrich feels a personal involvement in the study of primitivist schools of thought, since they are related to his favourite themes and affect the panorama of art today. Gombrich has often been accused of taking a belligerent stance. In 1979, in the introduction to one of his works on the subject, he wrote: It so happens that I have also a personal reason for wanting to raise them again. I have tried in two books to describe the development of pictorial styles, first in The Story of Art, and then in a more theoretical framework in Art and Illusion. It was almost inevitable that the attention I paid in these books to representational skills such as the rendering of space, of light and shade, of the human body or the facial expression caused a certain uneasiness among my friends and critics. What have these skills to do with art? Were those picture postcards and chocolate-boxes the crowning achievements towards which the centuries had been driving? Of course they were 188

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not. Technical skill in art, like any other skill, can be used or abused. But for this very reason, I would venture the paradox that for the historian [. . .] the chocolatebox is one of the most significant products of our age, precisely because of its role as a catalyst. I believe that we cannot hope to understand the course taken by art in more recent times if we fail to appreciate the holy terror of what was called chocolate-boxy, kitsch or saccharine. The desire to get away from the cheap, the tainted, the corrupt has been one of the prime motive forces of artistic developments [. . .] And it was this desire that led to the adoption of the term ‘primitive’, not of condescension, but of admiration. (82, 242) Today no skill is required to create make chocolate-box art. And that explains why the public flees in horror from any manifestation of the genre. However, we need to recognise that in other eras, skill in dramatic depiction was held in great regard and artists who mastered that skill produced masterpieces. If we want to understand those works, we must be capable of valuing that skill. For Gombrich, then, valuing the skill is necessary for historical interpretation. Today’s chocolate box would have left a collector such as Frederick the Great speechless. Objectively, though, it is artistic garbage. The contemporary rejection of such effects is justified. However, it would be a mistake to extend this evaluation to the china boxes in the Prussian king’s collection. If we want to appreciate the art of the past we must be capable of appreciating skill. It is certainly true that modern repulsion has altered our appreciation of art from former times. However, the refusal by some theorists to admit any type of skill has left modern art with no criteria of quality other than negative ones – the fact that something is not chocolate-boxy. As a result, many works 189

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have no value other than as theoretical manifestos, ‘manifesting’ repulsion for something previous. This is an extreme attitude which harms artistic output. A lack of value criteria is erroneously compensated for with an appreciation of postures and attitudes. These may or not be valuable, but they have nothing to do with artistic ‘mastery’, with ‘masterworks’, with the great ‘masters’, the milestones used to build the story of art. On one occasion, Duchamp’s urinal was raised in a debate on historical interpretation. The professors in the discussion recognised that it was indeed original and had therefore earned a place as art. Gombrich replied: But I wouldn’t grant it any. If I may be really controversial, I think the glorification of this kind of a schoolboy joke and the role it has become in debates about art is one of the most degrading things that has happened to art since its very beginning – even since the cave man! I am not condemning Duchamp for making a joke, but I am condemning all of us for talking about it after so many years, and for being so solemn about it, and for making it into a new definition of art. Unfortunately, I have read a good deal about it, I feel ashamed that I have read so much about it because, after all, it is only the commentary of the so-called art world that has made this into such an event. In all European cities at the time of carnival there were artists’ fêtes in which jokes of this kind flourished; happily, they were enjoyed only for a moment and then they were forgotten. Making a joke like Duchamp’s urinal a turning point in the 190

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history of art is most puzzling. I wonder how this should be possible. (50, 52–3) The success of Duchamp’s joke was understandable; it represents an epigonic link in the chain of denials formulated by the primitivist schools of thought. Duchamp presented a vulgar, mass-produced object, intended for private and unthinking use as an art work. In short, it was something perfectly antagonistic to the glossy chocolate box, in opposition to whose ostentatious affectation, Duchamp brandished the provocative, elementary realism of a coarse vessel. 2. The Negative Tradition Primitive is something that refers to a previous state – in other words a state preceding one which is, by definition, subsequent. Gombrich insists that those who use this notion, negatively or positively, necessarily accept Vasari’s concept of art as progress in skill and perfection, or more exactly his model of organic growth, the organic metaphor, for the development of art. The primitive is not simply the preceding; it is the undeveloped, that which is prior to development; it represents some form of return to a prior state (cf. 47, 9–10). In this regard, it is a negative notion. As I have already said, Gombrich noted how difficult it was to establish general norms in art and yet how easy it was to create negative ones. Indeed it might be argued that what ultimately killed the classical ideal was that the sins to be avoided multiplied till the artist’s freedom was confined to an ever narrowing space; all he dared to do in the end was insipid repetition of safe solutions. After this, there was only one sin to be avoided in art, that of being academic. (NF, 89) What the champions of primitivism were actually rebelling against was a tradition that had been imperceptibly transformed, trying to maintain 191

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it until they turned works of art into objects ‘which are quite properly known as academic machines’ (NF, 76). Between the living classical tradition and the rebellion there is a process that one might call the ‘sublimation of art’ which was to make the classical tradition more vulnerable to attacks from primitivists. I think Gombrich believes that Winckelmann was responsible for this. In any case, the standard that is raised is ‘no’ to everything involving tradition; and it became a rallying cry for different artists and schools of thought. Negation, therefore, might be said to be one of the features of contemporary Western art. Anyone who wanted to find some morphological feature that united Alberto Burri with Salvador Dali and Francis Bacon with Capogrossi would be hard put to it, but it would be easy to see that they all want to avoid being academic [. . .]. (NF, 89) Primitivism was developed as a tradition of negations, a gradual rejection of statements from a previous tradition. This is what Gombrich called ‘principles of exclusion’, negative rules, qualities or circumstances to be avoided with great care. Gombrich alludes to a classification of different modes or aspects of primitivism which he borrows (as he himself recognises) from a famous book on the subject, Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity, by Arthur O. Lovejoy and George Boas, the latter of whom was a personal friend of Gombrich’s.1 He refers to this book quite often, and in some reviews of books on these issues, he criticises its exclusion from the bibliography.2 These authors distinguish between two related but different types of primitivism: ‘cultural primitivism’ and ‘chronological primitivism’. Chronological primitivism refers to some ancestral golden age, in whose period of decline it is our lot to live. A cliché: ‘any past time was better’. Cultural primitivism goes back to the idea of the noble savage or, in its more civilised version, the wild man. ‘What a tranquil life was his . . .’ These two types of primitivism are the two basic prototypes found in

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any civilisation, models that any reformer of customs must always have to hand to upbraid the relaxation of the civilised man. Counterpoising these models has a clearly moral purpose. The primitive is held up as an alternative to our present degeneration, the unevolved, the uncontaminated; we soon see that these issues have lost nothing of their topicality. Those who seek a ‘primitive’ solution for civilisation yearn for models and attitudes for which Lovejoy and Boas proposed another two general categories, ‘hard primitivism’ and ‘soft primitivism’, which Gombrich likes to link to what Freud called ‘the discontents of civilisation’ (cf. 82, 243; 47, 34). Sturdy virility is held up as a contrast to depravity and effeminacy; youth and innocence to haste and confusion. This could be summed up as epic primitivism (great feats) and lyrical primitivism (simple joviality, original purity). As I have already mentioned in discussing the controversy over primitivism in rhetoric, Gombrich feels that the theorists accurately diagnosed this tendency and the way it affected rhetorical art. I shall briefly summarise. In art, it is possible to find an abuse of the means, i.e. a process of inflation. Likewise, one can also encounter formal fatigue, a way of doing things that is so repetitive that it makes any novelty desirable. One might even think that, to some extent, a formal tradition can be exhausted. Added to this, there is a desire for novelty which, as Quintilian reminds us, may be purely due to snobbism. In such a situation, the old inspires veneration as being something unrepeatable; it is truly rougher, more archaic, more primitive, more artisanal. It can inspire epically or lyrically, and it is combined with a fatal tendency to read it in a physiognomic fashion, to imagine one can see behind the crudeness or antiquity, strong characters or noble integrity, lost wisdom, or youth and innocence. One need only remember the impression conveyed by the first accounts of the Doric temples at Agrigento and Paestum: the stupendous, chipped and pitted limestone columns, vast and simple. Piranesi’s prints of Paestum form an impressive testimony; after the controversy of the Greeks and Romans, he drew what are probably the most monumental and most contrasting vistas in his oeuvre. And on another plane, we have contemporary

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enthusiasm for the popular arts, and even for popular architecture and a fascination for the exotic, which goes back a long way in Spain. Vener­ able stones, humble pottery, decorative oriental fantasies and the fascinating work of ‘natives’ are seen as august, humble, fantastic or fascinating. At the beginning of this chapter, I mentioned Gombrich’s most important works on primitivism: the three form a historical progression, The Ideas of Progress and their Impact on Art (7), ‘The Primitive and its Value in Art’ (82) and Il Gusto dei Primitivi (47). I shall now briefly examine the ideas contained in each one individually. As a result, I follow Gombrich’s line of historical argument, which, although these works are not extensive, is well established and convincing. At the same time, because I sometimes refer to specific authors, it would be easy to give a distorted idea of their role; because these are very well-known ideas, the argument strings together some influential works and authors, but others serve more as a testimony, and it is often difficult to differentiate between them. In light of all these caveats, one might reasonably ask whether a simple summary might not have been preferable. I am unsure how to answer; certainly, it would have been easier, but it would have meant explaining the works and the differences between them. A study such as this must prioritise ideas. And I trust that the exposition will be – if not simpler – clearer. 3. The Expression of the Sublime It has taken me a great deal of time to decide on an approach that will not distort Gombrich’s ideas. I have finally decided to compose the following piece as if it were a theatrical play. The drama is performed in three acts, separated by intermissions. This approach might appear frivolous, yet, perhaps because Gombrich’s ideas are set out in isolated lectures, it has proved surprisingly suitable. Before the curtain is raised, an actor might brief ly explain that the three works in question begin with a study of the rhetorical and then, after a very short preparation, Winckelmann. Given the great emphasis Gombrich lays on this writer, I have devoted an entire

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chapter to him. The first act will therefore open in the mid-eighteenth century. Gombrich, in his Story of Art, highlighted the fact that the arrival of the fifteenth century – ultimately 1492 – did not mark a radical break in the artistic world. Many important events succeeded one other. ‘But however important all these events were, they did not result in a sudden break’ (SA, 375). And he adds: ‘just as the Great Revolution has its roots in the Age of Reason, so have the changes in man’s ideas about art’ (SA, 376). This chapter bears the significant title ‘The Break in Tradition’ (SA, 375–94), and is set in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The eighteenth century saw a shift from the classical ideal to primitivist aspirations, the seeds of a rebellion that would change the course of art, leading to a break with tradition. Gombrich presents this second half of the eighteenth century as the moment in which the main ideas of the classical tradition were substantially demolished or altered. Winckelmann essentially initiated or promoted three ideas which were to be widely developed. The first is that in art the sublime is more important than the beautiful . . . or rather, that all beauty is sublime . . . or rather, that there is no other beauty than the sublime. I have already discussed this idea, as expressed by Winckelmann. The preference for the sublime conceals an evident criticism of the gracious, delicate, female and proverbially effeminate beauty arrived at by the French Rococo. One of its exponents was Wolfgang von Goethe and Gombrich believes his stance may have reflected a strong reaction against the prevailing environment at his parents’ home in Frankfurt. Where Winckelmann pointed to sublime beauty, ‘Goethe goes further and condemns any cult of beauty, adopting the vocabulary of the sublime but taking the argument to extremes never reached by his predecessors’ (47, 27).* Goethe characteristically expressed his preference for former artists such as Dürer. In a *  Editors’ note: ‘Goethe va oltre e condanna tutto il culto della bellezza adottando il vocabolario del sublime ma portando l’argomento a estremi mai raggiunti dai suoi predecessori.’

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surprising remark quoted by Gombrich, he even presented the savage as a model. This is the development implied in this idea. As beauty is displaced and replaced by the sublime, there is a shift from the sublime to the primitive. I have already commented on how easy it is to identify the primitive with the venerable, the revered, the admirable; in short, with the sublime. But ideas are one thing, and facts are another. For the moment, as Gombrich notes, painters and sculptors are unable to find authentically savage models. There is nonetheless a shift in preferences from Raphael’s prototype of academic beauty to the ‘sublime’ figures of Michelangelo. At the end of the century, following the French Revolution, radical positions came to the fore. The studio of Jacques-Louis David, champion of French neo-classicism, played host to a group of young men known as les barbus or les primitifs. Around 1797, David, who had been working on a large picture with an ambitious theme, The Rape of the Sabine Women, showed it to his disciples. It was met with general disappointment, ‘né nobiltà, né semplicitá’ (cf. 47, 33), there is nothing ‘primitive’ about the picture; David, they said, was ‘Van Loo, Pompadour, Rococò’ (ibid.). This was, perhaps, the first use of the word ‘Rococo’ and the first time the term ‘primitive’ had been employed as a criterion. To be primitive was the rule. Maurice Quay, head of the group, believed that few things were free of corruption: the entire Louvre should be burnt to the ground. The beautiful had thus been transformed into the sublime; and the sublime had ushered in the primitive. However, for the moment, the figurative arts did not turn to ‘primitive’ models; there was only a belief in the need to destroy. The second idea is very closely related to the first. Longinus thought that the sublime was not available to any mortal, it was not the fruit of experience or formula; rather it was the ‘the ring of the noble soul’. This idea involves another shift from the artist as a master consumed by his art, to the artist as an extremely sensitive instrument, capable of resonating to the movements, feelings and passions of his noble spirit. In short, it involves transforming a rhetorical concept of art into an expressionist aesthetic. That transformation becomes a pure negation of previously esteemed qualities. Goethe, too, has a part to play in this

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idea, insisting on art as creation, and seeking to awaken in it the intimate appearance of man (cf. 47, 26–8). The third idea is that if it was necessary to reform a degraded art and if the primitive proved appealing, then classical Greece was a model. This is the model Winckelmann held up as a contrast. Artistic ideals moved from the classical tradition to ancient Greece. However, Winckelmann had argued that Greek art was the result of unrepeatable conditions. Each people had their own character and their own art. This is the position defended by Herder; Greece is admirable and so is Egypt, but the Germans also have admirable art of their own – medieval art. Faced with the widening of this panorama, Gombrich lets slip a value judgement: ‘In its beginnings, it was relatively harmless, even beneficial. It was undoubtedly reasonable to remind the public of the many different cultures and achievements of mankind’ (47, 24).* This extended panorama passed from Herder to Hegel, as Gombrich recalls elsewhere, and Hegel sought a principle that would give him historical consistency. The ideal of pious, chaste medieval simplicity replaced the noble simplicity of the pagan world. Medieval poetry is an example of sublimity. It is the age of Wackenroder with his Outpourings of an Art-loving Friar from 1797 or Chateaubriand with The Genius of Christianity from 1802. Our attention is drawn to the pre-Renaissance position, the ‘primitive’, the fifteenth-century Italian painters. We see the emergence of the ‘Nazarene’ movement of German painters in Rome and the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood in Britain. Here Gombrich’s judgement is more severe. In our histories of art, the Nazarenes figure as an abortive movement anticipating the Pre-Raphaelite, who petered out, in their turn. But this version of the history of 19th-century art overlooks *  Editors’ note: ‘I suoi inizi furono piuttosto innocui e perfino benefici. Senza dubbio era lecito rammentare al pubblico la molteplicità delle culture e delle conquiste dell’umanità.’

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the enormous production of [. . .] devotional art which transformed and possibly ruined a vast majority of church interiors in Europe. These stereotyped, well-groomed saints, with their smooth draperies and bland expressions, epitomise, to my mind, the fatal flaw of the 19th-century primitivism, the concentration on negative virtues, for the concern of these generation was with art as the expression of a state of mind, rather than with the creation of forms. (82, 281) Winckelmann’s model, classical Greece, is followed by the European Middle Ages, the age of the cathedrals. With the classical tradition broken, the chain holds through to the Renaissance. Various historical stages are used as models, while the former tradition is criticised. This is followed by an age of upheaval and finally the authentically primitive models prevail – oriental art, aboriginal art and children’s art. 4. Delay of the Image The three ideas mentioned above – the displacement of the beautiful by the sublime and of the sublime by the primitive, the replacement of a rhetorical aesthetic by an aesthetic of expression, and the replacement of the classical tradition by successive historical stages – constituted an upheaval that was to affect the art world throughout the nineteenth century. However, Gombrich stresses that in the figurative arts, authentically primitive results do not emerge until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, whereas in poetry, for example, they occur much earlier. Indeed, he notes that ‘the historian’s problem is less how the taste for primitive art arose, than why its acceptance was delayed till the 20th century’ (82, 280). At the end of the day primitive taste can be explained rationally (cf. 82, 244) and I have tried to do so in accordance with Gombrich’s ideas.

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The reasons for that delay are evident. During the second half of the eighteenth century the most primitive medieval poetry was all the rage among those who yearned for an incorrupt culture. The intensely evocative power of archaic language, which underlines the epic accents characteristic of those compositions is revealed. The appeal it arouses is so great that hugely successful imitations and even forgeries appear, such as the famous ‘Ossian’. Gombrich speaks of the essential difference between figurative art and the art of the word. Primitive poetry appears to have been much more accessible than primitive images. The difference lies in an undeniable truth; while the gift of the word is shared universally by the entire human race, the art of creating images – especially images that imitate life – must be learned in each society, and not all societies appreciate and teach this art. This palpable difference between primitive poetry and primitive art helps explain the crisis in artistic taste of the late eighteenth century. No doubt the artists wished to respond to the widespread enthusiasm for the poetry of Ossian and Homer, but in a way, they lacked an idiom in which they could render adequate tribute to the cult that was in fashion at the time. Flaxman captured the atmosphere of the times in his illustrations of Homer’s work, in which he adopted the style of ancient Greek vases. However, although his style showed a preference for the works of the most severe – and therefore most sublime – Greek potters, his illustrations are a long

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way from anything the Homeric Greeks could have known or created. The same is true of the many paintings and drawings inspired by the imaginative primitivism of the poetry attributed to Ossian. Their muscular, heroic figures owe their inspiration largely to Michelangelo who was certainly not primitive, but was considered the very personification of the sublime. (47, 29)* If the purpose was to depict the views of the barbarian world of Ossian or Greek sagas and mythology, as Flaxman did, there was no option. Because in representing the figure, faithfulness to nature is too important to allow distorted images of human beings to provide an aesthetic response. Flaxman could not use the patterns on the ceramic vases from the late geometric period. He would not have wanted to, and even if he had, he would not have dared, and if he had taken the risk, what could he have represented with them? One need only to remember the mourning human figures with raised arms on parallel registers. The *  Editors’ note: ‘differenza essenziale fra l’arte figurativa e l’arte della parola. La poesia primitiva sembra essere stata molto più accessibile delle immagini primitive. La differenza è fondata su una realtà innegabile, cioè sul fatto che il dono della parola è universale per il genere umano, mentre l’arte di creare immagini, specialmente immagini che imitano la vita, si deve imparare in ogni società e non tutte le società apprezzano e insegnano quest’arte. Questa differenza palpabile fra poesia primitiva e arte primitiva ci aiuta a spiegare la crisi del gusto artistico nel tardo Settecento. Senza dubbio gli artisti volevano rispondere all’entusiasmo generale per la poesia di Ossian e di Omero, ma in un certo senso mancavano di un idioma in cui potessero rendere un omaggio adeguato al culto che era allora di moda. Flaxman colse l’atmosfera del momento nelle sue illustrazioni di Omero adottando lo stile dei vasi greci più antichi, ma se il suo stile indicava una preferenza per le opere dei vasai greci più severe e perciò più sublimi, le sue illustrazioni sono ben lontane da quello che i Greci omerici potevano conoscere o creare. Lo stesso vale per i numerosi dipinti e disegni ispirati al fantasioso primitivismo della presunta poesia di Ossian. Le loro figure eroiche e muscolose devono la loro ispirazione in gran parte a Michelangelo che non era certamente primitivo ma era considerato la personificazione stessa del sublime.’

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possibilities are very limited. One can understand why he chose figures that came not from the archaic period but from the mature and even late classical period; since for him, as for his many readers, such a deliberately linear means of depiction, with no shading, marked an authentic primitivist stance against Baroque drawing. Flaxman even used this type of drawing in mediaeval illustrations, as Gombrich reminds us (cf. 7, 34–6). The vase drawing was not suitable for mediaeval illustrations; painting needed other models. With the conquest of the medieval, the search for models to represent mediaeval figures and their exploits could not be directed towards Romanesque murals or the stained-glass windows of the early Gothic. It made no sense to copy the figures of the Burgundy Gothic; however, Vasari’s authorised history featured some magnificent models. Those models had in their favour the fact that they contained ‘no’ multicoloured composition, ‘no’ chiaroscuro, ‘no’ contorted musculature, ‘no’ theatrical pathos, ‘no’ use of colour and form. And so we have the curious paradox that the word ‘primitive’, or, at any rate, ‘les primitifs’, came to be applied as praise, not to the very beginnings of Italian painting, but to 15th-century artists such as Fra Angelico, Francesco Francia, or Perugino. These masters were felt to have progressed far enough in skill to represent plausible human figures but had not yet been spoilt by meretricious virtuosity. (82, 280) Representation is something not to be played with. Any representation needs to use a certain expressivity of the face, foreshortening of the figure and an indication of the ambit within which the scene plays out, in other words, an interior perspective or a landscape. The alternatives are the Italian or even German primitifs, or, as Maurice Quay wanted to do, to burn down everything. This is the first act and its intermission. It concludes with the threat of total destruction.

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5. The Idea of Progress The second act is more complicated; and if I may continue with the theatrical metaphor, it is divided into two different scenes. This is the period that featured in Story of Art under the name of ‘Permanent Revolution’ (SA, 395–424). The book The Ideas of Progress . . . whose first part, as I have said, fully coincides with the first act, in this second, under the title of ‘From Romanticism to Modernism’ (7, 42–89), delivers on the promise contained in the title: the evolution of the idea of progress and its impact, the tremendous impact it has on the art world. It studies the evolution of an idea and not the evolution of art. In reality, Gombrich does not come to modernism, he stops at the gates. What I would call the second scene, is contained in ‘The Primitive . . .’ under the title ‘The Priority of Pattern’ (82, 311–4), and here too, the promise is delivered on: the primitive; the search undertaken by theorists of decorative repertoires until they came to tribal art. The idea of progress which was to dominate the nineteenth century was different to Aristotle’s organic metaphor; it was borrowed from science and was comparable to scientific progress. It was not cyclical, but linear; and instead of containing a goal after which a decline set in, it was an infinite process. Gombrich mentions the unusual but significant 1600 publication Nova Reperta, containing new discoveries and inventions made by a student and collaborator of Vasari, Jan Stradanus (cf. 7, 46–50). It is a potent symbol; many of the inventions come from other civilisations, for example China. Gombrich sees this as being very significant. As he says, in a sense, what distinguishes the new from the old age, and what creates an incipient hope, at least, not in the recovery of lost values but of a future which will be better and better – the idea of progress in other words – comes partly through a culture clash; through the new ideas or

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inventions which percolated across the world and reached the West. (100, 16) The idea, which was to have an impact on art, took on new force when applied to the break of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth cen­ turies. Madame de Staël, in her famous book De l’Allemagne (1813), observed that in Germany ‘tout est progressif, tout marche’, since taste was continuously being renewed with new creations, released from the task of imitating classical creations. In essays published in 1820, Auguste Comte gave an early version of his thesis that civilisation is dominated by the law of progress, an automatic and inevitable progress where only the necessary future counted. In 1828, Deschamps launched his cri de guerre against the academies: ‘il faut être de son temps’. Gombrich mentions Hegel in passing, blaming him for the craze for innovation that took hold during those years (cf. 7, 62). The idea of progress had several consequences, clearly identified in Heine as early as 1831 (cf. 7, 62–4). They can be summarised in four statements: (a) the artist is driven, like a sleepwalker, by the spirit of his time; (b) his work must be of its time: it must offer some innovation on an outmoded past; (c) there is no other criterion of quality than innovation, and therefore, (d) criticism, which cannot gauge the new, must refrain from criticising it, and instead help to open the way for it. However, the idea of progress also engenders adversaries; a ‘polaris­ ation’ is created; one cannot say that progress does not exist in art, who is against progress is a reactionary (cf. 7, 60). Thus, aesthetic discussions become infected by political conflicts. In this climate, one further idea emerges: ‘Naturalism’ was heralded in 1833 as ‘l’art de l’avenir’; in 1845 Lavedan, a follower of Fourier, argued that ‘the artist belongs in fact to the vanguard [. . .]’ (7, 66). As Proudhon put it, the artist marches in the vanguard, sowing what he may not be able to reap, but levelling the road for those who follow (cf. 7, 63). The enemies, the champions of classicism, defend themselves, positions become radicalised and the struggle is exacerbated. And so, membership of a certain artistic school of thought may entail a political stance, and art history is interpreted as a ‘reflection of social forces’.

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However, by linking all civilisations in history to the progress of the spirit, Hegel allows us to conclude that the future can be deduced from the past. And here we have the example of Wagner with The Work of Art of the Future. Wagner knows what the future holds for music. The artist who is in the vanguard, who can see the future, will naturally encounter opposition. And so there arises the idea of the ‘misunderstood artist’ (Wagner himself is a model) who is finally and inevitably elevated to glory and fame over and above his blind enemies. It was Taine who formulated the theory of the ‘next step’: science advances, technology improves, social progress is achieved. Just as it is possible to guess at the next achievement in science, Taine argues that in art too the next step – the one we must necessarily take – can be sensed intuitively. Taine himself believed he was fated to proclaim a new improvement in art. Gombrich considers the theory of the ‘next step’ to be the most distinctive feature of modernism. The historiography of nineteenth-century art has generally been so much under the spell of this ideology that we are only gradually becoming aware of the degree to which the diagram of progress has obscured what was actually going on in that century. The vast mass of productions which refused to fit this reading of the situation has all but been filtered out. (7, 72) The Ideas of Progress and their Impact on Art (7), the text I have used in the paragraphs above, ends with a broad reference to an extraordinary critic, Émile Zola. He took to the floor in 1866, with a series of articles on Cézanne, an old friend of his. He says that the masses only want to have their hearts touched. The artist must retain a vigorous and individual nature. That which can be learned with study is of no interest; what matters is the man and not the painting. There is no absolute beauty; art is a human secretion. We must therefore abandon ourselves

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to our own nature and not fool ourselves. In this way, triumph is assured (cf. 7, 78–88). There is therefore no need to defend the artist, he will triumph in any case; Courbet provoked laughter, yet today he is universally admired; we laugh at Manet but in the future, he will be seen as a master. Zola boosted the rise of impressionism; so complete was the movement’s triumph that the public surrendered before it; by the end of century the surprising effects of impressionism were being used as workshop formulae. Zola, far-sightedly, predicted this advance. However, such a complete triumph placed the critics who had spurned the impressionists in a difficult situation. ‘Criticism [. . .] suffered a loss of prestige from which it never recovered’, says Gombrich. ‘In a sense this notorious failure is as important [. . .] as was the ultimate victory of the Impressionist programme’ (SA, 416). 6. A Marginal Consideration The ease with which the idea of progress took hold then in the art world and the force with which it still persists can be explained by the image imposed by scientific progress on our society. Science progresses, everything progresses, art progresses. But in the sphere of art, progress is much more questionable than in technology or science; this is a surprising notion, given that any evaluation involving demonstrable skills has been rejected. Gombrich points to a deeper cause. It is rather part and parcel of that philosophy which Popper has criticized as ‘historicism’, the belief that there is a law of progress in history which it is not only futile but actually wicked to resist. It is wicked, because whatever sufferings may be caused by revolutions, wars and massacres, they are merely the inevitable accompaniments, the birth pangs of a better and brighter age. It is a philosophy

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which would hardly have been accepted by so many if it had not carried the consolations of religion into the arena of politics, promising victory to its adherents and damnation to its opponents. (IE, 241) I have already discussed the importance Gombrich places on the action of the art theorists and historians who set this process in motion. Naturally the situation has a grave effect on criticism. The problem of judging the value of avant-garde works is that their only credentials are their novelty or originality. The resulting situation is genuinely absurd; on the one hand the critics, given a hiding by the success of impressionism ‘have lost the courage to criticize and have become chroniclers of events instead’ (SA, 485). Yet if they want to fulfil their mission, they lack objective criteria, or sufficient consensus to rule on the quality of a work (cf. IE, 240–2). And if they dare to censure any work, as far as the artist is concerned that can only mean that he belongs to such an advanced vanguard that not even the most experienced critics can appreciate it: ‘rejection by the present is almost the guarantee of future fame, because, so the legend goes, all great artists, indeed all true geniuses, are derided by their contemporaries’ (IE, 241). In the long run, then, the person most affected is the artist himself who sees himself released from any task and delivered to his own devices. It is a commonplace of psychology that nothing is harder to bear than complete freedom from any restraint. Add to this burden of freedom the horror of being watched, discussed and registered, and you will see that it needs a tough mind indeed to survive the freedom of art today [. . .] No wonder that he seeks to disclaim responsibility, that he looks for aesthetic creed which place the responsibility for his

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work somewhere else, in his personal automatisms [. . .] in the spirit of the age or the class struggle. (MH, 144) There is no shortage of artists working assiduously to conquer the summit, but the paths have been washed away and there is not summit other than popularity. However, popularity cannot be taken for granted to mean quality (cf. 20, 2). The art panorama is abstruse, and many spectators find it difficult to orient themselves. However there exists – or has existed – a conviction that anyone who does not evolve does not matter (cf. SA, 486). The audience, says Gombrich, is intimidated and this is the most serious thing. Intimidated precisely because their selfrespect is threatened. If they fail to acknowledge the art of the future they show themselves to be mentally backward. I am not the first to recall in this situation Andersen’s famous parable of the Emperor’s new clothes which are sold to His Majesty by cunning merchants, who claim that the new material has the added advantage of being visible only to those who are fit for their office. In the end it takes the innocent child to call out ‘but he has nothing on’. We cannot be helped by such innocence, for how could a mere child discern the art of the future? (IE, 242) The idea of progress has caused this pandemonium in the domain of art: the silenced criticism, the bewildered artist and the intimidated public. It is true by taking all the quotations in this section out of their context, their many nuances are lost. Gombrich does not believe that it is all brainwashing (cf. IE, 243). There are still friendly and even valuable faces among this movement.

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Everybody who watches the contemporary scene with sympathy and understanding must acknowledge that even the eagerness of the public for novelty and its responsiveness to the whims of fashion add zest to our lives. It has stimulated inventiveness and an adventurous gaiety in art and design [. . .] I believe, that many young people look at what they feel to be the art of their own time without worrying overmuch about the mystical obscurities contained in the preface to the exhibition catalogue. This is as it should be. Provided the enjoyment is genuine we can be glad if some ballast is being discarded. (SA, 489) Nonetheless, the losses have been very serious. What Gombrich finds interesting is the way these ideas have worked on the panorama of art. This was only possible in a society in which arts were not tied down in practical functions. The gradual change of function experienced in the Western arts, and in particular the visual arts, contain an assumption of freedom, freedom to choose, in other words, an art in a free society (cf. II, 92). The situation driven by one side or another is such that it supervenes inflation and enters in a process of self-supply. As Gombrich reminds us, this is a long-standing process. It was a fateful moment in the Story of Art when people’s attention became so riveted on the way in which artist had developed painting or sculpting into a fine art that they forgot to give artists more definite tasks. (SA, 472) The remark might seem harsh if he had not added that ‘we know that the first step in this direction was taken in Hellenistic times [. . .]’ (ibid.).

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In other words, nearly all the history of Western art has experienced that ‘disastrous moment’. Perhaps this is because in the final account, people did not entirely forget the task of art (cf. SA, 481). The sit­u­ation may have reached a very difficult point, but this need not necessarily have happened in this way, nor does it have to continue. ‘Only, the time has come to remember that it is we who choose our aims’ (7, 89), warned Gombrich at the end of his book The Ideas of Progress and their Impact on Art. And he added that in any case, we have come to realise at last that we need not be the passive puppets of an irresistible advance and that there is no need to do something simply because we can now develop the tools for doing it. It is very clear that we must be able to say ‘no’ to technology wherever it comes into conflict with our values. (7, 89) 7. Decoration The second scene has a very different setting; it refers to the ideas that take place in a field which is parallel to that of the figurative image: decoration. As I have already said, Gombrich discusses this theme in ‘The Primitive . . .’, in the section ‘The Priority of Pattern’ (82, 311–14). This is a truly interesting thesis. A similar argument, adapted for a different purpose, can be found in The Sense of Order, in the chapter ‘Ornament as Art’ (SO, 33–62). Here too, Wolfgang von Goethe can be used as a starting point. Goethe, brought up in a French Rococo environment, discovered Gothic architecture in the cathedral in Strasbourg. He subsequently fell in love with classical civilisation and the Roman Renaissance; taking a keen interest in the discoveries at Pompeii and Herculaneum. And in the end, he proved himself capable of responding to the Italian and German primitifs. He understood that any gain in one sense involved a loss in another. He argued that ‘Byzantine’ (Romanesque) decoration

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admirably fulfilled its mission; the images were not elaborate but in this way a balance was struck between the demands of composition and symmetry. ‘The argument’, says Gombrich, ‘was independent of ideology, but it could also be used by the religious mediaevalisers’ (82, 311).3 And indeed it was like that. With the coming of medievalist fashions, we find Augustus Pugin defending the plain medieval ornament against illusionist or naturalist ornament. He certainly had several reasons for his defence; what is particularly interesting here is the element of reaction to be seen in his position. Over the decorative arts hung what Gombrich calls ‘the menace of the machine’ (SO, 33). The industrial production of profusely decorated items, launched onto the market at modest prices, devalued decorative repertoires. ‘His is one of the first attempts to characterize what became known in Germany as kitsch, the vulgarity appealing to an uneducated taste. It was to become the great bogy’ (SO, 36). At this point, a problem emerged in decoration that was to appear somewhat later in the figurative arts. Decoration had become too easy, and therefore too cheap, and therefore too vulgar. Hence the unquestionable role of the critics and ornamentation theories. As G ­ ombrich argues, It is true that the nineteenth century witnessed a crisis of good taste, if by taste we mean a sense of standards and a sensitive discrimination responsive to nuance, but it is equally true that it was the Victorians themselves who made us aware of this crisis. In this respect nineteenth-century critics differed conspicuously from those of the twentieth century – they showed a truly critical attitude towards their own age. (SO, 34) And moreover, the debate proved beneficial, at least from a theoretical point of view. ‘The high intellectual level on which these debates were

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conducted makes them of continued relevance to anyone interested in the theory of decorative art’ (82, 311). Uncoupled from the artisan environment, the decorative arts were at the mercy of schools in taste. Theorists went to great lengths to try to come up with valid principles for design. In this context, it is helpful to separate, as Pugin did, the principles applying to the figurative arts from those that affect the decorative arts. ‘It was this need for an alternative theory of design, a theory which strangely enough had never been attempted in the past, which stimulated reflections about the nature of ornament as an abstract play with pure forms’ (SO, 37). For this reason, ornament theory was more easily affected by primitivist theories. The Great Exhibition in London in 1851, among innumerable other decorative and industrial items, displayed works of exotic art, and particularly tribal art from the British colonies. In subsequent exhibitions, Japanese art was also shown (cf. SO, 56). Owen Jones in his famous The Grammar of Ornament of 1856 was quick to recommend these works to artists, from which he said they could learn some admirable lessons. Gottfried Semper says that the problem of Western art lies in its surfeit of means and the sway they reach; only reason can prevail, since we have lost the sentiment that so safely guided the master craftsman (cf. 82, 312). That same rationality forced the removal of overly realistic images from decorative items. The ‘Arts and Crafts’ movement which sought to bridge the gap between the fine arts and the decorative arts, helped spread the belief in the prevalence of the pattern over the demands of realism; this notion that can be applied to ‘monumental sculpture or in the art of the mural, whether in tapestries or in the art of the book [. . .] became an article of faith as the century drew to its close’ (82, 313). One of its exponents, Walter Crane, defended the absolute freedom of decoration, which depends on lines, shapes and colours; the way, he said, is always open to new experiments, adaptations and applications; but for this very reason, one must accept that there are no scientific rules that will ensure success. Gombrich says that the impulse of decoration was transmitted to the entire modernist movement. ‘I am convinced that the modern

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movement owes this openness, [. . .] to no small extent, to the renewed interest in decorative art [. . .]’ (82, 313). And this is the reason. ‘When the competition of the camera had become oppressive, when “photographic” became tantamount to vulgar, a whole alternative tradition was ready to receive the artist who rejected the Western preoccupation with imitative skills’ (82, 313). And so, it was photography that put the painter in the frame of mind to make the leap to non-figurative art or perish. And the painter leapt. Decoration, warned Gombrich, was a fertile field for new searches and when the painter saw himself banished from his multi-secular terrain, he found a fertile field for new experiments. A trace of this transferral of traditions lived on in the previously figurative artist. Admittedly this is a sensitive, not to say a neurotic point in twentieth-century criticism. There is nothing the abstract painter used to dislike more than the term ‘decorative’, an epithet which reminded him of the familiar sneer that what he had produced was at best pleasant curtain material. The abstract art of the twentieth century looks for an ancestry far removed from the humble craft of decorative design [. . .] The successful and those who have arrived tend to deny their poor relations. The relations between decoration and abstraction are too complex to be summed up in any formula, but the reader [. . .] will realize that the theory of twentieth-century abstract painting owes indeed more to the debates on design that arose in the nineteenth century than is usually allowed. (SO, 62)

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The ideas of the theorists of ornamentation on pure forms, the relationship between music and design, expressivity of form and colour, of the line, spontaneous art, and of course the rejection of naturalistic representation, were passed on to the former figurative painter. The painter took and continues to take inspiration from decorative principles and repertoires; and the same is true the other way around. Let me draw on a quote from The Story of Art which is partially related to this issue: ‘We may sometimes be tempted to dismiss the latest success in abstract painting as “pleasant curtain material”, but we should not forget how exhilarating the rich and varied curtain materials have become through the stimulus of these abstract experiments’4 (SA, 489). 8. Photography This intermission is devoted firstly to Gombrich’s ideas on the encroachment of photography with regard to the figurative image. The invention of photography caused an upheaval in a form of art with a very long and rich tradition. Granted, it was a slow upheaval, but ultimately, nothing was ever to be the same again. The impact was perhaps greater, because, when it came, many painters were trying to achieve rational or scientific criteria that would allow them a realist representation free of conventionalisms. And science demonstrated that it could get by on its own. Gombrich addresses this problem in the final pages of ‘Experiment and Experience in the Arts’. One symptomatic episode was the change in Ruskin’s attitude. In 1846, Ruskin had defended Turner’s absolute verism in his famous and passionate Modern Painters. And Gombrich tells us that in 1871 when he once more addressed the problem of pictorial realism ‘he was clearly on the defensive’. The artist, said Ruskin cautiously, was looking for, ‘not the phenomena themselves [. . .] but their appearance, their effects on him’ (IE, 234). The camera was one of the items that spurred a search for a new freedom. Gombrich reminds us that ‘the development of the portable camera, and of the snapshot, began during the same years which also saw the rise of Impressionist painting. The camera helped to discover the charm of the fortuitous view and of the unexpected angle’ (SA, 416).

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It prepared the public for old themes addressed in a different and less conventional way . . . and for entirely new themes. The photographic camera helped to uncover some mistakes in ­certain commonly accepted conventions of representation. In the introduction to his Story of Art, Gombrich alludes to the famous example of Géricault’s Horse-racing at Epsom, four slender steeds galloped wildly along, spurred on by their riders, their four outstretched legs simultaneously in the air. The picture perfectly conveys the sensation of lightness, speed and effort one would expect from such a race. Beside it, Gombrich places a photograph of a similar scene; although less expressive, it nonetheless demonstrates something that had never previously been noticed, a horse never has all four legs outstretched in the air at the same time (cf. SA, 10–11). Photography helped perpetuate fleeting details or clarify certain effects of light and shade. Photo­ graphy was also used by anecdotal painters and even by ‘l’art officiel’ (cf. RH, 157; MH, 37). But above all, photography engendered a crisis in the function of painting, obliging Ruskin, like many others, to consider a new purpose. ‘There has been much argument’, says Gombrich, about the effect of the photography explosion on the development of painting in this century. I personally have little doubt that it was crucial. For in a sense painting had lost what biologists call its ecological niche. Having been threatened before by the decline of religious art, it now had to look for an alternative function where science could not compete. (IE, 238)5 Photography pushed painting towards new fields of investigation of the image, and away from the mere semblance of reality. But photography transformed painting and art in another unusual way. What had previously been accessible only to a fortunate few – those who either owned

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the original picture were permitted to see it or could go to the place where it was kept – now became common property, with works of art dispersed across every corner of the earth. This was the threshold of the ‘Musée Imaginaire’: by this time means of reproduction, including photography, had become more widely available, while newly founded art journals and in particular guide-books ministered to the needs of art-lovers and tourists. Art was on the way to becoming a substitute for religion; it offered uplift much as nature did, and this was often reflected in the tone in which works of art were described. (RH, 162) Ancient and modern pictures have achieved an unprecedented universality. Photography has helped turn art works into shared metaphors, forming an important part of our mental landscape (cf. ibid).6 Many of the artistic images we hold in our memory are photographic reproductions. In this way, it has been possible to create a museum without walls, as Malraux postulated. For Gombrich, a museum of this nature inevitably has some serious drawbacks. Reproduction can harm important nuances, impeding an appreciation of the true quality of the works. Worse still, photography has or can have a clearly distorting effect on some works, particularly on sculpture, as Malraux also knew (cf. MH, 81). Artists prepare their work for a more general and more diverse public, creating for exhibitions and publications; although there are always those who try to imbue their work with characteristics that are difficult to reproduce (cf. SA, 480). Finally, the fact of accustoming the public to present ‘by grouping totem poles, Greek statues, cathedral windows, Rembrandts and Jackson Pollocks together we too easily give the impression that all this is Art with a capital A [. . .]’ (SA, 490). And we must understand above all that they are works that correspond to different situations, institutions and beliefs.

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9. Regression Our third act is devoted to the late nineteenth and the twentieth ­centuries. I shall draw on ‘The Primitive and its Value in Art’ (82), with some allusions to other works. The common denominator in some of the prevailing schools of thought from this period was a rejection of any type of conventionalism in art, allowing an approximation to truly primitive models. The first great tradition to be held up as an alternative was closely subjected to convention: the Japanese tradition. Gombrich remarked that ‘maybe the style of these masterpieces of decorative tact was particularly accessible to Western artists because Japan had absorbed and assimilated some elements of the Western methods without thereby surrendering its individuality’ (82, 313). Japanese art presented an absence of perspective and above all an absence of light and shade, qualities which had imprisoned Western painting; Japanese art taught the use of ‘non’ perspective, and ‘non’ volume (i.e. shadowless): the beauty of plain colours. It was therefore a primitivist solution, serving as ‘a bridge over which artists and art lovers could pass more effortlessly towards an appreciation of more alien styles’ (82, 313). To some extent it also played the same role in the decorative arts. Gombrich ends the section on ‘the Japanese’ in his The Sense of Order with the words ‘the revolution was on the march’ (SO, 58). And now comes an important moment, what Gombrich called in The Story of Art ‘the conflict between pattern and solidity’ (SA, 453): the conflict between the demands of composition, of form, line and colour, and the demands for correct depiction of human anatomy. This balance between opposing demands had been the highest aspiration of Raphael and his greatest achievement. The depiction of the human body and particularly of the face, was a Western conquest, as was perspective; with painting reduced to flat marks, under Japanese influence, the ties of naturalist conventions still remained. And it was Gauguin who struck the impossible equilibrium: ‘He had dared to cut the Gordian knot and to resolve the irreconcilable conflict between design and representation [. . .]’ (82, 313). There were no ties.

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Gauguin died in 1903; in 1904, Picasso moved to Paris; in 1905, les fauves went on exhibition; in 1906 ‘the great smashing begins’ (MH, 43) remarks Gombrich, and as he adds in ‘The Primitive . . .’: ‘after 1906, when the grand assault on the academic fortress began in earnest, the garrison had long lost its will to resist’ (82, 314). Criticism had long since given in and the academic fortress had been surrendered almost without a fight. Two models were offered as an alternative: tribal art and children’s art, which exemplify the extremes of that primitivism which Lovejoy and Boas called chronological primitivism and cultural primitivism – that which has no conventions either because it has not grown or because it has been sidelined (cf. 82, 347), the infantile and the savage. But, as Gombrich remarks, the infantile and the tribal cannot be identified. After all, nations referred to as ‘primitive’ have a very ancient history and have developed often complex and sometimes truly refined traditions. There are fundamental differences between a native adult from a savage tribe and a child. Nonetheless, the interest in the infantile and the tribal among artists is linked to an attitude that has been studied by psychoanalysis: regression. The artist allows himself to let go of the reins of reality and surrender to the currents running through his unconscious in chaotic vortices. Psychoanalytical regression entails a certain analogy between the behaviour of the child and the behaviour of the adult in the face of certain elementary forms, rhythms, etc., which is believed to be justified through evolutionist approximation. The issue is that in a tribal society there may be activities that invite or require regression more easily than in our civilised society. But above all, in contrast to our Western art, which has developed representative skills to a great degree, the representative arts of tribal societies (for example, the black masks) suggest this state of regression, even if they have nothing regressive either in their execution or in their use. The primary and vital, which can be achieved in a regressive state, seeks to oppose routine, conventional and mannered works of an ‘official art’ or of ‘bourgeois conformism’. In contrast to chocolate-box art, it offers the youthful freshness of works such as those by French painter

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Jean Dubuffet, who captained l’art brut, arguing that civilisation entails a degeneration of the values of sauvagisme. Gombrich has used Dubuffet as an example on several occasions, and is happy to quote him as a contrast. Dubuffet, who believed himself to be primitive, was actually hyper-sophisticated;7 Dubuffet is the culmination of a process of sophistication that has driven art for the last 2,000 years. This results in the curious paradox that liking chocolate-box art ‘would be a social embarrassment, the admission of an undeveloped, that is, a primitive taste. A taste for the primitive scrawl of a Dubuffet, on the other hand, is safe from this suspicion’ (82, 349). In reality, if this were the only alternative, the choice would not be an easy one, since it makes no reference to q ­ uality. For this reason, Gombrich warns that this, to be frank, is the danger I see in the cult of the primitive. It is the cult of an extraneous negative virtue, the preference for the absence of certain qualities which we have been taught to reject. But negation can never be enough. Nor can regression be. (Ibid.) Disdaining any convention, any skill, any value, suspending rationality and allowing oneself to be carried along by the vagaries of unconscious forces does not hold out the slightest guarantee of success. An uncontrolled attitude of this kind can only lead to a ritual of negations, presenting anti-art against art and anti-anti-art against anti-art, a process of growing sophistication which has little to do with values (cf. IE, 77). However, adds Gombrich, it is possible to ‘use or abuse’ regression. The disregard of the rules of grammar that occurred in poetry or of that of plot in the novel or drama, the casting aside of dexterity and even of the brush itself, must be compensated for by a heightened

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awareness of the means at the artist’s disposal. If I were asked to name one artist who exemplifies in his work just the right balance between regression and control, the exact dosage of the primitive handled with mastery, it would be Paul Klee. (82, 349) Paul Klee is a magnificent example. The other great model is Picasso and his Guernica. I do not think I am over-interpreting if I say that Picasso tried to revert to elementals precisely because he found his skill obtrusive. He wanted to get away from what threatened to become a facile stereotype: he wanted to learn to draw like children. His fury and grief at the violation of his country may have demanded from him something more genuine, more intense than a repetition of a symbol, however moving. [. . .] Picasso’s Guernica, in its final form, remains one of the most impressive instances of the power of regression, casting aside the niceties of style in the heat of emotion. But just as the actor [. . .] without losing control of his faculties, so Picasso gave vent to his fury without becoming inarticulate. (82, 249) 10. Art and Quality Although on occasions Gombrich has been accused of not understanding today’s art, the paragraphs above amply show his true attitude, which is not a rejection, but a quest for values. His Story of Art is

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testimony to this. Through this book, translated into eighteen languages in innumerable editions, a vast number of people have been introduced to contemporary art. The testimony is so eloquent that I can permit myself to be brief. The final chapters, ‘In Search of New Standards’, ‘Experimental Art’ follow the same line as all the others. Gombrich goes to great lengths to present the situation of each artist, the purposes he or she followed and the results that were obtained, praising their achievements. Certainly, in the final chapter, ‘A Story without End’, it becomes more difficult to tell the artists’ purposes and even more so to evaluate the result. Gombrich noted that some works can play the role of those eighteenth-century landscape paintings that enabled people to discover the ‘picturesque’ in the real landscape; something similar happens in the case of contemporary art and the surprising variety of our world (cf. SA, 481). Yet time and interest are required for the problems raised by artists to be gradually gauged (cf. SA, 479–80). Nonetheless, as Gombrich warns elsewhere, apologists for certain kinds of art often plead that if we only understood it, we would also like it. By and large, I think, the sequence is inverted. Without first liking a game, a style, a genre, or a medium we are hardly able to absorb its conventions [. . .] and understand. (II, 161) Here I would like to add another quote from him, taken from The Sense of Order, in which he advises against excessive haste. ‘It takes time for a system of conventions to crystallize till every subtle variation counts. Maybe we would be more likely to achieve a new language of form if we were less obsessed with novelty and with change’ (SO, 305). We should initially be attracted by an artistic form, by a way of doing things. When that occurs, if we are patient enough, we will capture each subtle variation. But no calibration can be made in constant movement; the very appeal will be a fleeting sensation, and it will be

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impossible to forge the system that enables the artist to create significant works. But, what will arouse and hold our interest? Gombrich ends one of his lectures with some memorable lines: Nowhere is this need for taking thought, for asking what we really want of art more pressing than in art education today. If we want to recapture the brave faith in the advancement of science and of art [. . .] we must not surrender our values to a mindless cult of change. (7, 89) Originality is not enough, mastery of the media, technical virtuosity, shrillness are not enough; art needs to be supported on human values. This has been true for centuries. Preserving that foundation is not solely the task of artists; it is also up to the public. As Gombrich puts it in the closing paragraphs of The Story of Art, written in 1948: It is just as thoughtless to be ‘for modern art’ as it is to be ‘against it’. The situation in which it grew is just as much our own doing as that of the artists. There are certainly painters and sculptors alive today who would have done honour to any age. If we do not ask them to do anything in particular, what right have we to blame them if their work appears to be obscure and aimless? (SA, 474) And precisely because it is a matter of ends and of values, Gombrich is hugely interested in analysing the ideas that have presided over the development of art in the last two hundred years. It is the critics, the historians, the public and the artists who have woven the network of values, sometimes contradictory, sometimes luminous, sometimes

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harmful, that have oriented artistic creation. Critically examining some of those dominant ideas is seen, or at least it was seen until recently, as an attack, an act of disrespect to everything positive in the contemporary world, another example of the crudest philistinism, a manoeuvre of the never fully-vanquished forces of reaction. Such a simple equation has silenced all criticism. But Gombrich is not prepared to remain silent. In 1956, he wrote on abstract art, remarking that Would they not accuse me of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, the forces of sloth and inertia which oppose the march of progress? Should I not rather evade such an explosive issue and write about the problems of the past which rarely hurt anybody’s feelings? [. . .] The fear of being found in the wrong camp may be quite respectable in certain situations; in matters of art, as I hope to show, it may prove disastrous. It threatens to degrade art into a mere badge of allegiance. With a badge it matters little whether it is good or bad as long as it is right. In art it is only the quality of the individual work that ought to matter. (MH, 143)

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Part III Metaphor and Complex Order Ideas for a Theory of Art

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10. Art and Metaphor This chapter on metaphor marks the beginning of the third – and by far the most interesting – section of this book. It is also the most extensive. The theory of art underpinning Gombrich’s writings is based on an important notion: art is a source of metaphor and art works are metaphors. In order to explain what metaphor means in Gombrich, I must start with this introductory chapter and go into the matter in some depth. I shall start with a theory of knowledge, somewhat abbreviated, though long enough to get a general sense; the description is concise since I am working on uncertain ground; the purpose is to understand the function of metaphor, but Gombrich never speaks extensively – although he does speak often – on this theme. This chapter is divided into three parts. In the first, I briefly sketch out a theory of knowledge as classification. The second part sketches the language and role of metaphor. And the third part is devoted to art as a metaphor per se.

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1. Popperian Asymmetry 1 The world is not a chaos, but a cosmos. Popper explicitly recognised this. Each event, each phenomenon, is not isolated, it has antecedents and consequences for an open set of objects and people. There are general laws; objects in certain conditions tend to manifest themselves in the same way. They tend, rather than simply behaving; there are propensities defining a series of bodies.2 Regularities do exist. ‘Regularities’ is an important word; the world has regularity, Popper believes. For this reason, it is a cosmos and not a chaos.3 At the same time, our knowledge needs to recognise regularities. Our knowledge, our progress in knowledge, proceeds through trial and elimination of error; to formulate a theory is to presuppose the existence of a general law that the theory seeks to express, even when we know that it is an impossible task. Testing demolishes the previous theory and replaces it with a new one. It offers a new formulation of a more complete regularity, since it includes the facts that have overturned the previous theory. The task of making our theories – regularities – coincide with the laws of the cosmos – also regularities – is the history of science. And the correspondence between the regularities proposed by science and the regularities presented in the universe is truth. For Popper, the truth is unattainable. It is the unattainable completion of a succession of regularities, embracing one another and embraceable by other subsequent ones. Regularity in knowledge can also be viewed as our need to maintain hypotheses as valid until they are tested and finally falsified. 4 Regularity has, in this last sense, an importance which is vital, in the strict sense of the word: it is indispensable for survival.5 Popper postulates that the critical method, trial and error, is not only applicable and applied to science but to any type of acquisition of know­ledge, ‘from the amoeba to Einstein’, as he used to say. Children’s learning, animal behaviour and scientific experimentation are processes that can be seen through the same prism of ‘trial and error’. This is the ‘negative feedback’ that gives origin to and acts as the driving force behind the process: the negation of a previously sustained

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regularity. In any event, the continuation of the process depends on a recognition of the existence of regularity – particularly regularity in the hypothesis – on the one hand, and an openness to testing on the other. A paramecium swims along in a liquid in a straight line, a hypothesis of viability that it will maintain until it encounters an obstacle. The obstacle requires it to change course, in other words, to eliminate the error in its trajectory. The paramecium must be capable of departing from its course; otherwise it will be caught in any obstacle; it must ‘recognise’ that the path is not straight; it is sufficient for it to have some device that makes it take a different course. This means posing a new hypothesis or a new presumption of regularity. Provided no obstacle arises, nothing requires it to alter course. A child learns to operate an object using the same critical method: he tries, he fails, he tries again in another way. If the action achieves his objective, it is not reasonable to change the way of going about it; but if it proves ineffectual, the method must be corrected. In this way, the child learns. Thus too, however elaborate a scientific theory may be and however long it has served as a satisfactory explanation for many phenomena, it can be demolished by the emergence of contradictory data. The pos­ tulation of regularity and the demand for criticism are two of the factors channelling the process in search of real unattainable regularity. As both Popper and Gombrich have recognised, they have a fundamental biological value, a value of survival that lies behind even the most complex scientific discoveries. I do not think it would be imprudent here to bring in the idea of continuity or unbroken gradation. It has a Popperian basis and Gombrich draws on it extensively: there is no distinction between one thing and another, it is only a question of degree. The most important formula Gombrich uses from the field of perception psychology is that there is no difference between perception and sensation (cf. AI, 298). This leads us into the ambiguous world that lies behind Gombrich’s theories of art. If there is no difference between perception and sensation, nor is there any difference between perception and knowledge (cf. 51, 218).

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Perception, sensation and knowledge are trial and error. And, in full concordance with Popper, trial and error involves the formulation of an initial hypothesis that is exposed to testing. Seeing or understanding are processes that require an initial hypothesis. In the case of seeing, a hypothesis means postulating in advance that the object we are looking at is of a certain kind, before assuring ourselves that this is indeed the case. This may seem absurd, but it is not. Suffice to say that regularity and criticism have a ‘supreme’ biological value, to use Popper’s own expression. Gombrich argues that we are made to ‘see’ – in other words to perceive or know – differences and to take regularities or continuities for granted. (The term ‘We are made’ should be understood in a biological and psychological sense.) To explain this claim, Gombrich uses what he calls ‘Popperian asymmetry’, an example of the illustrative expressions Gombrich so frequently devises. The expression ‘Popperian asymmetry’ is used almost exclusively, although quite profusely, in The Sense of Order, and, although it is not mentioned, in his most recent writings. ‘Popperian asymmetry’ illustrates the strange relationship that is developed between a complex theory that enables us to make sense of innumerable phenomena and a single contradictory fact that invalidates it. In the presumption of regularities, an anomaly demands a reappraisal in order to seek a regularity that will allow for it. Gombrich lays great stress on this idea. Popper has convinced me that a theory can never be established with certainly by any number of confirming instances, but that it can be knocked out by a single observation which disproves it. I venture to think that what might be called the ‘Popperian asymmetry’ between confirmation and refutation has not yet been fully assimilated by the psychology and philosophy of perception. (SO, 3)

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What can this idea contribute to psychology and the philosophy of perception? As we have already said, for Gombrich, perception – like knowledge – is a continuous formulation of hypotheses in which regularities play an essential role. The hypothesis is not changed until it has to be. Presuming regularities means searching for breaking points. The Popperian asymmetry highlights that it is more ‘economic’ to search for the points in which the supposed general law is contravened than to concentrate on those points in which it is fulfilled, which are taken for granted. Certainly, this hypothesis – almost an intuition – is too elementary to be applied to any type of knowledge. Neither is it necessary to do so. It is enough to recognise that in our perception of the immediate world around us, certain processes favour an economy of attention. The devices that enable such functional economies occasionally fail, as the psychology of perception shows. In such circumstances, an illusion occurs. However, we would be mistaken to conclude that our senses deceive us; they only proceed abnormally in extraordinary circumstances, and in insignificant matters. Even if some perceptions are based on hypotheses, our senses soon accumulate enough experience to be astonishingly accurate. The hypothetical aspect of perception, as commonly highlighted by psychologists – e.g. J. J. Gibson – does not entail a reduction but a guarantee of perceptual effectiveness which is indispensable for our survival. 2. Sense of Order and Sense of Meaning6 We are made to detect differences; this entails a great economy of effort and means. We are immediately capable of perceiving the strange, the unfamiliar, in our environment at any level. We notice the random replacement of some item in our workplace, even if we are incapable of describing how things are normally arranged. Any unusual behaviour, unexpected event, unprecedented idea, immediately springs to our attention, whereas the routine or habitual might not even register. Ultimately, Popperian asymmetry condenses regularity and criticism. Against a continuous background, anomalies stand out; this is why biological and psychological dispositions require negative feedback. We

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only need to take heed of that which is not presumed. If we accept this starting point, then it is consistent to state, as Gombrich does, that our knowledge goes from the general to the particular, rather than from the particular to the general. Initial hypotheses are also presumptions of regularity. In them we detect the first differences. Hence all progress in knowledge is actually a progressive stockpiling of distinctions separating certain regularities from others. However, these in turn are divided by points of discon­tin­ uity. Our knowledge descends from the general to the particular through distinctions. The first distinctions are made in the pre-knowledge strata, verifications that directly affect our survival, determining whether something is beneficial or harmful. However, there is no limit to the number of nuances that can be introduced. Using a common term, Gombrich calls this process ‘categorizing’. Certain orders of categories are created where our knowledge is stored. To extend our knowledge means creating new categories until we have a wide enough network to attain a given degree of nuance. Gombrich insists that the first steps are unconscious biological responses. Those responses provide the first categories, necessary to begin the process of enrichment. As already discussed, the intellect always leads the initiative in the sense of venturing a hypothesis when faced with the unknown and trying to test it out. Hence the absolute need to have hypotheses first. Gombrich defends, not always with the same degree of conviction, the existence of innate ideas and frequently alludes to Kant.7 In The Sense of Order, Gombrich postulates precisely the existence of a ‘sense of order’ and a ‘sense of meaning’. The ‘sense of order’ tries to establish where things are, whereas the ‘sense of meaning’ asks what they are. Gombrich believes that the ‘what’ and the ‘where’ are two fundamental questions that an organism must ask, and must answer, to survive: an organism to survive must be equipped to solve two basic problems. It must be able to answer the questions ‘what?’ and

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‘where?’. In other words it must find out what the objects in its environment mean to it, whether any are to be classified as potential sources of nourishment or of danger, and in either case it must take the appropriate action of location, pursuit or flight. These actions pre-suppose what in higher animals and in man has come to be known as a ‘cognitive map’, a system of co-ordinates on which meaningful objects can be plotted. (SO, 1)8 To that first structure of codification, one must add the basic responses I mentioned before. There are certain geometric arrangements which we perceive immediately – for example, the straight line or the cross. There are also some meanings to which we are alert, for example, facial features: a couple of dots is enough for us to see a face. And even in any figuration that might minimally resemble a face, we perceive not only the existence of the face but even its expression, in other words, its mood – threatening or smiling. Gombrich does not always explicitly state that these responses are all innate; some are, while others affect very basic arrangements. Yet it seems clear that both sets are related to the possibilities of survival. 3. Network of Categories Gombrich believes that knowledge requires a progressive categorisation starting from those initial basic categories. An adult human has a very complex network. The prevailing idea in Art and Illusion is somewhat more dispersed in his later writings although it can nonetheless be intuited in the background. It is taken from an article by American psychologist Jerome S. Bruner, entitled ‘On Perceptual Readiness’.9 Bruner argues that categories or classes are like a mesh, a network, with which we seek to trap the multiform variety of the world in which we live. The reticles of the

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network get smaller as we acquire a higher degree of distinction and nuance. When we want to include a new object, we spread the net wide, we present the rich variety of categories into which we think the new item might fit. It is disconcerting that a 30-page article should have had such an impact on Gombrich. It undoubtedly fits within the idea of Popperian asymmetry and allows us to describe knowledge as articulation, a notion that holds pride of place in Gombrich. The progress of learning, of adjustment through trial and error, can be compared to the game of ‘Twenty Questions’, where we identify an object through inclusion or exclusion along any network of classes.10 The traditional initial schema of ‘animal, vegetable, or mineral’ is certainly neither scientific nor very suitable, but it usually serves us well enough to narrow down our concepts by submitting them to the corrective test of ‘yes’ or ‘no’. (AI, 88) When a man encounters a new object, he cannot help trying to place it in some ‘class’ already known to him, whose limits are preferably established by the disjunctions separating one class from another. This object is either animal, vegetable or mineral. Man, Gombrich says, is a clas­ sifying animal; he must be if he wants to surround himself with an understood and familiar world (cf. NF, 81f.). Categorisation is closely related to language. Language, after all, is a tool, an ‘organon’ developed by mankind under the evolutionary pressures which favoured collaboration and communication between members of a clan or tribe. It thus became adapted to the intrasubjective worlds of

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facts and of arguments. It could never have performed these functions if it had not categorized the world of experience and formalized the structure of statements. (SI, 190) Language formalises and categorises statements and deeds to exchange, communicate. It was Aristotle, Gombrich recognises, who first explained how this task was performed (ibid.).11 But to him too we owe the idea that language offers a complete inventory of reality and that what cannot be named is unimportant; that language is ultimately limited to labelling certain supposed ‘natural classes’ (cf. SI, 166; T, 22). This perverts the power of language. Human language does not go in after the mind has completed its task of dividing the world’s objects and deeds into categories. Language helps us to create and sustain those categories. ‘It is language which imposes categories on our flux of experience [. . .]’ (T, 22), says Gombrich, and moreover ‘language has created the notions which lose their existence when deprived of their names’ (T, 189). The statement, as we shall see, is somewhat excessive, but Gombrich wants to stress this aspect. Gombrich accepts that not all notions are arbitrarily imposed by language. There is a clear reason for Gombrich’s interest in stressing the categorising or formalising aspect of language: to highlight the fecundity of human conventions, conventions that are born out of the intersubjective nature of social institutions. Language is and is not something personal. It contains a series of shared conventions. Such conventions do not pose a restriction to the individual mind; on the contrary, they are an indispensable aid. Language is made up of symbols, and symbols can be retained in the memory, remembered and used. They are always available; they may therefore contain codified experiences, experiences that are trans­ mittable (cf. SO, 115). Language creates many categories. When we learn a language, we learn the categories it contains. Language directs and drives our categorisation of the world. Our tradition offers a network of categories

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woven over centuries by the people who came before us. When we learn a language, we provide ourselves with a shared vision of the world that shapes our being and knowing. ‘This language can become, as another splendid idiom has it, “second nature”. When William of Wykeham said “Manners maketh man” he certainly included language – public-school language’ (T, 189). 4. Different Languages, Different Networks A ‘second nature’ moulds our way of being, not entirely successfully (cf. IE, 286–7); but language is one of those conventions that not even the most revolutionary subject can entirely escape. The language he has learnt will necessarily leave its imprint on him. ‘We all live in the same world, but the accents we set, particularly the social values we experience, surely reflect language as much as language reflects them’ (T, 189). One language contains distinctions that another does not. Gombrich gives frequent illustrations of this phenomenon. His own personal experience is obvious from the examples he uses. As a German-speaking Austrian, he had to learn English at the age of twenty-seven. By his own account, when lecturing on the same theme – and even the same work of art – he would highlight different qualities depending on whether he was speaking in English or German. I found to my surprise that in describing the same painting in German and in English I had to take the good which were on offer and thus had to single out different aspects of the same painting. Both descriptions, I hope, were correct, but they differed from each other in the elements they singled out from the infinite multitude of impressions. The grid or network of language we impose on the landscape of our experience will inevitably result in different maps. (T, 188)

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From the perspective we are dealing with here, this evidence has important connotations. Language allows us to structure our experience of the world. Language as a transmittable social institution, shapes among its speakers a different ‘mindset’ to that resulting from other languages. Gombrich confronts an extreme interpretation of language’s power of categorisation: ‘We need not go quite as far in this approach to the creativity of language as the American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf,12 who insisted that different languages fashion radically different mental universes which are mutually exclusive’ (T, 189). Gombrich was undoubtedly attracted by this interpretation. In his book Art and Illusion he sets out the idea of categorisation in perception and uses it as a model to explain the function, origin and evolution of previous schema in figurative representation: ‘The images of art, we suspect, do the same’ (AI, 90). But in later writings, Gombrich’s position changes. He is clearly aware that this is an exaggeration. Nonetheless, Gombrich continues to believe in the usefulness of this approach, albeit without going to the same extremes. His change in attitude appears to be the result of Popper’s influence. In a note to a text on the scope of language and metaphor, Gombrich says he is once more indebted to Sir Karl Popper, who ‘has made me see both the interest and the limitations of Whorf ’s hypothesis: Language need be no barrier to critical thought’ (SI, 233 n. 102). Popper rejects this extreme affirmation because it dissolves all objectivity. As I have already noted, Popper considered discussions on meaning to be pointless, let alone any questioning of communication itself. Knowledge is communicable and formulable and therefore criticable.13 To Popper’s warnings, Gombrich adds that there are good arguments against such an extreme proposal, simply because language is a social institution that has evolved along lines of utility. It is this function of language as a tool which explains that certain serviceable categories occur in all languages. (SI, 166; cf. AI, 89)

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Evidently, we have come up against the problem of the universal. Gombrich evades it because it would commit him to other philosophical notions that he seeks to reject in his theory of illusion. Universals are certainly useful categories too, and Gombrich even recognises that we inescapably tend to explain ‘our perceptions of the physical world in terms of “universals” ’ (IE, 203). On one occasion, moreover, he defines the ‘universal’ simply as the most fixed categories (cf. T, 73), with no connection whatsoever to universality. Language works with universals, but what are universals? There is no answer. Only a ‘clumsy net of concepts’ (cf. AI, 389). 5. The Revelation of the Metaphor Language is conventional. But the network which is spread over reality is certainly stable. To some extent, language has the property to fix categories. We think that the terms used by language, the network it provides, belong to the objective world of things. At the same time, language, because it is an instrument of communication, must be enormously selective. It is thus possible for the members of a society to acquire and exchange it. And so, our language is necessarily limited (cf. SI, 167; SO, 175; NF, 81) and perhaps contains more names of things than of processes and relationships. With codified language, we can describe the ordinary experiences of our external world. It would, in principle, be limiting to analyse our world, since our perception and our know­ ledge, as we have seen, are alert to capturing anything new, exceptional or unprecedented in the world around us. Such a limitation can be easily obviated with a new name. Human language, as well as describing the external world, must cater to another different and complementary function; to transmit the experiences of our inner world. After all, a tree, a house, running or sleeping are objects and actions that no language will have difficulty in naming. The problem arises when the world that is to be described is not the world of the outer experience, but the world of the inner experience. ‘Created as a tool to help us find our way through the world of things, our language is notoriously poor when we try to analyse and

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categorize the inner world’ (AI, 389), because of ‘the inadequacy of language for the communication even of very commonplace subjective experiences such as muscle tone or moods’ (SI, 191). How does one describe a feeling of nostalgia or joy? Can there be enough vocabulary to distinguish the nuances of tenderness? Evidently not. Yet this is the great potential of language; with a limited vocab­ ulary, it is capable of confronting the new and also of confronting the inner world. It is a flexible tool. We have been frequently reminded of late, and rightly so, that the power of language does not reside in its vocabulary, but in its infinite flexibility. To learn a language is to learn to make statements we have never heard before. (T, 189–90) With these words, Gombrich introduces a new notion, metaphor. It is precisely this notion which justifies Gombrich’s vision of language as a model. The external and the inner worlds of man are not composed of a number of entities waiting to be named and described. The multitude of potential experiences is infinite, while language, by its very nature, can never consist of more than a finite number of words. It would soon come to the end of its resources if the mind were not able to create categories, to parcel out this elusive world of ours into convenient packages to which more or less permanent labels can be attached at will. Traditional terminology calls the more permanent ones ‘universals’, the more movable ones ‘metaphors’. (T, 73)

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Metaphor is the most attractive figure of language. It is of prime importance, since without it language would be a very poor instrument. Metaphor gives language flexibility and, as a result, language can free itself from the limits of a narrow vocabulary; there are gaps in the map spread out by language (cf. SI, 190–1). Metaphors ‘testify to the powers of the creative mind to create and dissolve new classifications’ (AI, 313). The old categories can be extended to take in unsuspected references; to assimilate the new by relationship with the old (cf. SO, 175); to reach experiences that would otherwise be incommunicable, especially subjective experiences, experiences of our inner world; and to reveal a new aspect of known things.14 Gombrich’s idea shifts away from the traditional Aristotelian notion: transferring a meaning from one object to another, connecting two objects to each other; availing of the properties of one object to represent another (cf. MH, 12). For Gombrich, metaphor is the extension that language adds to the categories it has helped to create. For this reason, metaphor is more of a ‘indicator of linkage not yet broken’ (cf. MH, 48), something that links the designated object, action or passion with a category from our prior experience which has not yet been removed. Gombrich even wonders ‘whether the element of metaphor, that is of comparison, can ever be fully eliminated from our experience’ (SO, 137). Hence in the course of the history of language, metaphor has played a primordial role, leaving an indelible imprint. Our language is saturated with metaphors. The real problem, as Professor George Boas once put it to me, is not so much ‘what is a metaphor?’ as ‘what is a literal statement?’ Probe almost any word or turn of phrase and you will at least find what is called a ‘dead’ metaphor, one, that is, which has been incorporated into the language. (SI, 166)

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The words in our language carry with them a long history in which they have been charged with evocations, of which some are still active, others are dormant and others are dead. Learning a language means discovering unusual aspects of our ordinary world. But not only do we receive a language. We speak, and when we do so, we manifest the world of our experience. Yet ‘language and metaphor [. . .] help us to articulate and interpret our own world of experience to ourselves [. . .]’ (II, 13). For this reason, language obliges us to create, encourages us to find suitable metaphors for the experience that we want to communicate. ‘Language makes us creative without our being at all conscious of the miracle’ (T, 190). Describing new experiences in old terms; associating in unexpected ways a novel event with an old word or expression; giving an account of something indefinable. A pertinent metaphor is illuminating; a brief expression, a mot juste, are discoveries that allow us better to understand our inner world; and they allow us to codify and transmit discovery. Finding a suitable means of expressing experiences, a metaphor, helps us to find an outlet for them. A discovery can therefore seem like a revelation. It is precisely because our world is comparatively stabilized by language that a fresh metaphor can be felt to be so illuminating. We almost have the feeling as if it gave us a fresh insight into the structure of the world by piercing the veil of ordinary speech. (SI, 167) Language makes it possible to exteriorise our subjective world and interpret it. That process makes us creative. However, Gombrich associates this idea with another complementary one; we create, but language helps create our mind. Our empty mind needs to be structured and hierarchical, in a word, it needs to be articulated. When we link our inner world to the world of ex­ternal experience, or when we categorise and order the world of the external experience in hierarchical fashion, we achieve a richer articulation.

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Without forming such compounds linking our sensory experience with our emotional life we could not communicate our feelings to others – and to ourselves. In short, it is my belief that it is only through this process of creative articulation that the mind becomes wholly mind. (T, 74) Anyone who learns a language, learns categories; and he who is capable of exteriorising, of giving vent, of turning into a symbol – of pouring out in words – his inner experience, gains awareness of that experience, and at the same time in other process, he articulates it. Metaphor not only opens new worlds, among them the world of our own minds, but through that creative process, by providing previously unsuspected analogies, we gain awareness of the self. ‘Without arresting the flux of life and transferring it into the realm of symbols the mind could never achieve self-awareness’ (T, 74). 6. Osgood’s Discovery And so, metaphor is indispensable for the human mind. When a metaphor turns out to be useful, it is not difficult for it to be spread to other communities through translation or as a simple loan. Once we have learned to apply it, it seems surprising that we could ever have done without it. Some metaphors merit special attention. Gombrich says that ‘there are metaphors which are so widespread that one may call them universal or natural metaphors. The contrast between light and darkness [. . .] is perhaps the first that comes to mind’ (MH, 138). Light and dark are common metaphors to designate all the good, beautiful and positive versus the bad, ugly and negative (cf. AI, 371). Many of these metaphors link an inner feeling of attraction, sweetness, disgust or repugnance, etc., with some a natural phenomenon, such as light or heat. This phenomenon allows us to express feelings which would otherwise be difficult to define. Indeed, it is common to

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attribute an expressive character to the world around us which we use as a metaphor for other uses. Sun and rain are presented as joy and sorrow, satisfaction and melancholy. And thus, we talk about a radiant smile and radiant weather because ‘the sun and smiles can affect us in a similar way’ (T, 74). These metaphors may be called ‘pathetic’. In many places, Gombrich also calls them ‘physiognomic’. The term ‘pathetic’ alludes to the fact that we see a ‘temperament’ in things, which we use as a figure for our own mood; the ‘physiognomic’ term places even more emphasis on the tendency to imagine, albeit very vaguely, a general character behind the specific phenomenon, of which the phenomenon itself is an expressive feature. Behind the sun is a friendly world, whereas the rain manifests a hostile nature; we see them in terms of a ‘warm’ welcome or a ‘chilly’ reception. Basic metaphors also have one notable property: synaesthesia; or, in Gombrich’s words, ‘the splashing over of impressions from one sense modality to another, is a fact to which all languages testify’ (AI, 366). Synaesthesia has been a favourite topic of study for psycho­ analysts. It is of enormous interest, especially in studies on art psychology. For our imagination, there are clearly dark sounds, in the same way as there are colours that seem warm; there are rough voices, calm tones, bright timbres, gentle ranges, shrill compositions, sweet harmonies. This shows that a sweet harmony clearly has, for us, something in common with a sweet delicacy. And it highlights our inability to see how a colour, a sound or a composition of them affects us without resorting to a metaphor. Metaphors help us to represent to ourselves our inner world of experience. Synaesthesia allows us to express internal experiences, connecting them to facts or impressions from the outside world. For us, sunny weather has a value that is analogous to sunny temperament or the expression ‘you are my sunshine’; a brilliant dissertation shares in the effect aroused in us by polished objects. Ordinarily, we need to imagine our response to a work of art with the aid of a synesthetic metaphor relating it to some defined sensation. And criticism, a verbalised opinion on a work of art, continuously uses these metaphors.

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Gombrich’s interest in these metaphors is therefore understandable, even though he is aware of the dangers of paying them too much heed. Many authors have tried to draw too many consequences from something which is, in principle, very elusive. And Gombrich warns that ‘this is dangerous ground, a favorite haunt of cranks and even of madmen, and yet I think it is ground which will have to be traversed’ (AI, 366).15 It is in this context that one should view Gombrich’s close and long-lasting interest in the studies by Charles Osgood. He frequently refers to the writer; most particularly in his book Art and Illusion.16 Osgood offers a certain guarantee of scientific rigour in discussing the scope of synesthetic metaphors, and, more generally, the responses (also metaphorical), that different phenomena provoke in us. Although Gombrich considers Osgood to be important, he nonetheless has some misgivings on the methods he uses. In all of Gombrich’s writings there is practically no quotation of Osgood that is not accompanied by a certain reticence and cautious considerations. Gombrich’s doubts as to the validity of Osgood’s methods appear to have grown to such an extent that even when referring to synesthetic metaphors, he sometimes omits any reference to the writer. Osgood’s book, written in collaboration with George J. Suci and Percy H. Tannenbaum, The Measurement of Meaning,17 is an ambitious work. The authors’ goal is to come up with a method that will allow an objective – i.e. quantitative – measurement of meaning. It is a complex book. After a concise list of the usual theories of meaning and the methods of measuring that exist, the authors set out their concept of meaning and their method. They do not appear to have a clear definition of meaning: meaning is a psychological ‘relational concept’ considered from the point of view of the theory of learning.18 But what they do postulate is a method; they also note that the result of a­ pplying the method is not easy to interpret from the theory of learning.19 The ‘semantic differential’ method is explained in great detail, with a description of its application and assessment. This is followed by a study to adjust the method to the measurement of the attitude. Finally, it is applied to certain aspects involving meanings, above all personality,

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and particularly the impact of psychotherapeutic treatment on certain patient evaluations. They add short studies on possible applications in psycholinguistics, experimental aesthetics, and advertising. It is clear from the outset that their primary purpose is to present a method and this is the focus of their research. As the authors themselves recognise, they should focus more on the ‘evaluation, and refinement of the measuring technique itself ’20 than on its application. Naturally, they make extensive use of factorial analysis and statistical procedures; the style is extremely concise and rigorous with extensive use of technical terminology. In short, it is neither an easy nor an enjoyable read; nonetheless, it is very interesting. The authors wanted to devise a rigorous method whose results would be easy to visualise. They therefore created what they called a ‘semantic space’, which can be represented with three coordinates. This method calibrates reactions to people, institutions, objects, facts and values. The subject has to rank a concept – e.g. ‘boy’ – on a seven-­ point scale between two opposing adjectives (cold/hot, for example). The choice is repeated for a given number of adjectives: honourable/ wicked, red/blue, etc., which may bear no relationship whatsoever. Based on the responses, a standard ‘semantic profile’ of the concept is drawn up. Different semantic profiles obtained from a single subject are also compared. The authors first hypothesised and then proved that any concept – President Eisenhower, ashtray, disease, etc. – would be ranked on the basis of three fundamental references: evaluation, potency and activity. 21 The first, evaluation, came considerably ahead of the second and the second ahead of the third. All other factors came far behind these three. This means that anything is judged first of all as good/ bad, strong/weak and active/passive. Each of these pairs can attract others: honest/dishonest, etc. Surprisingly, this trend increased if the concept examined involved some type of emotivity, such as ‘mother’. The results are questionable. But the method irrefutably shows the strength of synaesthesia: evaluations are effectively transferrable. Red ‘is’ active and blue passive; red is bad and blue good, etc.

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7. The Traps in the System However, there are also certain dangers to the plasticity of language and our system of categorisation. The excessive ease with which we use and perceive pathetic statements in natural phenomena – the fury of storms, the clemency of the weather – and all the synesthetic metaphors incline us to consider the many aspects that are presented to us in physiognomic terms. In other words, we instinctively seek to attribute a general character to which these manifestations correspond. This is a trend which Gombrich relates to a certain sense of economy, first in comprehension and then in expression. It is undoubtedly simpler to understand, explain and learn the presence of a ‘character’ defined after a multiform variety of things than to directly confront that inapprehensible variety. In our overall reactions to the world there is an effective and profound presence of ‘pathetic fallacy’ which culminates in a ‘physiognomic fallacy’. Here, Gombrich posits the theory that we perceive expressive features not only in human physiognomies – and by extension in animal ones – but also in all kinds of arrangement and even ambit. Lorenz has also said that these perceptions are due to the survival instinct, which needs to enquire into the threat or benefit posed by an unfamiliar presence. Such reactions, aroused in pre-knowledge strata, are manifested only in moments of regression (cf. MH, 48). In any case, language often contains – simply out of necessity – the phy­ siognomic fallacy. It is easy – and convenient – to speak of those entities as if they were fully real and also capable of elementary reactions. On several occasions, Popper has spoken about the ‘conspiracy theory’: the tendency to see a conspiracy behind obstacles to an action aimed at social improvement. No such conspiracy exists, except in the mind of the supporter of the improvement, but the simplest way of understanding the difficulties in introducing that change is to fabricate a group that is obstinately opposed to it and which is working effectively behind the scenes.22 Gombrich referred to this tendency in a surprising lecture on Nazi propaganda on German radio during the Second World War. Because

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of his job as a radio listener during this period, Gombrich had witnessed first-hand the creation and evolution of the myth of Nazi Germany: Germany had received a promise of paradise, which aroused the envy and hatred of certain racial and economic groups, and of traditionally hostile countries. They all plotted together to destroy the ideal project. A similar situation was ideal for encouraging Germans to fight to the end, against the obstinate blindness and wickedness of their enemies. Gombrich defined this situation as one of paranoia: Germany adopted an increasingly hostile attitude against its enemies, who were in turn forced to take ever stronger measures. Paranoia, he said, is rather the pathological magnification of a reaction to which we are unfortunately only too prone, because it is rooted in the given contrast between me and ‘them’ [. . .] If we can also laugh at our fantasies, this is due, I believe, to our knowledge that others would laugh at us. But remove this safeguard, forbid any expression of doubt in the paranoiac myth and you will automatically foster the tendency to what psychologists call regression, a backsliding towards the more primitive habits of mind [. . .] The language we speak is imbued with myth, and so we return with ease to the animistic reaction of turning abstractions into living entities and classes or nations into mythical beings. (II, 107) Language accustoms us to speak of universals, countries, periods, societies and places as if they had their own personality. We do so because we have a need to resort to general formulas at least to abbreviate. And yet we must treat any generalisation with great caution. We need to be aware that many generalisations are just convenient metaphors that only share a vague resemblance to the original meaning. ‘Metaphor[s]’,

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says Gombrich, ‘have a way of solidifying and being too easily accepted by the memory as hard reality’ (SO, 288). In short, something deep inside us warns us that we should not stand facing any unknown subject without classifying it, at least for our own security. And so, the metaphor easily becomes myth. As well as this sense of economy in understanding derived from our process of classification, we also have a longing to know the unknown, to make some sense of it, by classifying it more quickly. Perhaps we are like children who are easily fobbed off with an answer. Any comparison that will make the unfamiliar clearer in terms of something more familiar will give us the satisfaction of pretended insight, whatever else it may stir up in us. But is this not precisely, again, what we may call the function of myth? The inquiring primitive who wants to know why the sun sets in the evening may be quite happy to learn that it is going to rest for the night, and even thunder and lightning are less unbearable if we are told of Jove’s thunderbolt or of electric discharges (it hardly matters which). (MH, 131) Language also entails other risks. The named world is an excessively stable one; classifications petrify. We come to believe that classifi­ cations that have been constructed over the course of the years are truly natural ones. They become so familiar that we cannot dispense with them without fearing that aspects of the world around us will lose their clarity. This is where Gombrich attacks the proverbial obsession with resorting to induction. There is an attempt to extract a common ‘essence’ from an indeterminate association of objects whose limits are in many

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cases established arbitrarily. Man is a classifying animal, and too often he ends up believing that his own classifications preceded him. When he loses sight of the object of the classification, the aspect that was meant to be highlighted, he imagines that things are really so, and tries to extract their meaning from them (cf. NF, 82–3). It is a vain but necessarily infinite task, and thus it proves to be a dangerous path. Classifying fungi as ‘harmless’ or ‘poisonous’ is essential for anyone wishing to cook or eat mushrooms. But there is no criterion other than that used to divide them – to detect the presence of a substance that is harmful to humans. A botanist or biologist would not limit himself to that classification, nor would he seek to find in it any other essence than that simple criterion of discernment. It does not invalidate classifi­ cation, it is absolutely vital for the gourmet, but irrelevant to the biologist. 8. The Sources of Metaphor According to Gombrich, language enables knowledge of our inner experiences because with metaphor we associate our feelings with experiences from the outer world. Thus, the mind is presented to itself and acquires self-awareness. We also receive from the people around us the experiences accumulated within our culture that refer to shared values. For Gombrich all knowledge that is traditionally considered enriching is culture; but it is also knowledge, because the function of culture is to ‘articulate’ our mind, structure it, remove it from the crude distinctions of an elementary mind to achieve the degree of nuance. For Gombrich, I think, language is both a model and a factor of culture. The cultured man is the articulate man and the articulate man is like the man who masters his language, capable of picking the precise nuance from among the wide possibilities offered to him by vocabulary and expression. From this perspective, the acquisition of knowledge is not systematic. It cannot be. Every culture and every language contains innumerable references to a common

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stock of knowledge which are not felt to be allusions because they are immediately accessible to anyone. The spread [. . .] will clearly vary from circle to circle and group to group. (MH, 133) The notion of culture as found in Gombrich is defined by the shared possession of certain value judgements which are more implicit than explicit; any culture has its own domain and any culture contains certain values, whose recognition need not be explicit; rather, they are values that are accepted because they are not judged. It is true that not all members of society accept and defend those values with the same conviction, but they are accepted tacitly. Language turns our ethereal experiences into symbols and allows us to allude to them without suffering them. Likewise, it synthesises important knowledge, great men and great works, turning them into symbols and metaphors. The language of a group makes continuous reference to those values, people, objects, facts and thereby introduces those references among its members. Any subject joining society must articulate himself through those references, common places and shared metaphors. However, every member is also creative; he can contribute his discoveries and if he is lucky, language takes in the new condition and makes participants of all the speakers. Culture accumulates levels of nuance produced over a great deal of time; it also amasses metaphors, whose discovery has made previously unstructured fields of sensitivity accessible. Anyone who acquires a culture, and especially a language, attains a high level of articulation, the result of the long process in which newly discovered worlds have been incorporated and the old ones have been affirmed. For this reason, a culture is a treasure, a network of value judgements on the most sophisticated experiences. And whoever acquires culture is in a position to enjoy and enrich themselves. According to Gombrich, culture receives its potential from the sources of metaphor; from those activities that are capable of generating

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appropriate metaphors to structure the less tangible aspects of human life. Note that this approach is consistent with everything we have discussed above before. Culture contains the means that articulate internal and external human experience. And one of the principal means, the first of all, is language. The sources of metaphor favour the incorporation into language of rich metaphors and they come to be shared by members of society. These sources of metaphor, according to Gombrich, particularly include religion and mythology (cf. T, 76), which correspond to the need of our intelligence to provide symbols: metaphors of more intangible things. Other institutions, disciplines and activities widen the general tide, contributing further metaphors. The characteristic thing about culture is to offer those references as ‘road signs erected at crossroads’, which orient us on their value and the esteem that one or other set of attitudes or ideas merits; as ‘shorthand formula’, which facilitate understanding, and therefore also any reference to those ideas or attitudes which are neither perfectly defined, nor absolutely definable and which it would be both extremely arduous and necessarily incomplete to try to explain in detail. Thus, for example, ‘Draconian laws, Stoic endurance, Epicurean living, cynical indifference are not only allusions to be used or dropped at will, they are road signs erected at important crossroads’ (II, 15). They are a reference point to be emulated or condemned; postures, notions of a certain complexity which are kept codified in the background of the culture thanks to language and which can, at any given point in time, be brought to the surface with just a brief mention. A cultivated man is a man who has access to the sources of metaphor. From this perspective Gombrich summarises the purpose of education in the Western tradition. What might be called old-fashioned education emphasized the assimilation of knowledge rather than its acquisition. It is no accident, I believe, that this tradition stems from classical civilization with its

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tremendous emphasis on rhetoric, the mastery of language. Education was articulation; and the most articulate person was the one who had assimilated all the sources of metaphor with which to touch the chords of shared memories. (II, 12) A person educated in the classical tradition is a person capable of evoking the subtlest distinctions and points; he knows them – he has codified them – and he is capable of recreating them in his listeners by pressing the right buttons. The intended recipients of the message belong to the same context as the interpreter and know the scope of the references he uses; the distinction, the nuance that the interlocutor wanted to invoke is recreated in them. 9. The Tradition of General Knowledge Gombrich develops his concept of the ‘tradition of general knowledge’ in a marvellous lecture with which he begins his book Ideals and Idols: Essays on Values in History and in Art (II). I shall quote from and summarise his main ideas. General knowledge is little more than a ‘cloud of rumours’ which is transmitted by ‘hearsay’, which at heart hints at implicit values to which society feels in some way obligated. Not everyone assimilates them with the same intensity and scope, and the same could be said of social groups; yet it remains, at least potentially, something common which can be turned to at a given moment in time. It contains the vague notices on the fields of knowledge which are deemed to be held in common; what Gombrich calls ‘sources of metaphor’. Rumours give an idea of what is valuable or pleasant, what is harmful or indifferent, what needs to be learnt and what should be ignored. They draw an outline, they create a map, says Gombrich. Like any map, it constitutes a highly effective instrument, providing very valuable information. And like any map, reading it requires a certain skill. One must presume that not everything is recorded, only the important

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features; and not everything that is shown is rigorously correct; there will of course be simple mistakes. The limitations and defects do not cancel out its advantages; but deciphering any map requires experience and caution. These are the advantages and defects which Gombrich finds in the general knowledge tradition. (a) Stimulating value. Like any map, the general knowledge tradition exercises a stimulating function. ‘To grow up in a culture is to hear people talk of foods we have never tasted, natural wonders we have never visited, enjoyments that still await us, and encounters we hope to avoid’ (II, 164). And it requires continuous vivacity, an exploration of new paths or a return to the same places to gain a reworked view. Nobody within a living culture lies outside it, ignoring its problems without at the same time losing the incentive to achieve new goals. In it, they may indeed criticise some point or perhaps reject entire areas; but their very rejection indebts them to the general current against which they are actively working. (b) Orientative value. The general knowledge tradition also offers an evaluation, an orientation. The principal summits, the difficult and dangerous entrances, the traps and the abysses are all marked out. The newcomer encounters a hierarchy which he must pay heed to; he is told what he must know first, in depth and with urgency; which things he must study seriously, and in which others a superficial knowledge will suffice; and which he should entirely ignore or studiously avoid. In order to know what is appropriate at any time, he must listen to the cloud of rumours. (c) Value of economy. The general knowledge tradition represents a considerable economy in learning. With no conscious effort, we acquire a vague knowledge of important things, a sufficient (or perhaps insufficient) knowledge and, in that case, the same tradition spurs us on to delve in greater depth. On some occasions, we require a perfect know­ ledge; on others, some level of reference will suffice. We commonly take a great deal for granted, and an inopportune inquisitor could stump us with just a few questions. This is inevitable: nobody knows everything. The general knowledge tradition is valuable, because it provides shorthand formulas of extensive areas of knowledge; with them we gain

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access to wonderful intellectual experiences whose discoverers, perhaps, spent their lives getting to know them well. When experiences emerge into the light, it is easy to synthesise, to compose a formula that discards the accessory and signals the fundamental – in short, to codify. The succinct simplicity of the formula, accessible to anyone, conceals the effort and fruitless endeavour of the investigator. Many formulas will be metaphors. With them the layman acquires sufficient notions to relate that knowledge to other knowledge from his intellectual world; and so, he can gauge his ignorance, and learn which door to knock on when necessary. The general knowledge tradition serves as a map in our intellectual voyage. Like any map, it invites us to visit unknown places signalling their interesting features and providing us with a direction, showing us a path. From the brief exposition above, we may also deduce the important drawbacks that Gombrich noted. (d) Elitism. Firstly, the general knowledge tradition is not general. There were never many people lucky enough to be born into backgrounds in which issues related to culture were a frequent theme of conversation. Media such as the radio and television allow us to passively tune in to conversations on the most varied and even the most elevated themes. However, as Gombrich points out, the presence of specialist channels only serves to denounce the existence of levels of preference. Perhaps a passion for vulgar serials can lead to classic theatre, bad novels to great poetry, but if there are examples of this, then there are plenty of examples of the exact opposite. It is therefore hardly surprising that the general knowledge tradition should be used as a class marker; in certain milieus, one is obliged to be familiar with certain authors and a failure to catch certain references can result in exclusion. In a dynamic of opposing groups, the situation worsens, degenerating into a sort of social climbing. The ‘snob’ temptation emerges: what matters is not the content but knowing oneself to be superior; possessing the key. And those who are denied entry pour out all their resentment against that attitude; Gombrich remarks on this aspect on another occasion. ‘Unfortunately’, says Gombrich,

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it is a fact of social psychology that such mutual antagonisms are self-reinforcing and tend to escalate. They lead to the mutually exclusive images of the effeminate aesthetes on the one side, whose attitudinizing merely reveals a lack of common humanity, and on the other side the hearty philistines who claim to know what’s what and have no use for all this flim-flam. Once the self-respect of groups is involved, they become impervious to persuasion. (T, 87) Nonetheless, Gombrich shows us that knowledge is a better marker of social position than birth or money. (e) Superficiality. The general knowledge tradition has another serious failing. Clearly, it is not general, but it cannot even be said to be knowledge. A cloud of rumours can never produce anything other than a superficial and sometimes false notion of things. Superficiality and error are to be found in general knowledge. It is not possible to know everything, we said, but we must not resign ourselves to a superficial knowledge, much less accept error. A time comes when we discover that the figure of Epicurus does not match our received notion of ‘epicurean life’. A suspicion is born that other areas of general knowledge are equally confused. Each step we take reveals new inaccuracies. And inevitably, we end up, as Gombrich does, concluding that ‘anybody deserving the name of a student must learn to mistrust what passes as general knowledge’ (II, 15). And yet the student and the scholar will see the advantages offered by the tradition. Superficial or not, such knowledge serves as a starting point, and any starting point is an inestimable aid. The epicurean life, as we understand it and apply it as metaphor, may be quite different from Epicurus’s ideal of life, but at least it offers us a path to follow along which we can refine our initial notion. The general knowledge tradition offers us clues to innumerable areas which we can never study

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in detail. It offers an initial approximation that will require many subsequent reworkings; but it is infinitely better than having no map at all. No one can question the entirety of the tradition without losing their effectiveness. We were born into our civilization and we owe our orientation to that tradition, which happens to be in bad odour just now. Of course we should be critical of what we are told, but informed criticism means focusing on one point, and you can’t focus on every point at the same time either in science or in the humanities or – for that matter – in criticism. The historian who investigates the reliability of a chronicle cannot doubt all accounts of the past without giving up his trade. (II, 181) The general tradition offers a starting point and a chosen point; behind the cloud of rumours one can see many assimilated experiences; and although there may be inaccuracies, and even open contradictions, it does save us a long path and helps us avoid many false steps. By way of the erroneous – or at least not entirely accurate – mention of the ‘epicurean life’, we come to Epicurus’s ideas. That notion, remarks Gombrich, ‘provides a stimulus to learn more about them. I believe that nearly all worthwhile research in the humanities owes its impulse to these still living forces in our culture’ (II, 15). No one who is familiar with Popper’s philosophy needs to be told of the importance of the starting point. The starting point is necessary and does not condition the result, because, in the Popperian con­ ception, the process of trial and error will purify the result. The general knowledge tradition, when it is accepted undogmatically, is an excellent initial hypothesis. Criticism initiates a stimulating investigation that will reveal the mistakes – whether it is the conscientious work of the scholar who disrupts or qualifies commonly-used information

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or the delving of amateurs into some aspect that has attracted their attention. Above all, the general knowledge tradition fulfils another important task: to reflect the unity of civilisation. For Gombrich this unity may certainly be relative, but it is unity. We need not idealize this tradition [. . .] It was neither very coherent nor very accurate. But it cohered at least as much as our language and our culture cohered and it thus counteracted the fragmentation of knowledge into unrelated specialisms. (II, 20) We cannot reach everything, but we can reach the most important things. General knowledge will allow us to become familiar with areas that are very distant from our everyday concerns or immediate needs, or from the world of our own profession and hobbies. Tradition is not taught, says Gombrich, it is transmitted. This seems undeniable. Tradition is learnt as language is learnt, or rather, while language is learnt. We are always learning and we never stop learning; and this begins in our earliest infancy. ‘The member of a culture or subculture’, says Gombrich, ‘is inducted into these traditions from early on and learns to resonate to their manifestations without conscious effort’ (T, 24). As our knowledge advances, it comes into contact with successive circles of increasingly broad culture. Our milieu must gradually bring us into contact with the central points of culture, because our understanding of them will be gradual. For Gombrich, culture does not present either a flat landscape or a constantly shifting dunescape. Not everything is the same, nor is everything relative. There are peaks, there are achievements, there are values; and there are reference points, and a hierarchy between them. There is an Olympus, says Gombrich; on its summits live the great and terrible divinities, while the pixies and imps inhabit the lower reaches (cf. NL, 125; II, 154). We must accept that there are men, real or

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legendary, who embody values, who have performed valuable deeds and who for this reason serve as models. Those references amass anything worthwhile in the cultural universe. Common parlance still uses two old terms for striking departures from the human norm, the terms ‘genius’ for the positive, and ‘monster’ for the negative deviant. Maybe the traditional humanities concentrated too much on these types at the expense of common humanity. Certainly, the monsters, the tyrants and conquerors, loomed too large in our history books, which told us so little about their victims, the ordinary mortals whose villages were burnt and whose cities were sacked. The reaction against this bias is much to be welcomed [. . .] But when it comes to the geniuses in science, in literature, art and music, I propose that they should never be far from the teaching and the thought of the humanist. Whatever his research, they alone can set standards by offering him continued reminders of the miraculous powers of man. (T, 25 and 27) 10. Art as a Source of Metaphor So far, we have discussed some of Gombrich’s ideas on culture, which we have seen to derive from his gnoseological concept. Knowing means distinguishing; distinguishing means articulating. Therefore, the educated man is the articulate man. I have particularly stressed the function of metaphor, of extended meaning, which allows the unknown to be assimilated in terms of the known. The educated man must be capable

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of interpreting metaphors, and for this purpose he needs to turn to the fields of common knowledge that make up ‘sources of metaphor’. Art is a source of metaphor. This statement constitutes an important point in the theory of art to be found in Gombrich. Art is a source of metaphor; one of the richest sources of metaphor (cf. T, 73). Because the great works of art are metaphors which are offered to articulate our world of inner experience, embodying emotions and feelings. However, in Gombrich’s concept, metaphors do not only represent something that would otherwise be unnameable, just as language does not only contain labels of things; it invites us to get to know them, it gives us a channel to distinguish them. The art work as metaphor not only allows us to understand an emotion, it synthesises it, it confers on it a place in the world, it gives it a name. And ‘only through naming [. . .] these feelings can fully emerge into existence’ (T, 74). Great works of art serve as a metaphor for reaching the deepest experiences of human life. Through them we learn nuances of a delicacy that would not be possible to express with words; art works are held up to us as patterns of highly articulated experiences, and without them human life would lose the possibility of preserving and expressing ineffable experiences. Just as language teaches the poet to articulate his experience, so the visual arts serve as instruments for the discovery of new aspects of the outer and inner world. Whether you think of Michelangelo or of Rembrandt, of Rubens or of Van Gogh, we know what we mean when we say that the visual and psychological experiences they embodied in their work only entered our heritage through their meditation. (T, 206) Michelangelo’s world of Titans, the intimacy of Rembrandt’s lighting, Rubens’s brimming vital forms and colours, or the simple and at once tense world of Van Gogh, offer innumerable images which for our

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intelligence provide beautiful metaphors of force and stillness, passion and delicacy. Images, the great images of our tradition, suggest astonishingly nuanced views. Our tradition has been enriched with the figure of God as the ‘Ancient of Days’ who, brimming with strength, and, at the same time, invested with the most solemn gravity, decides to create man and woman, demonstrating his sovereign will. Such figures are found in the powerful universe of the Sistine Chapel, and our image of God undoubtedly borrows from Michelangelo’s colossal figures. In Raphael’s Madonna della Sedia, a crucial example used by Gombrich, we learn of the sense of intimacy that surrounds the figures in an affable delight, a metaphor that represents the powerful and simple alliance between two singular creatures. It is a splendid metaphor which at once contains and suggests the protective zeal of the Mother and the calm filial abandonment. When we say, ‘at once’ protective zeal, calm abandonment, sensation of intimacy, affable delight, and before them, brimming and strength, solemn gravity, sovereign will and powerful universe, we can feel the value of the art work, of the visual art work, as a metaphor. Drama, poetry and literature are also sources of metaphor. The names Medea or Macbeth, Faust or Anna Karenina are polished metaphors for profound human attitudes. Yet the visual arts have the advantage of the power of the image: the old pedagogic tradition which insists that demonstration ‘ad oculos’ has a more lasting effect than any verbal instruction. It is summed up in the famous lines from Ars Poetica of Horace [Epistula Ad Pisones, 180–1]: Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem / quam quae sunt oculis subiecta fidelibus.* (SI, 144)

*  The things which enter by the ear affect the mind more languidly, than such as are submitted to the faithful eyes.

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What really moves our spirit is not so much what enters through our ear as what is placed before our watchful eyes. And one need only look back over the pedantic (but I believe accurate) terms with which I have endeavoured to describe ‘creation’ or Madonna della Sedia to find another advantage: ‘at once’. In the image many indescribable things merge, at once, with simplicity and precision, inexhaustibly (cf. SI, 3 and ss.). The many different nuances present in a human emotion – complex and one – are presented immediately and simultaneously. Complexity and simultaneity combine to make the image dazzling. It is dazzling because it uses at the same time many of the matrices Osgood identified, resisting any rational analysis. Evidently, in this context the metaphors that are simplest to understand are the symbolic figures that the mythopoetic thought of classical Greece managed to create and that still live on in our tradition, in other words personifications. They include figures such as ‘fame’ or ‘victory’. One should perhaps add, in a secondary plane, others which come closer to a mythical approach: Eros, Atlas, etc., ‘this characteristic creation of a twilight zone between mythology and metaphor’ (80, 252) is characteristic of our civilisation. Gombrich devotes much attention to this type of metaphor. They are really visual metaphors, like their few lucky descendants, the allegory of ‘electricity’, and ‘agriculture’. Other visual metaphors include figures representing God or the angels, spirits whose representation uses a very distant but effective term of comparison; and images of saints, based on traditional convention: St Jerome with his lion, etc. They are immediate metaphors, a sign. Yet they never lose their quality as images, and their metaphorical capacity is not reduced to that of a simple label: the image says much more than the simple allusion. Moreover, there are figures that do not represent anyone in particular, but can still be classed as metaphors. One need only recall Millet’s ‘Angelus’: the simplicity and stillness are also metaphors of piety. The human figure and its depiction are a privileged metaphor of internal experiences. But the landscape in which they are immersed often takes on the same condition as well. This is the case with Millet’s picture. Men react immediately to a human figure and also to landscape. It is a capacity which landscape artists have availed of and developed

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(cf. NF, 120–1) since the fifteenth century. As I have already said, for Gombrich a landscape, like any art work, as well as alluding to a feeling, an inner emotion, has the capacity to summon it, to induce it in us. Landscape and the human figure show that from works of art we learn new feelings; they teach us how to feel. It is sometimes said that images teach us to see. This is a pardonable oversimplification, but images may indeed teach us to recognize and specify a visual and emotional effect which has always been present in our experience. The search for these effects is much older than the science of psychology. It is known as the history of art. (IE, 214) Obviously, art history is the history of the quest for metaphors. And, of course, art history for Gombrich is not limited to figurative representation. I have discussed Gombrich’s distinction between sense of order and sense of meaning. When looking at figures – figurative paintings or sculpture – it is essentially our sense of meaning that comes into play; we set our mental apparatus to work to determine what the images we perceive as mobilising our sense of meaning are, what they correspond to. But clearly there are some configurations that represent nothing, or do not do so primarily – works of architecture or the decorative arts, for example. Such configurations are informed by hierarchies of order and, in affecting our sense of order, these configurations may also be classified as metaphor. Gombrich notes that we have ‘the disposition to accept degrees of order as potential metaphors of inner states’ (SO, 247). A Borromini church can be seen as a closed and concentrated cosmos, whose elements form complex relations in a tense balance; and the bright firmness and easy movement of Bernini’s works with their theatrical, but not false, solemnity are metaphorical qualities. One might also adduce examples from the decorative arts, which suggest a wide range of tones ascending from the most delicate and intimate to the

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colossal and imposing. Among all the arts that create hierarchies of order, however, music must take pride of place. ‘Music has become the most precious of all shared possessions, of all sources of metaphor in our culture’ (II, 16). Gombrich has a predilection for music, and music perfectly illustrates his idea of the art work as metaphor. There are pieces of music known by all, which represent splendid metaphors. In Berlioz’s programme music or the wonderful figures by Bach, music ‘represents’ storms, wind, desire and fear in plastic form. Gombrich also refers to the possibility of including ‘the new strength’ which Beethoven wished to inspire in the andante of his string quartet Opus 132 in A minor, where the music does not pretend to describe physically a sensation, but the piece gives what the composer promised in its title neue Kraft fühlend (feeling new strength) (cf. II, 157). Music perfectly exemplifies the potential of the art work as a metaphor: it may be reproduced, but may also be remembered. The inner experience that contains an emotional state becomes a symbol, a metaphor, and in being symbolised, it is codified, it is made memorisable, and therefore accessible and recoverable; an indefinable and ineffable feeling can be housed in the memory, because it is an image or a sound and it can be operated with, and will form part of, the memories shared by members of a society, and thus serve as a reference point (cf. II, 13–15). A shared image or melody is safe from the manipulation involved in describing them to explore their evocations. The lines above are an example; emphasis, pedantry and schmaltz can all smother any subtle evocation. The image, like sound, is more vivid, more effective, and by extension clearer. It is easier to make a metaphor understood through a melody or a beautiful image than through the verbiage of a comprehensive description. Image and melody are more accessible; if one acquires sufficient familiarity with the art work, with its style, the metaphor is revealed (cf. 85, 794–5).

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11. Mastery Although the theme of this chapter is barely extensive enough to rub shoulders with its companions, I think it is nonetheless essential to set aside some space for it. Mastery stands at the heart of Gombrich’s theory of art; mastery means value, quality. Gombrich’s idea may be distinguished from many other theories because he gives pride of place in art to quality. This is as it should be; art history cannot be compared to archaeology (this is Gombrich’s idea) which is undiscriminatingly interested in all things old. Art history must distinguish and separate the bad from the good, the masterpiece from the mediocre, from the failed: the history of art is the history of great masters and master works. This approach entails a secure confidence in the possibility of evaluation. Mastery gains public recognition; a recognition which extends, above all, to the great works and the great artists. This recognition means that mastery and judgements on mastery are imbued with some objectivity. I hope to start by demonstrating that this is the case. Studying mastery also requires us to refer to context. Mastery is mastery in a certain aspect; and it can only be appreciated by comparison between similar

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works. I shall therefore set out Gombrich’s ideas on art genres and forms. It is not an easy theme, and I will try to tackle it as best I can. Finally, the very notion of artistic genre and form leads us to a thoroughly appealing theme which, with different nuances, will be a recurring one in this work: the expressivity of traditions, the way in which, with the passage of time, traditions – or rather, forms within traditions – attract expression and meaning. 1. Objectivity of Mastery Gombrich uses play as a model for studying and explaining artistic mastery. By using this analogy, he attempts to highlight the meaning of mastery, the master moves: what matters in any game are the great moves, the successes – in short, the triumph; great moves are objective successes. The (sometimes overblown) enthusiasm that a good play provokes among fans is real and can be understood, even if there are people – perhaps even the great majority – who do not understand or share it. There is by now a clichéd image of a demure lower middle-class figure, going about his life and work, who turns into a screaming lunatic the moment he gets into a stadium to watch his team play; he reacts immediately and enthusiastically to the different plays. He must, clearly, recognise that there is such a thing as a good play. With the same sensitivity, he may even appreciate and evaluate the plays by the opposing team, if his judgement is not entirely blinded by partisanship. Of course, if one were to ask such a fan what gets him so excited, he would be at pains to explain the reason. He might describe the play in great detail with as many adjectives as he could summon up, but he would find it difficult to communicate his conviction and his enthusiasm. Enthusiasm matters; and what matters even more is the certainty that the play has been magnificent, a certainty he could corroborate with his fellow supporters. Gombrich once complained about certain theories advocating that in art all reactions are subjective – an educated way of saying that there is not accounting for taste. He imagined himself having to explain a Beet­ hoven quartet to a Martian with no hearing: ‘I would have a hard time to explain to him that I so much liked having my ear tickled in this way

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that I even paid for the pleasure, and that I shared with others a reverence for the man who wrote down the instructions for this air-shaking’ (II, 157). The Martian could write a treatise on the social function of the concerto, but he could not distinguish a concert from a magic ritual. And yet the enjoyment is objective. ‘We know’ that it is a ‘wonderful’ concert and an ‘excellent’ performance. The problem of a deaf Martian is a serious one when it comes to under­ standing music. If one does not meet those conditions, one can still aspire to understand it. If one makes an effort, if one manages to become familiar with the game or with art, one can come to enjoy it, and also know how to appreciate and be excited by the achievements. The achievement is objective, even if the response is subjective and even if it is objectively difficult to explain. Mastery is something real. The attention Gombrich devotes to this theme is directly linked to his concept of art: we cannot separate the idea of art from the idea of quality, from the idea of triumph, from the idea of masterpieces. Perfect moves may occur in different games, but perfect moves do exist. Novices do not appreciate the game, but those who do can value the achievement and their appreciation is objective. Gombrich wittily remarked that the notorious tag ‘I don’t know anything about art but I know what I like’ is habitually held up to ridicule in books on art appreciation. It may yet become the cornerstone on which a new art can be built. (MH, 149) 2. History of Mastery Mastery is actually the most important thing in art: the idea of quality, of value, of triumph, of success. However, the ridiculing of the famous tag in books on art appreciation shows that histories of art often pay attention to other aspects. This is why Gombrich says that ‘Julius von Schlosser quite rightly insisted that one should not confuse the real history of art with the history of artistic idioms or styles’ (T, 65–6).

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Gombrich is convinced of this. Thinking in terms of entities such as styles may be of great help. However, putting style above any other issue seriously prejudices individual works of art. As early as 1933, no less, Gombrich warned that the risk of understanding style ‘as a super-work of art made by a super-artist is the residue of a romantic philosophy of history, and one should only subscribe to this if one knows what one is doing’; he adds: To insist upon this is to forego a source of strong and subjectively very genuine enjoyment. The social success of art history today, its receptivity to the art of all times and all peoples, rests all too often perhaps on just such a view of the past. It is not the individual work of art which is enjoyed, rather, the language in which it is formulated is treated as if it were itself a work of art. (MH, 76) Gombrich is in little doubt that authentic art history must focus on mastery. ‘The history of art, in this light, is rightly considered to be the history of masterpieces and of the “old masters” – an excellent term, when you come to think of it’ (II, 152). This explains his statement at the start of his Story of Art: ‘There really is no such thing as Art. There are only artists’ (SA, 3). It is individual artists who in given situations freely give birth to specific works. In reality, the entire book, which is intended as an introduction for beginners, is a demonstration of that approach: what those artists tried, what means they used and what they achieved. Two abbreviated quotations, taken at random from his book, clearly show what I mean. I prefer to omit any reference to the work in question, in order to concentrate more specifically on Gombrich’s approach. Antonio Pollaiuolo [. . .] tried to solve this new problem of making a picture both accurate in draughtsmanship and

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harmonious in composition [. . .] it clearly shows how deliberately the Florentine artists set about it [. . .] forms a very regular pattern in the form of a steep triangle [. . .] The arrangement, in fact, is so clear and symmetrical as to be almost too rigid [. . .] In this simple way, the painter has endeavoured to relieve the rigid symmetry of the composition [. . .] this device is still used rather selfconsciously [. . .] we feel that his pride in his mastery of muscles and movements [. . .] was hardly quite successful in what he set out to do [. . .] etc. (SA, 197–8) Grünewald [. . .] Art for him did not consist in the search for the hidden laws of beauty [. . .] it could have only one aim, the aim of all religious art [. . .] providing a sermon in pictures, of proclaiming the sacred truths [. . .] he sacrificed all other considerations [. . .] Of beauty, as the Italian artists saw it, there is none in the stark [. . .] Grünewald left nothing undone to bring home to us the horrors [. . .] dying body [. . .] distorted by the torture [. . .] thorns of the scourges [. . .] His features and the impressive gesture [. . .] fainting [. . .] wringing her hands in sorrow [. . .] There is little doubt that the artist wanted the beholder of the altar [. . .] Perhaps he even wanted us to see [. . .] reality seems to be depicted in all its unmitigated horror [. . .] figures differ greatly in size [. . .] the astonishing difference in their dimensions

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[. . .] Grünewald rejected the rules of modern art [. . .] returned to the principles [. . .] he had sacrificed the pleasing kind of beauty [. . .] disregarded the new demand [. . .] this helped him to express the mystic truth [. . .]. (SA, 269–70) He focuses his attention on the problems of the artist and the purposes that guide him, and from there we deduce the means he has chosen. From this basis, an evaluation may be made, or at least it can be left to the reader, with that preparation, to do so for himself. All of this, obviously, is more difficult than discussing styles (cf. T, 65–6). 3. Mastery and ‘Getting it Right’ Just as any master move corresponds to a game, a masterpiece is a master­ piece within a given context. And it can only be measured against it. And so, in Art and Illusion, Gombrich cites a marvellous paragraph from Ernst Kris, where Kris advocated that the artist ‘works in a structured area of problems. The degree of mastery within this framework and, at least in certain periods, the freedom to modify these stringencies are presumably part of the complex scale by which achievement is being measured’ (AI, 30). Every work has a framework; and only within that framework can it be evaluated: knowing its goals, its possibilities and its limitations. In the face of the many characteristics and conditioning factors that emerge from his ‘structured area of problems’, the artist ‘would say he worries about whether he has got it “right”. Now it is only when we understand what he means by that modest little word “right” that we begin to understand what artists are really after’ (SA, 13), said Gombrich in his introduction to his Story of Art. This is a necessary experience in art. Considering some art works ‘we all feel that he has achieved something to which nothing could be added, something which is right – an example of perfection in our very imperfect world’ (SA, 14). It is quite another thing to explain the reason

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it is ‘right’. ‘Getting it right’, achievement, is the only important thing, the object of art history: to identify the great achievements and place them in a coherent context where they take on their true dimension. Above all others. And here we have one of the most beautiful paragraphs from The Story of Art. To produce a perfect pearl the oyster needs some piece of matter, a sandcorn or a small splinter round which the pearl can form. Without such a hard core it may grow into a shapeless mass. If the artist’s feelings for forms and colours are to crystallize in a perfect work, he, too, needs such a hard core – a definite task on which he can bring his gifts to bear. We know that in the more distant past all works of art gained shape round such a vital core. It was the community which set the artists their tasks – be it the making of ritual masks or the building of cathedrals, the painting of portraits or the illustration of books. It matters comparatively little whether we happen to be in sympathy with all these tasks or not; one need not approve of bison-hunting by magic, of the glorification of criminal wars or the ostentation of wealth and power to admire the works of art which were once created to serve such ends. The pearl completely covers the core. It is the secret of the artist that he does his work so superlatively well that we all but forget to ask what his work was supposed to be, for sheer admiration of the way he did it. (SA, 472)

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At the risk of spoiling the effect of these words, I should warn that the mastery Gombrich is talking about is not some meticulous, patient, extremely difficult task requiring an infinitely steady hand, like building ships in bottles or engraving the maxims of Confucius on a grain of rice. It is the perfect adaptation of the means to the ends; the artist must provide an absolute dominion of the means; the ends must be based on high human values. 4. Mastery and Value Here we have the magnificent example of ‘the pearl’ taken from The Story of Art, in which Gombrich draws on a work not by Raphael or Michelangelo, but by Dali. Faced with the superlative brilliance with which the work is executed, we forget to ask what these strange pictures mean. When Gombrich added a last chapter twenty years later, he alluded to this paragraph. He remarked that we, far-removed spec­ tators, may do without or may not share the values of the artist or the society in which he worked, but those values must exist. Among the causes of disorientation in the art world to which Gombrich refers is the fact that artists sometimes lack a purpose (cf. SA, 474). When art has a function, skills are developed and masters emerge. This relationship used to exist. In games it is skill which counts, and the skill is measurable through the institution of matches and tournaments. He is master who has come out on top. No doubt there is an element of this standard in art. There certainly was a time when mastery in building, carving, bronze casting or painting was mainly seen in terms of such skill. Only that this skill was at that time rarely pursued for its own sake. It was harnessed to other values of religion, of power or of love. The art with which a

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temple or palace was adorned with rich, intricate and precious decoration, the marvels of goldsmith work with which the wealthy bridegroom may have wooed his bride, all this showed art in the service of ulterior aims, but these did not preclude the commission for such important displays of skill going to the most consummate master of the craft. (II, 127) Mastery is placed at the service of certain values that make sense of the skill deployed in including and manifesting them. The artist has used all his effort to fulfil them. In The Sense of Order he stresses this link between values and art – decorative arts – in another fine paragraph. Few civilizations were disposed to deny that inner worth should be acknowledged by an appropriate display of outward show. Not only the splendours of kings and princes, but also the power of the sacred has been universally proclaimed by pomp and circumstance. Once in a while a preacher may have protested through deed or words against such expenditure of skill and of resources, but this reaction in favour of renunciation is not necessarily linked with aesthetic revulsion. To my knowledge no contemporary member of the culture criticized an Indian temple, a Moorish Palace, a Gothic Cathedral or a Spanish Baroque Church as ‘over-ornate’. The concept did not exist, for there can never be too much of love and sacrifice expended on respect and veneration. (SO, 17)

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The same idea can be seen when Gombrich remarks that in painting ‘the very means of art [. . .] had been evolved in order to turn us into eyewitnesses of events which stood for a supreme value, religious or ethical. It was towards this end that Raphael had strained every means [. . .]’ (7, 84). And there are also plenty of skills and much true mastery is developed at the service of truly detestable values. On one occasion, Gombrich refers to bullfighting but adds: ‘alas, there are examples of more evil mastery in art and in literature involving the vicarious enjoyment of cruelty and degradation which we may acknowledge and yet reject’ (II, 162). One needs only recall the words I have quoted, ‘it is very clear that we must be able to say “no” [. . .]’ (7, 89). The arts offer the true domain of aesthetic satisfaction, yet we should not forget that it is a domain that has been built to pay homage to certain values. And now we should discuss the playing field and the game rules: that is to say, artistic form and genres. 5. Artistic Form ‘Human beings’, says Gombrich, have any number of needs, practical, symbolic, and aesthetic, and those activities which yield the greatest range of different satisfactions are most likely to become established in traditions. Activities in which the aesthetic function develops into a firm tradition we call ‘art forms’. (II, 149) This is as much of a definition as Gombrich provides of what art, artistic genre or a craft tradition are. They consist of any activities with a purpose related to aesthetics, and that purpose comes to form a tradition. For some activities to generate art forms, says Gombrich in the same occasion, they should meet a great variety of demands and sometimes

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aspiring to be loved and admired for the delight they can give (cf. II, 150). The mention, typical in Gombrich, that there is a variety of purposes, different causes, numerous needs, is related to psychoanalysis. On another occasion introducing a long study on the psychology of artistic representation, Gombrich says that ‘we must certainly agree with Freud that we are born with emotional needs that demand an outlet even at the price of intellectual consistency’ (51, 223). Each of those arts is an activity providing an outlet for our emotional needs; its practice and enjoyment sometimes requires the players to break with external consistency. The impetus that leads us to turn an ordinary object into a work of art, by decorating it, must be viewed as a need. The decoration need not add anything to the object; it does not make it more useful or more functional. There is, naturally, much of the pleasure of the game; and there is a break with external consistency: it is transformed into a game of ability and grace; but a game that is at the service of ulterior values. The comparison with play is very illustrative. It is difficult say what a game is for. It serves many purposes that are difficult to specify. Players and spectators enjoy the game, and that enjoyment should not be confused with a simple sensation of pleasure; it provokes strong reactions, passion and genuine pleasure. Art has those same characteristics. Elsewhere, Gombrich remarks that the historian who investigates the rise of a fashion [. . .] may do well to ask himself what it is that makes any fashion ‘catch on’. It is unlikely that such a success is ever due to one cause. On the contrary. The survival of any such innovation must rest on its capacity to satisfy a variety of conflicting aims. (MH, 104) Traditions are, at heart, a balanced medium that enables aesthetic satisfaction, although they also fulfil many other functions; aesthetic satisfaction, according to Gombrich, entails a discharge, an outlet for

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our emotions. To achieve this discharge, the artist articulates those emotions in his medium; they remain there, objectivised; and the spectator recreates them when they are revealed to him, when he understands them; they form the necessary stimulus for giving vent to his own emotions. 6. Taking for Granted When a form is established, when a game is disseminated, an extremely interesting process begins. Art is not a game; but there are important elements these two pleasures share – in both activities there are rules and there is mastery. The mastery is achieved within the rules through years of practice that explores the possible initial moves and their potentialities for further achievements. This mastery depends to no small extent on the exact knowledge of means. The weight and size of tennis balls is fixed and so are the dimensions of the court and of the net. It is within these fixed conventions that the champion develops his capacity to calculate and predict. (II, 80) The player knows perfectly well the possibilities of his medium. But the public also knows it. When a master move takes place, it signifies the player’s dominion of his medium, and the public, who know how to appreciate it, react with enthusiasm. If – without requiring any deaf Martians – we were to ask a fan why a particular play seems good, he would immediately reply: ‘he shot from here to there and scored’. If we really know little about the game and are genuinely interested, and provided our interlocutor has an unlimited reserve of patience, it would

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be useful to go on to ask what exactly he means by here, there, what shooting means, what a racquet is, how big it is, etc. We would tire out the well-meaning spectator without managing to explain ‘absolutely’ why it is a good move. We would not learn to enjoy the game, but we would be astonished to discover just how many things ‘are taken for granted’. The master play, which has excited the spectator, revolves around this set of things ‘taken for granted’. It is taken for granted that footballers play by the rules, and the explicit rules form part of that set. But many things are taken for granted which, because they are taken for granted, are very difficult – if not impossible – to explain. These are things that both player and spectators know. And they are things they have acquired through a long familiarity with the game. This network forms what could be called ‘the game rules’ in a broad sense. It is not just that the playing field must have a certain length and breadth, but also that the player is incapable of jumping more than a certain height or running at more than a certain speed; that his anatomy has certain possibilities and limitations that he cannot overcome without risk. And that mud hinders play, that a home crowd gives an advantage, that the wind may be unfavourable, that it is very difficult to score from a certain position, that the first half of the match tends to be faster, and many, many other issues. Yet all of this is absolutely essential in order to calibrate a masterpiece. If we were to entrust a machine with assessing these plays, we would fail; we would realise that it is not possible to coordinate so many different scales. And yet any supporter can do it; he knows how to calibrate, although he cannot give reasons for the procedure. When we grow up in a culture, we gradually learn to calibrate, we receive that network of judgements which are more implicit than explicit. When we are introduced to an art, the same thing happens, we manage to create certain expectations. To a certain extent, as happens in the game, we come to possess a network of shared assumptions – a great number of assumptions, which we would not know how to put into words as such, but which are not merely subjective: we share them with many other people.

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What is taken for granted creates expectations; at a certain point, this or that may be expected. And a similar sensitivity clearly ties in with our sense of regularity, with our sense of order: we are alerted to the configurations that are presented to us and prepared to understand them in their context: we join in the game and we are disposed to judge based on the experience we possess. In evaluating a move, those planes of reference come into play. In our society art no less than literature or music is divisible into such genres, which have their own implicit rules and therefore arouse different expectations. The mental set with which we read a novel differs from that with which we read a police report – though when a police report form part of a novel it will be read accordingly. In the same way our mental focus when looking at an abstract painting differs from our attitude in front of a decorative design, though the two might be interchangeable. (IE, 296) What is taken for granted in one genre, is different in another. Each genre creates different expectations. If we know what we are reading is a novel, we obviously approach it with a different attitude to that we would adopt when reading a crime report, obviously. And the same is true in reverse. A genre is made up of a series of characteristics distinguishing a crime report from a novel. Novel and report fulfil different functions and accumulated experience and conventions have clearly generated different ways of operating – or at least they can and should appear to be different. When we write either of the two, we follow those modes; when we have to judge them, we abide by the expectations, by what is to be expected in each case. A knowledge of artistic genres facilitates creation and interpretation. Or rather, it makes them possible. There is something that is more or

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less defined as the painting of a Visitation or the piece of music known as ‘sonata’, or the building we call a ‘church’. Each of these genres has its own rules, they make up a defined framework where it is possible to improve on the solutions until we achieve an optimum solution; the account of that endeavour is called the history of the genre of paintings of the Visitation, or the history of the sonata (cf. IE, 101). Anyone who knows the game well, the tradition of paintings of the Visitation or the sonata, is in a position to appreciate that achievement; and anyone who does not know it, will not understand it. If a newcomer wishes to become an initiate, he must initially rely on the evaluation of the experts, he must have faith in them, and in the greatness of those works they identify as masterpieces. Faith is the precise attitude demanded by the traditions of its components; the premise for being introduced to them and appreciating their achievements. Faith means participating fully in some shared assumptions, even if one does not actually fully possess them as yet. This attitude makes up for the initiate’s shortcomings; with it he belongs to the set of spectators and players and shares their conviction, the ‘social compact’. Believe you me, you just get into the game and you’ll enjoy it; abandon your prejudices, and when you learn, you will also learn to be excited by the beauty or moved by the sublimity. Once you learn the game, you will tremble in your seat at the moments of danger and jump with joy at the great plays; you will share with us the pleasure of playing. 7. Refinement This element of social compact supports the network of shared assumptions; the tacit agreement that this artistic form is capable of creating satisfactory objects from various perspectives gives internal consistency to the activity. And the people who participate in it, as in any game, are united in that conviction. From that conviction, they obtain real pleasure in the game. Both players and spectators participate in the game. It is important to stress this seemingly obvious facet. In art, in an artistic form, the public matters and it matters greatly. ‘For games, like art, need a social

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atmosphere and tradition to reach that high level of cultivation that goes with true mastery’ (II, 154). Art requires that atmosphere to survive, and more importantly, to achieve a certain quality. To achieve social consideration, esteem, the approval of both aficionados and connoisseurs requires from the artist or player more than he can give and it obliges him to use all the potential, not just of the artist, but of the game itself. In this process everyone, to some extent, wins out in the end: the player who needs to improve, the game which proves more interesting, and the spectator who achieves greater enjoyment. The everyday experience of sports records shows how often a world title can be won or lost by tenths of a second or millimetres of distance. The game takes on another level of perfection; players try new modes with an uncommon effort. An outside observer might certainly think that this effort – calling as it does for fresh and overwhelming sacrifice – is disproportionate; only a few fractions of a second or metre are gained in the process. The player, naturally, would disagree; it seems logical to him, as it seems logical to his fans and his rivals. This conviction further reinforces the social compact, a greater distancing from external and internal consistency. Those circumstances, extreme situations where the differences obtained are miniscule, demand a new level of calibration from the public. As soon as these aspects become a matter of debate, perhaps in criticizing the umpire’s decision, you get connoisseurs, looking out for what are called the finer points, and this process of refinement in its turn may make the concept of mastery more esoteric but not necessarily more subjective. What may be a matter of bias is the emphasis placed by some judges on one point rather than another. You may get partisans and fans extolling one champion over all others. I think there is no culture or subculture where you could

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not watch this mergence of standards and the social atmosphere that develops, whether you think of aficionados of bullfights, or balletomanes, or jazz enthusiasts. (II, 152) This way of going about things, common in so many activities, can easily be extended to the study of art (as Gombrich does); here it is called ‘Refinement’. In an illuminating section entitled ‘Innovation and Refinement’ from his lecture ‘The Necessity of Tradition’ (T, 185–209), he claims that the artist has two paths open to him. The artist can strain the medium in an effort to extend its range and thus to discover novel possibilities at the extremes as it were. But he can also make discoveries by refining his medium, by introducing a more subtle calibration which permits him to bring out new shades and nuances never recorded or expressed before. Not that these two ways of enriching the language of art need be mutually exclusive. The greatest masters were frequently creative in both directions. (T, 206–7) When art objects appear whose differences, for whatever reason – ritual imposition, exhaustion of technical resources, etc. – are small, then connoisseurs, including the artists themselves, also appear, who are capable of appreciating them. They know how to value the nuance. The artist will try to make his work stand out by that nuanced degree. These appraisals are so delicate that they are not within the grasp of all. A layman cannot tell an exquisite original piece from one made for the wholesale trade. There used to be a considerable difference in quality between Chinese porcelains intended for the domestic market and items for export;

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products that might seem perfect to the Western eye would have been indignantly rejected by a Chinese customer. This is the world of nuance and the connoisseur; a world, as Gombrich puts it, ‘more esoteric but not necessarily more subjective’. It is a world composed of works, artists and connoisseurs, where the valuation is to some extent objective. The internal consistency of that world is a long way from an external world for which, perhaps, such finesses might be incomprehensible. Great artists, great masters, great works stand out perhaps for small nuances, from the vulgar works of the second-raters. Perhaps, after all, there is not that much difference between Mozart and Salieri;1 but how sensational that difference is! Art works involve extraordinary sensitivity in the artist, of course, but also in the public. ‘You know the Hans Christian Andersen story about the princess and the pea?’, asked Gombrich to his interviewer in 1981, I think any great artist suffers if the stroke is just a little too strong or too weak. He has this immense feeling for every shade, which makes for the difference. My life was spent among musicians. My wife is a musician, my mother was a musician. I know, therefore, a little about this feeling for nuance, because if you perform a Beethoven sonata or whatever it is, the difference between various performances is, in a way, very small, but it is all important. Therefore, I think that it is really this sensitivity to nuance which is one of the conditions of the great artist. (57, 20–1) Gombrich warns us that play, like art, requires a condition. Neither players nor connoisseurs are interested in changing rules, let alone

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games. It is possible that only in such situations art can blossom to real refinement. The Chinese scholar looking at a painting on silk of some bamboo stems shares with the connoisseur of games something of this developed pleasure in finesse. The suggestion that this art could be improved by changing tools or media he would probably dismiss as barbaric. (II, 81) The establishment of genres creates expectations among public and artists; or rather, by establishing a genre it is understood that expectations have been created among public and artists – a series of rules, which are taken for granted. When this happens, there is room for refinement; it does not always happen, and it is not always achieved to the same extent. ‘There may be artistic traditions which depend even more on the need to appreciate such fine calibration than does our Western art. Compared to the masters of the Far East, our Western painters may sometimes look coarse’ (T, 207). When authors and public achieve a nuanced calibration, then – and this is one of Gombrich’s fine ideas – the genres can become an expressive medium, and the possibility arises that the works of that genre can communicate or invoke emotions. 8. Tradition and Expressivity I shall take as my reference two works by Gombrich dealing with the birth of a genre and the development of its expressive potential, which are to some extent complementary: ‘The Renaissance Theory of Art and the Rise of Landscape’ (NF, 107–21) and ‘Tradition and Expression in Western Still Life’ (MH, 95–105); the latter is a review of Charles Sterling’s book, Still Life Painting, Paris 1959. As the titles suggest, they both contain studies by Gombrich of landscape and still life. In both genres, the depiction of people is of little importance, and they might therefore

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appear to be unsuitable traditions to become expressive mediums; at the end of the day, the most expressive form for man is the human body, particularly the human face. Hence the possibilities of figurative painting or sculpture. Nonetheless, we cannot ignore another art form, with innumerable genres, which might seem even less capable of engendering emotion, and yet which has always been considered to be the emotional art par excellence: music. Moreover, music is Gombrich’s favourite example when discussing expression. Gombrich considers that the response to those genres is unquestionably rooted in human nature: these, he says are unlearned, preferably innate, reactions (cf. MH, 105). But it is clear that in addition to these predispositions there are also conventional elements that also shape our expectations and model our response differentially: the reaction to a Spanish still-life bodegón leaves far behind the capacity to arouse appetite or anything of the kind. Thus, Gombrich’s position is defined in opposition to those who believe that the art work in itself can inspire emotion, and particularly to Benedetto Croce and the insularity he saw in every famous art work. He was mistaken and he led many people into error because he ignored rhetoric, the aesthetic relevance of subjects or traditions (cf. MH, 96). For Gombrich the genres are associated to the rhetorical tradition; they must be interpreted rhetorically: just as Cicero argued that a speech can be in a solemn, medium or simple style, which prove expressive in a particular order, suggesting greater or lesser importance, he also argues that ‘the genre [. . .] may often be said to come first, the emotion afterwards. What is more, the emotion could never have been communicated in the same way without the pre-existence of the genre’ (MH, 96). In human speech, any expression first requires a sufficiently sensitive, relatively refined medium. The artist must have a keyboard on which he can press a scale ranging from low and deep to high and light; the scale enables expressivity. To try to explain this, Gombrich uses the synesthetic equivalences discovered by Osgood. Any meaning is measured according to a matrix consisting of a factor of strength (strong/weak) one of activity (active/ passive) and another of value (good/bad). If we turn this theory around,

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we can see that we are in a position to evaluate anything from any point of view, provided we have a certain plane of reference, a ‘level of normality’: Is the weather cold or hot? Is a person sad or happy? Interlocutors who share the same level of normality, ‘take for granted’ that warm means a temperature of between 15° and 18°, and that a balanced person is not continuously plunged in despair or immersed in merrymaking. They will think that an ‘objective’ level exists. We know ‘physically’ when the weather is hot and ‘mentally’ when we are sad. But it is clear that heat and cold for an Ecuadorian will be different to that for an Inuit. And the boisterous joviality of a Neapolitan contrasts with that of an Andean Indian. For this reason, the level of normality, ‘what is taken for granted’, the ‘regular’ depends on the circumstances; but communication needs that level to be shared. Something similar happens with art. Every medium and every convention has its own level of normality that determines the expectations of the connoisseur who would register any subtle emphasis in one direction or another. The identical tone, therefore, that would strike him as expressive of gloom in a water color might have impressed him as calm and serene in an ink drawing. (AI, 373) I have already said that is not easy to establish the causes that led to the creation and refinement of a specific genre, although undoubtedly the genre in question will offer some advantage. At least in the two works mentioned, on landscape and still life, Gombrich argues that before genre became established in the West, there was already a demand, provoked by mentions of these themes in authors from classical antiquity, including Pliny (cf. NF, 107–8 and 112; MH, 102ff.), and that on many occasions the theory preceded the practice. ‘From the point of view of the artistic theories of the Renaissance, it might thus be said that if such a kind of painting did not yet exist, it had to be invented’ (NF, 114).

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The first landscape scenes began to take hold as the narrative theme of figures. They emerged gradually, as cheerful picturesque landscapes, solemn, romantic or awe-inspiring scenes: the clamour of the storm, wind and waves, dark caves, fire, the nostalgia of ancient ruins, the objectivity of elegant urban vistas. Genre was articulated gradually on biological foundations, incorporating the conventions established by players and public, the shared assumptions. Each important new work must be assumed by all, and the ‘level of normality’ will vary slightly, altering the expectations for subsequent works. If the game is not broken, it is possible that ranges, scales of intensity, are constructed which may suggest expression: festive, solemn, tragic, light or dark, bright or dismal airs. This is what happened with one genre, landscape and even with still life. In particular, it was the case with music, where an important corpus of conventions was established. For the academic conventions of art, however arbitrary and illogical they may have been, were not only pedantic rules made to cramp the imagination and to blunt the sensibility of genius; they provided the syntax of a language without which expression would have been impossible. It was precisely an art such as landscape painting which lacked the fixed framework of a traditional subject-matter, that needed for its development some pre-existing mould into which the artist could pour his ideas. What had begun as fortuitous modes crystallized into recognizable moods, strains of sentiment which could be touched upon at will. The history of music provides the best parallel for the importance of such a framework for the development of a language. The dance forms of various social strata, for

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instance, became the vehicles of expression for absolute music. The relatively fixed sequence of moods in the sonata form that grew out of the dance suite proved an inspiration rather than a hindrance to the great masters. (NF, 121) Evidently, only within the framework can we understand the options taken by the artist: a sad, nostalgic melody; a triumphal march; an amorous song, they all find their form by comparison with everything else. The lyricism of an epithalamion will undoubtedly require a delicate touch, with instrumentation in high, soft notes; the triumphal march needs great sonority, sustained notes, a great deal of brass and a certain stridency, combined with a strong rhythm. Only when we mention these qualities, do we see that other things need to be added. For example, brass, trumpets and horns are associated with battles and military triumphs, since trumpets were in common use on the battlefield. Our expectations take in conventionalisms from a wide range of sources, which moreover change with time. Perhaps a merry pasodoble would have terrified the Greek navy at Salamina, whereas the paean played on that occasion might have gone completely unremarked beside the Western choral pieces written to evoke military victories. We only have to think of Judas Maccabeus or Israel in Egypt. 9. Means and Ends I have presented Gombrich’s ideas on genre and expression. Although expression may be rooted in a biological background, and arouse an instinctive response to certain configurations, an artistic genre requires greater articulation; and when it is developed, it constitutes a powerful expressive instrument. This is what happens with Western music. What was instinctive merges with the cultural, in our immediate response. We need to mention, albeit in passing, the means and ends in art. At the end of the day, mastery involves the perfect use of the means to achieve recognised ends. And we need only mention it in passing,

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because this has been one of the principal notions in Gombrich’s analysis of the classical tradition. ‘In art’, says Gombrich, ‘the ends shape the means, but the means also shape the ends’ (RH, 16). Within a Popperian context we should say, given certain ends, people who pursue them approach them through trial and error, testing out and discarding the useless or the simply obsolete; if the end remains, gradually the right means will emerge, and the ends will be achieved partially or completely. However, as I have already noted several times – and again when dealing with artistic form – in any human activity there are multiple goals; this idea, taken from the theses of Freud, is known as ‘over­ determination’: the existence of multiple functions in objects and institutions. Gombrich defined beauty, perfection, as a balance between different demands, a balance that depends on the priority given in a society to different demands. ‘Getting it right’ means achieving the end, striking the perfect balance. The multiple specifications that an art work has to fulfil are defined by the tradition, and embodied in the genres, those sets of rules ‘which are taken for granted’. Given certain ends, artists and public find the right means to satisfy them. But the fact is that in art, the opposite is also true: the means themselves form ends; a new discovery invites new adventures, invites us to propose more audacious ends. In this case, the ends emerge from the same tradition, from the same artists who work in it struggling to stand out, and taking their means to their greatest possibilities. One need only look at the use of iron in nineteenth-century architecture. The extraordinary possibilities of the new materials could be ignored, but once accepted, they ended up destroying general proportions in architecture, pushing architects to ever greater acts of daring. As long as the rules are maintained, play continues; the players pursue their goals and the public evaluate the moves. Traditions are refined and enriched with the contributions made by everyone. The richness of the cultural tradition and artistic traditions lies in the level of articulation achieved, in the hierarchies of ordered ends, in the balances of competing needs, and also in the capacity to create nuance, to produce works that respond to subtle calibrations. This process is contributed to by everyone working within a tradition, forming what

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Gombrich, in a magnificent expression, calls, the ‘coral reef of culture’ (cf. SO, 209); the great cultural traditions are built gradually with the free contribution – and the equally free destruction – of their human components, whose quality varies enormously. The tradition belongs not only to the artists, but also to the public which knows how to appreciate it: the social compact, the tacit agreement between players and spectators, constitutes the magic ring where the new contributions are strung without which the continuity is broken. As long as the ends are clear, they are sustained by the components. The contributions are made in the same direction, so that, at the end of the process, highly sophisticated means are obtained, technical tools and resources of a refined style that are available to anyone who knows how to master them. The artist who works in a tradition thus has the means to achieve ambitious ends and a public capable of appreciating them. He has innumerable examples available to him – successful or failed – from which he can continue (cf. II, 153). From this perspective, a continuous and limited process, in which innumerable concurrent contributions, some valid ones which increase the baggage, other erroneous ones that are not incorporated, but show which paths are to be avoided, it can be compared – as Gombrich does – to Darwinian evolution. In this respect the pressures and bonuses of a continuous period of evolution in art may have something in common with those evolutionary processes which culminated in the complex beauty of a shell or a spider’s web. In the past such works of nature were considered by theologians to prove the existence of a conscious creator, in what was called ‘the argument from design’. (II, 129) For Gombrich, this idea of creation by free, though limited, men, united in a common purpose, sometimes unknowingly, as a result of ‘the

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strength of cooperative action in society and over time [. . .]’ (SO, 209), is an enormously attractive one. It is both attractive and, I believe, rationally defensible, as I have demonstrated when discussing World 3. And so, through evolution, nature has been elevated from its elementary forms to the most astonishing configurations, which we all admire; and so too, artistic traditions evolve from their primitive steps, taking in the successes of craftspeople from successive generations, until they attain the perfection of wondrous works of art. The history of music is an unmatched example of the appearance of artistic traditions. And Gombrich referred to music in his Commencement Address to students from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, when he used a spectacular metaphor alluding to natural evolution. I am telling you about the Grand Canyon not only because I am still full of this extraordinary impression but also because it has struck me that the development of Western Music may be compared to this natural wonder. Of course all such comparisons are somewhat nonsensical, but I would plead that since it is hard for any of us not to think in images and metaphors, the geological image fits the facts of musical history at any rate better than all this bloodthirsty talk of revolutions and of the march of the avant garde. Imperceptibly almost and unpredictably the level of music, the language of harmony rose higher and higher over the centuries and made it possible for the masters to burrow more and more deeply, disclosing ever deeper layers of the human soul. Moreover we cannot be relativistic about the Grand

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Canyon. We can measure the depth of the Colorado River which flows some 4,500 feet below the South rim. We cannot do quite the same with the profundity of the Sonate für das Hammerklavier, but I am convinced all the same that there is no place for relativism here either. I believe that this profundity is just as objective a fact [. . .]. (20, 4)

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12. Style Gombrich’s preference for artistic mastery over style ties in with the im­ portance he gave to tradition. Great traditions enable artistic mastery; through them, the individual art work takes on significance, as it does with great musical works; they are metaphors from which we take pleasure. And so, the concept of the history of art Gombrich defends is not founded on a succession of stages with their own characteristics, succeeding one another by virtue of some comprehensible norm (Greek, Roman, medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, etc.). Rather it is founded on the continuity of traditions. There is a tradition in Western painting, and in turn it contains a tradition for the theme of the Visi­ tation or the Madonna. There is tradition in portrait; there is even tradition in the format of the picture, in the tondo. Raphael’s Madonna della Sedia does not so much reflect the work of a ‘Renaissance Man’, but a great master working within his tradition – or rather within the traditions in which he stands. Throughout the history of painting the function of the image, the techniques, formats, fashion and tastes have changed, but tradition has remained unbroken.

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Gombrich therefore argues that the theme that meaningfully links different art works in any history consists of a continuity of tradition – a continuity that allows an improvement in the means in order to achieve ends. Art works are based on a diachronic context; they occupy a place in those traditions. This new history of art has to fill the gap left with the disappearance of holistic hypotheses of global unity by tracing the path left by the different traditions. I call this first issue the ‘continuity hypothesis’ and it will occupy an important place in this study. One must also add another, revealing, idea – style as a level of expectation; at heart, Gombrich proposes to replace the naive idea of a period as a single entirety with the notion of ‘what is taken for granted’ in any given period. This fits perfectly with what we have said before. 1. The Classifying Animal The traditional way of doing things in the history of art is to present the different styles as a necessary primary classification. This is the first refuge of the historian and can be of real help, but it entails certain major limitations and risks, which he must be aware of. Gombrich addresses this aspect in all its depth. Classifications, he reminds us, are necessary both in general and scientific knowledge. A scientist has rather to admit that classification is a necessary tool, even though it may be a necessary evil. Provided he never forgets that, like all language, it is a man-made thing which man can also adjust or change, it will serve him quite well in his day-to-day work. Apparently, however, this is more easily said than done. Man is a classifying animal, and he has an incurable propensity to regard the network he has himself imposed on the variety of experience as belonging to the objective world of things. The history of ideas provides any number of illustrations. 290

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For the Chinese all things can be grouped according to the basic opposition of yang and yin, which is also the male and female principle and therefore the active and passive. For the ancient world and those that followed its teaching, the distinctions between hot and cold, moist and dry provided in their combinations the four basic categories sufficient to classify the humours of man, the seasons and the elements. It is quite a humbling exercise to study the success of these crude systems and to ponder its reasons. Obviously, any classification or any signpost in the landscape is welcomed for its help in the mastering of an unstructured reality. We have no right in this respect to feel superior to earlier civilizations. (NF, 82) Firstly, whatever the origin of traditional classification, we have a propensity to think that this classification belongs to the objective world of things. We tend to think that, merely by virtue of being Baroque, a Baroque church must be entirely different to a Gothic church. They differ, of course, but not entirely. The danger is that once we accept the existence of a succession of styles, we may embark on an unhealthy search for specific features that will determine the exact point at which a Gothic church becomes Plateresque. If we allow classification to precede experience, if we place too much trust in it or, indeed, if we forget its origins, it will end up setting a trap for us. Instead of looking first at the art works and noticing the differences between them, we will start with established categories and distribute the objects between them. And when the scholar comes across an object that contradicts the few simple rules for telling whether an object is Gothic or Romanesque, he feels obliged to explain that, although Gothic, it is more Romanesque; that is to say it is Gothic-Romanesque rather than Romanesque-Gothic. We try to see each object in accordance with the 291

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rules. And we succeed, either by stretching the rules or by seeing the object in a deformed fashion. Abuse of the search for the features that are characteristic of a style can easily lead us to believe that style is something perfectly coherent: the characteristic features are necessarily related. And from that conclusion, it is not difficult to reach another which is bolder, but just as widespread. There is such a thing as perfect Gothic; there is an ideal model of a thirteenth-century Gothic cathedral, which differs from that used in the fifteenth century. This is a bit like Viollet-le-Duc’s ideal restorations, which sought to rid so many buildings of impurities of style and anachronistic relationships. Once this point is reached, all art objects become exceptions; variations from the ideal object are a matter which must be explained by the art historian. It is a task which proves attractive because we are accustomed to measuring art works and artists by how ‘revolutionary’ their contribution was. It is tremendously easy to place the objects, for example, on the path to being Gothic or Romanesque: such-and-such is not yet Gothic but tends towards it; this has ceased to be Gothic and has begun to take on an innocent, immature Renaissance air. This approach may contain some truth, but it also exposes a serious risk. One is led to think that the consistent features of the height of the Romanesque gradually lost their consistency to become Gothic, until the height of the Gothic was attained. Classifications require one to think in terms of a full and ideal Romanesque and a mature Gothic; archaic Romanesque and decadent Gothic. Behind it all lies the notion that the Gothic is archaic ‘because’ it is a first step towards the plenitude of the Gothic; in other words, the archaic Gothic is only one step in a necessary process, culminating in the plenitude of the Gothic. The Gothic artisan was not yet sufficiently Gothic, but he strived to be so; his children and grand­ children continued that endeavour until finally achieving his goal. Any perfectly coherent style therefore appears to be predetermined. This is where an excessive faith in classifications can lead. Characteristic features occupy a dominant position; the history of art is viewed as a succession of coherent forms, a few moments of plenitude, of perfection and consistency. And between these lie periods of trans­ition linking the peak moments. From there it is just a small step to seeing the 292

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intermediary periods as periods of formation – archaism – and degeneration – decline. To avoid these pitfalls, one need only keep a flexible mind; to be pre­ pared, if the occasion requires, to usher in a new classification. Classifi­ cation, a necessary evil perhaps, can be seen as an effective instrument, says Gombrich, because we always learn something when we try to apply fresh categories [. . .] Our attention is focused on certain aspects [. . .] that we might otherwise have overlooked, and as long as we also remain critical of our own procedures we will profit from the exercise. (NF, 82) 2. The Individual Human Gombrich’s position on the problem of style is quite unusual. I have already mentioned that he places artistic mastery above any study on style. What matters in art is artistic value; to dwell excessively on artistic language takes the lustre off the specific achievement that should be the object of art history and aesthetic contemplation. A disproportionate interest in speaking in terms of collective organis­ations of race or period – inevitable when discussing a subject like this – ‘weakens resistance to totalitarian habits of mind’ (AI, 20). As Gombrich puts it in the introduction to Art and Illusion, throwing in his hat with Popper’s conviction as to the danger that those trends embodied and continue to embody. Gombrich has said that Hegel is the father of art history and the founder of the history of culture, as they have been passed down to us. Hegelian theses lie at the heart of many of the artistic ideas frequently accepted in our time. Style is, in itself, an invitation to think in terms of generalities, and it is tempting to drift towards thinking of groups. From this irresistible temptation, Hegel managed to tie the different strands of culture together in a single and magnificent process in which periods and civilisations embodying the different states of the Spirit of the World succeeded one another. 293

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One of the most widely held ideas in our theories of art is that each period has a style – and indeed that each style represents a different period. With Hegel, the physiognomic temptation, the propensity to discern expressive features in works of art from a given period, takes on a metaphysical air. And, in a way, this physiognomic fallacy has become the premise for the theory of art, a premise from which the historian must draw consequences. Clearly, history must make use of generalis­ ations. But it is also clear that those generalisations cannot neglect what Gombrich proposed as the first step in the historical analysis of style. ‘The first step in such an analysis would consist of a clearing operation. We must acknowledge that it is individual people, craftsmen, designers, patrons, who are the subject of history, rather than the collectives or nations, ages, or styles [. . .]’ (SO, 209). And progress in any research on the history of culture depends on that first step. ‘I hope and believe cultural history will make progress if it also fixes its attention firmly on the individual human being’ (II, 50). By focusing his attention on the individual human, Gombrich proposes to simply dismantle the Hegelian house of cards. This is why he said he felt that he had become a giant-killer. Gombrich has gone to great lengths to dismantle this construction. He would simply say that there is nothing approaching a ‘spirit of the period’, in which all the manifestations of a single culture during a single period come together. We must sweep any such phantasmagoria from our mental universe: we must strip the collective spirits of their right to exist – spirits, collective entities, to whom are attributed a ‘mind’, a ‘will’, an ‘intention’ (cf. MH, 118). For obviously there is something in the Hegelian intuition that nothing in life is ever isolated, that any event and any creation of a period is connected by a thousand threads with the culture in which it is embedded [. . .] But is the acknowledgement of this link tantamount to a concession that the Hegelian approach is right after all? I do

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not think so. It is one thing to see the interconnectedness of things, another to postulate that all aspects of a culture can be traced back to one key cause of which they are the manifestations. (II, 46) Certainly, Hegelian intuition highlights something undeniable: we believe we see unity behind different aspects of culture. And until an alternative can be found, the Hegelian premise that such unity exists, will always be an option for anyone wishing to study a culture by overlooking the phenomena and trying to mesh them into an explanation. Gombrich knows that if Hegelian theses have any use at all, it is that they clearly demonstrate the existence of a gap; a gap which must be filled with theories that are not simple myths, but theories that allow a certain rational construction to be built on certain starting points and some verification (cf. AI, 20). Popper proposed creating a sociology as a general science that would focus its attention on tradition. Gombrich added that those traditions are styles (cf. AI, 21). And so, although Gombrich’s first step is based on the individual human, he does not neglect the clear relationships linking different cultural facts. Rather, I believe, he affords them their due value. I would be the last to demand that art and cultural history should give up seeking relationships between phenomena and remain content with listing them [. . .] What gave me pause was not the belief that it is hard to establish such relationships but, paradoxically, that it often seems all too easy. (T, 62) We must therefore start by renouncing the omnipresence of the physiognomic fallacy, to try to shake it off and avoid it in the future. There are no spirits of periods. The fact that we tend to see some unity, some character behind different manifestations does not mean that it

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really exists. It does not. And so the approach is inverted. We no longer try to deduce what the Gothic consists of, what the features are in which Gothic silverwork and scholasticism coincide. On the contrary, we start from the precept that scholasticism and silverwork, scholas­ ticism and painting, need not be closely and mysteriously related (cf. II, 47). And so, if any relationship does exist, we shall soon run into it. And if we run into it, we shall be duly amazed and try to find an explanation for it. The study of style does not consist, then, of something overly defined, of finding the common background behind the different systems – at most, it consists of identifying the connections between the different systems. This necessarily follows on from the first point: the free protagonists are individual men and women, and we cannot therefore ascribe them to any given type of process with a necessary purpose. This flies in the face of all the supposed historical laws . . . all except the most elementary ones: that hungry people tend to look for food or something similar. The historian of culture is therefore faced with an enormous task; but his situation is not desperate; he must place his faith in resolving questions – and important ones: ‘I am bound to admit in the end that without confidence our efforts must die of inanition’ (II, 52–3) warned Gombrich, in his work ‘In Search of Cultural History’ (II, 24–59). Elsewhere he explained his reasons: a rejection of Hegel must not lead to scepticism, since ‘I think, with Karl Popper, that [. . .] limited explanations are possible for limited problems’ (100, 28). 3. The Law of Continuity Gombrich has no problem accepting that the study of culture is largely the study of continuities, and it is this sense of continuity [. . .] we hope to impart to our students. We want them to acquire a habit of mind that looks for these continuities not only within the confines of their

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special field, but in all the manifestations of culture that surround them. (II, 59) Naturally this is a fundamental point. And here, I think, one can see an easily recognisable source – Aby Warburg, founder of the Warburg Institute. The continuity of artistic trades is more important than any occasional breakthrough. Indeed, this was commonly accepted until the classical tradition broke down. An insistence on tracing ever more precisely the content of certain categories of style, wound up obscuring this notion. Whereas once it had been taken for granted, ultimately it was refuted – either implicitly or, in the case of Croce, explicitly. Aby Warburg stressed the importance of the continuity of tradition at all times. He made the discovery when he was trying to trace the origins of certain aspects of Renaissance thinking. He devoted his life to repairing the hundred-times-severed thread of the continuity of the classical tradition from the ancient world to the Renaissance. After his death, the Warburg Institute continued with his work and this idea was firmly instilled in all who trained there. ‘His followers’, says Gombrich, ‘found increasingly that dependence on tradition is the rule [. . .] Investigations of these continuities have now largely replaced the older preoccupation with style’ (AI, 24). This was the greatest legacy Gombrich inherited from Warburg. In some domains, particularly in the English-speaking world (whether or not they are related to the Institute) the notion of continuity has come to form a basic principle. Gombrich once remarked that the existence of continuities, after all, can never have been denied by any sane person who ever considered the history of language, of institutions or of beliefs. Even Croce’s denial of the continuity of art only makes sense (and quite a challenging sense) against the background of the continuity of technical means and

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traditions. Emphasis on such continuities happens to be very much in the foreground in historiography at present. My own Story of Art contains the possibly exaggerated statement that there is a direct tradition [. . .] which links the art of our own days [. . .] with the art of the Nile Valley [. . .]. Of course, I am not the only worker in the field who has turned to this problem. Professor Kubler1 whose book The Shape of Time [. . .] goes even further in that direction and the same applies to Professor James S. Ackermann2 who has recently reviewed the problem with masterly conciseness [. . .] André Malraux3 who has so successfully championed the idea that art always grows out of art or to Ernst Robert Curtius4 who has made students of literature familiar with the role of rhetorical topoi in the development of European literature. (40, 266) Gombrich postulates ‘what might be called the law of continuity, the law of traditions which tend to be modified and adjusted to new situ­ ations but maintain their own momentum’ (II, 143). Strictly speaking, continuity is elementary, since ‘there exists a law according to which nothing can come from nothing and all cultural products have precedents’ (II, 135). Art was born out of art, Gombrich reminds us. The artist, his knowledge, the media with which he works, the ends he sets himself, belong to a period. Any artist acts on a pre-existing stage that serves him as a launchpad. He accepts the situation in general, adapting or rejecting certain aspects, although never in their entirety. Art, then, is derivative and for this reason it might be said to have a history: there is a course which can be described and not a mere succession of unconnected phenomena (cf. MH, 34). No more explanation seems

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necessary: artistic traditions are prolonged over time, partially adapting to new situations, and contributing to create them. 4. Social Test Surprisingly, the existence of continuity – a trivial consideration that does not brook contradiction – hides two basic problems that are difficult to resolve. The first is the tenacity of tradition – voluntary or involuntary resistance to change. The second is why and how change occurs. A twentieth-century man will be astonished to hear talk of opposition to change. The physical appearance of our cities has been almost completely transformed in a few short years. And technical development offers new conditions which are changing at ever-greater speed. It is easy to form from ‘our world’, ‘our culture’, ‘our time’ an image of accelerated movement, of rapid change. And yet, hidden behind the cloud of dust raised by new advances, atavistic objects and customs stubbornly resist progress. And I say atavistic because one only has to look at the atavi, the adornments in clothing – one of the aspects that are famously subject to the greatest and most arbitrary change – to discover the presence of things such as buttons, a medieval invention which could easily be advantageously replaced by any of numerous other fastening systems. Worse still are the ‘lapels’ of jackets, the ‘collars’ of shirts, useless hang-overs of lapels which could be folded across and collars that could be raised. And at the same time, the very shape of our clothes – trousers, skirts and shirts – can be traced back to their distant ancestors. In reality, all things do not suddenly change. Some things change and only a very few change completely. Evidently items of a more practical nature undergo a series of additional conditioning factors that limit the possibility of innovation. To some extent a hammer owes its existence to its nails, and the nails to the hammer; the screwdriver to the screw, and the screw to the screwdriver. When an object is more formal in nature – take something no more solemn than a vase – one might think that change would occur more easily, given that practical reasons are less prescriptive than aesthetic ones. Yet change is not always easy. Gombrich briefly says that

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‘the difficulties in the way of a radical innovation are both psychological and social. The number of truly original minds is small and those which exist are apt to be told by the public to stick to established traditions’ (SO, 210). I shall refer below to what Gombrich calls psychological causes, the artist’s capacity. At this juncture, however, it is helpful to examine the sociological causes. After all, even if they are not exactly ‘urns’, we all remember the list of typical Greek vessels and (albeit vaguely) their outlines: the amphora, the krater, the olpe, and so on. They are, certainly, types – in other words, something similar to genres. There are examples of outlandish vessels, but precisely for that reason they are rare. Few people would be capable of imagining them, let alone of selling them. In another part of this book, I referred to Gombrich’s idea that certain innovations take place in some societies which do not become generalised, do not alter the tradition and do not become imbedded in it; they are mere marginal operations. In reality, any public action by a person, expected or unexpected, typified or not, is sifted through the opinions of the other members of society. Any action must face an audience. And the audience, every individual within that audience, seeks to establish their opinions on the firm foundation of authorised opinions. These reference points are shared; anyone belonging to a tradition tacitly accepts them, hence their power as a criterion for evaluation. The fifth section of the ‘The Logic of Vanity Fair’ (II, 81–9) addresses this reaction, which Gombrich called the ‘social test’. Naturally, there are ‘few areas where “social testing” plays a greater part than in aesthetic judgements’ (II, 85). And the reason for this lies precisely in the attitude of faith – shared faith, certainly – that is required to appreciate the great masters, the faith needed to accept the canon of recognised authors. This faith involves a certain suspension of absolute judgement, which is, at the same time, impossible to effect. It is the other side of the coin of artistic mastery. Shared faith makes it easier to follow the opinion of others at a time of uncertainty. And that uncertainty is, at the same time, intrinsic to the means of evaluating I described in my discussion of mastery. This is why according to Gombrich, when we say ‘I like’, we

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mean that ‘I believe that is the kind of thing my group accepts as good’ (II, 86). This may seem surprising, but an attitude like this, says Gombrich, takes advantage of the vast economy of tradition (cf. II, 86). We all hope to see out of the corner of our eye some nod of approval to support our judgement. Gombrich recognises that here it is possible for there to be simple brainwashing (cf. II, 86). And on occasions, judgement is vitiated by the adoption of particular stances, by antagonism or favouritism. I have already mentioned the social compact, the link that unites the spectators to a game. Gombrich warns that that link is reinforced when opposing groups arise. Indeed, radical attitudes are often adopted that do not brook rational argument. One need look no further than the supporters of a team. The social compact can be found in much more serious matters; what is interesting is that, regardless of how trivial or important the object is, it is always defended with great forcefulness. We shall now examine the three main domains in which traditions are perpetuated by virtue of the fact that innovation is simply rejected. Needless to say, Gombrich never mentions them all in the one place, but I think it is nonetheless appropriate to list them here. 5. Ritualisation We must return to the analogy between art and play. In play, the rules are fixed. That is what makes it possible to play. And it also allows the spectators to participate and understand the game and know how to evaluate each move. The weight and size of tennis balls is fixed and so are the dimensions of the court and of the net [. . .] Of course, a good player may take some change in these conventions in his stride; but the idea of ‘improving’ tennis by giving his balls more bounce of his racket a boosting device would strike him as silly. (II, 80)

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I have already discussed this aspect; refinement requires stability. Now we are interested in the effect from the other point of view: refined people provoke stability, they avoid change with a passion. Players and connoisseurs would oppose it. The long path they have to travel before they can appreciate the subtle nuances and the enjoyment they gain from that appreciation are reason enough to abhor any slight change that would confound their knowledge. Gombrich alludes to this resistance on a number of occasions; it occurs in all human activities that have some resemblance to play and art (cf. AI, 23); as happens with language (cf. II, 77). This factor might to some extent be seen as having an aura of religiosity, closely related to the social compact. Members of a cult resist losing the ‘rites’ that unite them and set them apart from the rest of society. A second reason for the stability can be found in spheres of society in which the archaic is sought after or preferred to any unnecessary tech­ nological advantage. These are activities that need to be cloaked in a special solemnity, marking a distinction between them and other less formal occasions. The key word here is ‘formality’. ‘The more “formal” the occasion, the more emphasis is laid on the preservation of forms, both in the institutional and in the visual meaning of the term’ (SO, 229). Those occasions deliberately tend towards archaism by using obsolete gestures, words and objects whose use confers a singular relevance on people and moments that would be lacking if those formalities were still commonplace. The ceremony of Knighting is still performed by the Queen with the technologically obsolete sword, not with the butt of an automatic rifle. Candles are still lit in church, and cumbersome seals are still appended to important documents, though one could think of many means of achieving their purpose more easily and more lastingly. (II, 78) A technological innovation would make no sense. However the survival of formulas in these spheres is the consequence of a peculiar trend.

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Gombrich borrows Konrad Lorenz’s notion of ‘ritualisation processes’, ‘the change of function from practical usefulness to display’ (SO, 227). The sword held by the queen is probably extremely elaborately decorated. ‘The sign’, says Gombrich, ‘must above all be conspicuous and memorable [. . .]’ (ibid.). Thus the gesture, the word or the thing has a multiple function; it not only satisfies a practical need like the hammer and the nails, it also meets needs that are more difficult to explain but that are real and very varied. There are, however, other spheres that are even more resistant to change. These are the religious domains, particularly in archaic civilisations. What we call ‘art’ in primitive societies is obviously so deeply embedded in the ritual and life of the community that its multiple purpose makes change very precarious. Painting and carving for instance may have a magic or religious as well as a decorative and prestige function. (II, 79) In these societies, it would make no sense to try to ‘improve’ art by experimenting with better ‘solutions’. The very antiquity of the preserved forms is seen as a guarantor of their value and effectiveness. ‘The very idea of wanting to test the power of these artistic enterprises would be blasphemous. In rites, chants or the construction of amulets and spells you follow precedent in the confidence that they will work their magic’ (IE, 217). The three domains mentioned – the connoisseurs of an art, formalist activities and magical rites – undoubtedly share in a powerful social compact, to the point that people who experience them are extremely reluctant to accept any change in the rules. 6. Force of Habit As I have already said, Gombrich’s idea of the social test addresses those three domains where all change is immediately rejected, or at least deferred, to become a spontaneous and sterile mutation, incapable of

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generating a new tradition. However, outside those domains one can also find a certain natural resistance. Resistance to change, and in particular to the sudden and unexpected, is rooted in an elementary human need to conserve a stable and understandable framework of life in our surroundings. A person becomes accustomed to whatever they have around them, developing routines for their most common operations, and concentrating their attention and energy on new problems. Humans are creatures of habit; we accustom ourselves, we create habits. Habits are also formed in social and cultural aspects; and habits are both the cause and the result of a continuity of traditions. At this level we also need to compose around ourselves a persistent order in which we can develop; it is a requirement of our sense of order. And at the same time, wherever the circumstances are maintained, habits are created, in other words, many things can be taken for granted. Gombrich studies human habits and their inf luence on art in Chapter VII of The Sense of Order which bears the expressive title ‘The Force of Habit’ (SO, 171–94). In principle, Gombrich appears to be referring to perceptive habits: we see known things with greater ease; we rapidly analyse the objects we know well. Gombrich even interprets the known psychological phenomenon of projection in this regard: once the fundamental features have been identified, we take everything else for granted (cf. SO, 171); once we have captured certain minimal references to an object, our mental apparatus reconstructs it without needing to pay any further attention. Habits form part of the economy of attention and decision – intention – that is so indispensable in human life. They free us from having to pay heed to known things, and to decide on a course of action when faced with habitual situations. Taking things for granted helps us to concentrate our attention on the irregularities that arise in our surroundings, non-habitual irregularities which we need to study and which require a new decision. It is the image of the juggler: when he has learned to master keeping three balls in the air, he adds a fourth. Evidently, any innovation shows up as a potential threat to our ordered and tamed environment, and is immediately detected as a disruption

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to the established order. It is therefore possible to act urgently. Ordinarily we live in a stable world. And we immediately try to adapt the new to the old. Here one can understand Gombrich’s mention of the existence of the ‘mimicry’, i.e. of those objects that are located half-way between ancient custom and new invention. A good example can be seen in the first trains, which consisted simply of linked-up horse carriages. It was an arrangement that proved easy for the designer to devise and for the public to accept. This device then, is not only the easiest solution presenting itself to the designer, it is the way in which the new invention stealthily becomes part of the familiar and shared world of habitual items (cf. SO, 174). Gombrich devotes a section of The Sense of Order to this issue, which he calls ‘Mimicry and Metaphor’, because in essence, mimicry works on our imagination as a metaphor, adapting the

Figure 12.1  Pillars of the cross vault of the Cathedral of Burgos, Spain. Collection: Joaquín Lorda.

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unexpected and untested new to the known. Language offers endless examples of this constant adaptation. The horse-drawn ‘carriage’ still lives on in the railway ‘carriage’. And this mimicry can also be found in art. To a certain extent, the most monumental example of mimicry ever conceived is in Spanish architecture, specifically in the cathedral in Burgos. Following the collapse of the finest Gothic lantern in Spain, the four pillars of the cross vault, which bear the main arches, had to be reinforced. Juan de Vallejo was bold and astute enough to turn the clustered thirteenth-century pillars into a single classical column of the same size, whose capital, somewhat squat since it was the same height as the Gothic capitals of the nave, follows the Corinthian models in vogue in the Spanish Renaissance; the shafts are striated, although there is cable moulding in the lower third. And so a Gothic jewel rests on four gigantic classical columns, so well disguised, that they are rarely remarked upon. ~ Imitation and metaphor are testimony to the need to adapt the old to the new. The inertia of things, or more precisely, of the appearance of things, reflects a deeply-felt need (cf. SO, 174). And on occasions, the persistence of the image rests on even more basic strata which are awoken by artistic discoveries. 7. Dependency There are, in effect, certain artistic configurations, motifs, arrangements and formulae that are especially well-fitted to survive. As an example, Gombrich offers the marvellous story of the lotus flower, as told by Alois Riegl in his Stilfragen (Berlin 1893), Problems of Style5 (cf. SO, 180ff.). The series of designs shows how the lotus flower has been transfigured throughout history, from the austere Egyptian motifs to the highly elegant ferules and anthemions of the frieze in Erechtheion; its trace lives on in the innumerable pointed leaves of Byzantine reliefs, and even further, in the elegant variants of the Persian mandorlas. It is an admirable example of continuity of tradition and a

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demonstration of the peculiar properties of certain forms. The motif is adapted to new arrangements and undergoes partial transformations, but it remains essentially the same. Certainly, Gombrich adds, some of the transformations may also be due to a ‘convergence’ of motifs: that is to say, substitutions of certain motifs for others that fulfil similar functions. It is also possible that the lotus is not exactly the Greek anthemion; but the layout is similar. Precisely this fact highlights the existence of certain perceptual habits: the anthemion and the lotus ‘function’ in the same way. Gombrich even argues that they are ‘habit-forming’ shapes, just like addictive drugs. The acanthus, the last in the series, is one of those forms. The layout of the acanthus is hinted at in the arrangement of the palm tree and the lotus. Its singular success is due to the fact that it satisfies certain perceptual demands. Acanthuses are radiant motifs, i.e. indicators of direction. At the same time, they invoke life, movement, freshness and lushness and they are astonishingly adaptable. They fulfil several perceptual aspirations and for this reason they ‘fit’ in our mental apparatus creating a kind of addiction. The acanthus is a discovery that has emerged from a long sequence of trials and tests (cf. SO, 191–3). The capacity of certain forms to create habits, makes them a permanent achievement: the form survives because of its psychological effectiveness. One might argue that many elements from the great traditions possess that capacity to arouse or infer perceptual habits. It is a thesis that is both attractive and daring: ‘there are formal motifs which are not only inventions but also discoveries. By this I mean that they are found to fit certain psychological dispositions which had not been satisfied before’ (SO, 191). It might well be that the acanthus owes its success to its flexibility in combining with any number of different motifs and in adapting to any configuration, while at the same time creating a sense of movement and flexibility. Above all it alludes to something pleasant, vegetation, which is also one of the primary forms of decoration: adorning with garlands. If this is so, then the motif ’s survival is amply justified.

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8. Level of Expectation For whatever reason, the fact that at a given point in time, the members of a society possess perceptual habits with regard to ordinary objects used in that society, justifies examining style from a new perspective. This is, I believe, one of Gombrich’s discoveries. ‘Style’, he says, ‘has this in common with language or other means of expression, that it determines the level of our expectations and thereby also our response to deviations from the norm’ (II, 160). And in Art and Illusion he states that ‘the experience of art is not exempt from this general rule. A style, like a culture or climate of opinion, sets up a horizon of expectation, a mental set, which registers deviations and modifications with exaggerated sensitivity’ (AI, 60). The style of a period might then be interpreted as a level of expec­ tation, or more precisely as a ‘horizon of expectation’, an expression Gombrich borrows from Karl Popper (cf. AI, 60). Naturally, that horizon of expectation is no more than an expression of the sense of order (cf. SO, 300). In our habitual world, we have created habits that tell us what we can expect from others, from their attitudes, gestures and objects, in certain given circumstances. We know which things meet our expectations and which others require us to change our stance when our prediction of them has been shown to be erroneous. We also know which are simply out of place, the result of someone’s neglect, a sick mind or a freak of nature – in short, something strange. It is unusual to meet Father Christmas on the stairway of our apartment block, and it will always come as a surprise. If Christmas is approaching, we will presume that this is some commercial gimmick by some store or an overindulgent parent. If it is neither of these, then it is better to escape as quickly as possible. Our habitual world only tends to present us with small surprises, and in general we have the feeling that everything is quite regular. When we consider style as a unity in which everything is related, perhaps this is what we are referring to. One immediately understands that the feeling of unity or regularity experienced when faced with the different manifestations lies in the fact that all of them can be expected

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by a contemporary spectator. But what one might expect at a given point in time does not necessarily have anything to do with formal consistency; in other words, with the existence of some form of ‘physical’ or ‘spiritual’ resemblance. One can expect certain kinds of music, rites, garments and decorations in a Byzantine ceremony and feel that everything is in order, that there is nothing out of place. Yet that does not mean that there is a relationship between the appearance of those objects. They are simply what can be expected in those circumstances; the expectations we have for each of the objects in our context. Perhaps, after all, there may be a relationship between the scholastic treatises and the clothes worn by their authors and the chairs on which they sat and the handwriting with which they wrote. Those ideas and seats and clothes and handwriting were simply what was to be expected at such a time and in such a situation. If they were not, there was some good reason for the ‘incongruity’. Because congruity does not necessary or habitually occur in objects; handwriting can resemble chairs; chairs have scarcely any resemblance to clothes; and clothes have nothing to do with ideas. From none of these objects could we determine the character of a ‘Gothic man’. ‘Congruity’ occurs in ‘what is taken for granted’. In other words, a monk from the monastery which saw his mitred abbot leaning over his desk would presumably find his ideas, his clothes, the design of the seat and his calligraphy reasonable – that is to say congruent. The congruity is all in the monk’s head, not in the things themselves. The notion of style which Gombrich defends – that which is taken for granted – allows the tailor to reasonably make suitable clothes for the abbot, and the carpenter to make the chair, and the monk to tell whether the abbot is engrossed in some profound treatise or merely distracted; whether he is a saint, a sage, a pedant, a fool, a heretic or a lunatic (or indeed, a brilliant artist). As I said earlier, Gombrich’s notion of style is quite peculiar, and extraordinarily interesting. And studying style is like trying to take the place of the monk looking over the abbot’s shoulder at what he is writing, trying, like him, to guess whether it is some marvellous intuition in clumsy handwriting, or some vulgarity in beautiful letters. However I shall discuss how we go about that elsewhere.

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Figure 12.2  Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, Philip II, c. 1590. Patrimonio Nacional, Spain. Copyright © Patrimonio Nacional.

It is both wonderful and at the same time disturbing that ‘what may be expected’ is something which is, to a greater or lesser extent, shared. Any reasonable person from the period would find the image of King Philip II in a turban disconcerting. This is a safer assertion than to say that the cap he normally used necessarily bore some relationship with other objects from his surroundings, even though one portrait by Pantoja de la Cruz features a column that bears an undeniable resemblance to it. What is taken for granted is not identified with some common thought, some way of thinking. It is a question of habit, not of opinion. In an interview, Peter Burke asked Gombrich his opinion on the need for a history of mentalities and the possibility of using quantitative methods to gauge how far they extend. Gombrich answered that if mentality were something that could be described, perhaps it would make sense to work like this. But he added:

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I couldn’t really describe the mentality of the people in the street in which I live: this seems to me a very elusive thing [. . .] I have a certain feel for the difference between the atmosphere of the Vienna in which I grew up and the atmosphere of the London in which I live, but when it comes to describing this feel [. . .] I find I’m rather at a loss [. . .] It is a very difficult thing to pin down this atmosphere. These are features one takes for granted. They are part of the background. (35, 882) A shared background, the things that are taken for granted, clearly form a horizon of expectation. On occasions, the horizon of expectation takes on a certain moral character; this is what is known as the ‘sense of decorum’ (cf. SO, 17ff. and 228ff.). Decorum is no more than a sensitivity for what it is suitable to do or say in a given situation; and more importantly, for what is not appropriate, for what is off-key or out of place. It is a moral sensitivity, in other words, one that affects customs rather than the facts and sayings that are exclusively linked to a practical purpose – or to put it more clearly, a technical purpose. A sense of decorum affects all occasions on which a formal treatment is required. However, the question that arises here is whether there is any occasion that does not require some formal treatment. 9. Imprinting The sense of decorum is unquestionably related to what Gombrich calls ‘social testing’, which I have already explained: ‘we soon learn to feel how our actions or utterances are “taken” by those around us’ (II, 85). It is hardly surprising that this peer pressure is so strong among young people. A child has nothing else to grasp onto in forming his taste than the prevailing taste of his surroundings: ‘The adolescent soon learns that the group can be a dreadful spoilsport if he confesses to liking something that has fallen under a taboo’ (ibid.).

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However, in the case of children, who are being assimilated into their culture, other important forces gradually come into play. Gombrich has referred to these on several occasions. The child becomes part of his culture, of the set of common values and ideas by the mere fact of learning a language, since ‘in language, as many linguists have shown, are embodied a very great number of concepts and notions which we take for granted’ (108, 248). And, as I have explained, as the child grows, he will test out the opinions of the people around him, or rather, he will adjust his beliefs and acts to those of others through the procedure of acting as he sees fit and waiting to see what effect it has. It is, in short, another example of trial and error. And so, the child builds his own horizon of expectation. Yet there is something even more basic in that horizon. Gombrich has sometimes spoken of what is called ‘imprinting’, a property much discussed by ethologists (cf. T, 195; 51, 200). Imprinting affects younger animals: the first period of life leaves an indelible mark on them onto which their subsequent experience is expressed. During this period, they can form patterns of behaviour that will endure throughout its life; when the animal has passed that age, its behaviour become less elastic, it loses the capacity to re-habituate itself. Gombrich compares this property to the capacity of learning to be found in human infancy, where habits are also created that will doggedly persist throughout the individual’s life. Tastes, too, are formed at this time. And so, Gombrich remarks, he would not be surprised that the first aesthetic effects that we experience during early life determined our reaction in the following years, and this could explain the power of local traditions in art (cf. II, 160–1). Gombrich himself recognises that he has a special affection and a deep-rooted sensitivity for all things Viennese and for the Viennese Baroque, which he acquired in his early childhood (cf. RH, 202–3; SO, vii). Indeed, this sensitivity even prevents him from appreciating the degree of ornamentation sometimes found in the English Baroque, which is undoubtedly much more austere (cf. II, 161). That sensitivity for things to which one has become habituated as a child is also manifested in language, as Gombrich has seen for himself.

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I would say that there is an element which is something almost parallel to what ethologists call imprinting, only almost. What I mean is that in formative years we learn our categories and we stick to them to such an extent that, as you notice from the way I speak, you can never learn another accent of language once you have learned your own language. (57, 21) Thus far, I have examined Gombrich’s ideas on the existence of the perceptual habits that allow style to be defined as a level of expectation. Style, in this regard, is shared by the people in a society. A sense of decorum adds a certain moral pressure, it is exercised as a social test. And the new members who grow up in that society are encouraged to form certain perceptual habits. In turn the habits acquired in childhood are particularly strong, hence the difficulty of learning a new language. And hence, too, the difficulty of acquiring the necessary taste to appreciate a new art, a difficulty which is especially apparent in older people. It is difficult for people who are accustomed to certain forms, for which they have acquired a certain degree of refinement, easily to adapt to entirely different formal languages. The more [. . .] someone is steeped in a tradition, the harder it may be for him to learn a new idiom. He may understand it intellectually, but that’s not the same thing as responding to it. Style conditions us very, very much. It conditions us even in the way in which we judge deviations from a particular thing. Fashion makes this very clear [. . .]. (57, 21) Style enormously conditions our response to art, and makes us extremely sensitive to any deviation. For Gombrich, style is in reality that same

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sensitivity, that series of things which are taken for granted in a given time and place. It is important to stress that what is taken for granted is not something very precise, as can easily be seen, but nor is it entirely undetermined. We can share certain things to a greater or lesser extent, but, even if they are not describable, they are not ambiguous; there exists a range of variation within which we recognise the habitual appearance of things. 10. Sense of Form And now, we should say something about formal consistency. Like it or not, there exists a certain similarity between some things from a given time and place. Gombrich’s eagerness to avoid the supposed spirits of the epoch, omnipresent principles, means that his oeuvre contains hardly any texts discussing the theme of formal consistency in positive terms. Nonetheless, a careful reading shows that he considers the issue to be important. The clearest example, I believe, is once more to be found in The Sense of Order, although I shall also refer to other important writings. Any study of Gombrich’s ideas on this subject must be based on the premise that there are no formulae – nor should there be – that can be extended to every manifestation from a given period. Gombrich is highly conscious that there is no unified principle and he commonly sets out to denounce this notion. And to this end he has drawn on the invaluable aid of the philosophy of science. ‘The logical claims of cultural holism have been subjected to dissection and refutation in K. R. Popper’s The Poverty of Historicism.6 There is no necessary connection between any one aspect of a group’s activities and any other’ (105, 358). Let us now analyse Gombrich’s reasons when he says that, assuming that we tend to venture a physiognomy that will make sense of multiple different manifestations, assuming that we acquire a special sensitivity for detecting when it breaks with our habitual world, there are also evident relations between different aspects of a culture and between different objects that belong to it. It is only that those relations do not obey omnipresent or necessary laws, nor do they extend to all manifestations nor to all objects, but to some more than others.

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This is what Gombrich calls ‘Panofsky’s first problem’7 (cf. SO, 199). Gombrich’s analysis on formal consistency can be found in The Sense of Order, Chapter VIII, ‘The Psychology of Styles’ (SO, 195–216). He sets out the thinking of leading authors on style, using the literary fiction of alluding to a sceptic’s misgivings on those theories. Among others, he discusses the ideas of Alois Riegl, Viollet-le-Duc, Heinrich Wölfflin, Henri Focillon and John Ruskin. Gombrich tries to offer a pluralist approach, although he acknowledges that his own contribution does not seek to be original (cf. SO, 209). In 1968, he devoted a section of his article on ‘Style’ (105) to ‘Stylistic Physiognomics’ which contains only criticisms of opinions he considers erroneous. Another section of the same article, entitled ‘Morphology and Connoisseurship’ is, although short, relevant to the subject under discussion here. An older and more summarised exposition of theories on style can be found in ‘Kunstwissenschaft’ (68). Finally in 1972, Gombrich reviewed a book by Mario Praz, entitled Mnemosyne: The Parallel between Literature and the Visual Arts8 (94) where he once again confronted ‘Panofsky’s first problem’. I believe that in order to approach the problem it is crucial once again to take up the theme of style – style as a level of expectation, i.e. as a network of shared assumptions on the actions of people, and their things. I mentioned this issue in the chapter on mastery, when I also referred to genres, those bodies of convention that have been established in different orders of life and particularly in artistic traditions. In that context, I discussed the ideas Gombrich has drawn from Charles Osgood, which explained how an artistic activity (music or any other) can become an expressive organum that makes it possible to allude to human sentiments. It is important to remember that our sense of order, which is based on our perceptual habits – and beyond them, in perfect continuity, on genres of art – is capable of detecting any deviation in one direction or another. Osgood’s discoveries also enable Gombrich to address ‘Panofsky’s first problem’ at a more general level. What relationship can there be between aspects of culture as far removed from one another as painting and literature? It is precisely this relationship that Wölfflin places at the centre of his theory and which he calls Formgefühl,9 ‘sense of form’. Gombrich

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says he disagrees with Wölfflin’s explanation of that sensation, based on empathy. However, he adds that it would be possible to test out an explanation in psychological terms, if there really existed certain identical, global objectives, among artists or works from the two arts (cf. SO, 215). And that possibility does exist. There may be effects that achieve a great prestige and which it is worth achieving at any cost – for example, maximum seriousness or cleanliness, or lightness, or delicacy, or passion, or strength, or magnificence, or so many other things. An artist who creates an object from a given genre is capable of giving it a touch that suggests those qualities. And here, Osgood’s ideas make matters easier. The artist is capable of giving ‘tone’ because there exists a yardstick, provided by genre, against which his work can be measured. We know what a passionate piece of music, a passionate story and a passionate painting are, because we measure them within the possibilities established in their genre and time, and we can understand that similar deviations can arise in different genres. It is true that the music that a classical Greek would consider delicate would not be classified as such twenty centuries later. It is not only a question of form, but of levels of expectation that are, to a greater or lesser extent, generalised. Yet we can be sure that many educated eighteenth-century French people would be surprised by the austerity of the Petit Trianon in Versailles. An artist who saw the Petit Trianon could intuit what the next season had in store – in other words, to what extent Gabriel was deviating from the habitual, what he was aiming at. And such austerity could also become fashionable in contemporary music; it did and the aficionados noticed it. However, the relationship between music and architecture is only perceived by those who have assimilated the possibilities of choice available to the architect and musician. Gombrich accepted the existence of a sense of form, except that that sense referred not so much to specific forms as to relations. And therefore analysing the sense of form should not be the task of ‘formal analysis’, which cannot address all the levels of reference: there can be no analysis of the psychological response to forms. Gabriel’s Petit Trianon (1762–8) is not built with austere forms as such. A twentieth-century rationalist would find much that could be omitted; indeed, the whole

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thing would have to be omitted given that in the twentieth century it makes no sense for frivolous princesses to erect majestic garden pavilions for their recreation. And what would a purely formal analysis of the Petit Trianon come up with? What could a person who was not familiar with the French Baroque understand? Very little. And the same is true of Gluck’s opera Orpheus and Eurydice, which is contemporary with it. And yet, although one should not exaggerate, there are some aspects on which Gluck and Gabriel coincide: their restraint in the use of the media, a relationship that is built on other relationships. As I have already mentioned, Gombrich recognises that there are generalised ends in art and it is even common for an artist to adapt his own objective to the end provided by the situation (cf. SO, 145; AI, 64). It is not surprising that they are heralded as being characteristic general objectives. In reality, one needs look no further than the area of fashion to see that these characteristics often invade very far removed fields. As Gombrich remarks, fashion commentators know what they mean when they announce that the coming collection will have a feminine touch or an accent on severity. What is relevant to our quest in these loose global descriptions is that they characterize certain effects to be aimed at by whatever means. The unitary aim may influence the choice of colour schemes, of textures or of cuts – there is no demonstrable link between these various decisions except their desired end effect. (SO, 215) At one extreme, it is possible for simple negations to become fashionable, as ends in themselves – non-ornament, non-colour, etc. These are what Gombrich calls negative rules, which I have referred to elsewhere. Such rules also operate at the level of expectation, although they are not images nor can they be translated into images.

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And, ultimately, the underlying sense of form is applied to fashion in different areas with a much more arbitrary relationship: this was the case, for example, with the Japonism of the late nineteenth century. ‘Japanese’ fashions in china or in painting need not have any formal consistency; they simply have a common origin, based on the standing of the Japanese arts (cf. AI, 21). The same could be said of the Renaissance; Spanish Renaissance literature and Renaissance architecture ‘resemble’ one another in that both take Italian arts as their model. So far, I have described Gombrich’s ideas on style as ‘level of expectations’ and style as sense of form. Needless to say, such a sense need not cover all aspects and need not do so entirely. I would now like to introduce Gombrich’s ideas on formal consistency, strictu sensu. The question of formal consistency contains two very different but interrelated aspects. The first is the vague idea that the different forms that make up the set of a given style form a consistent ‘whole’. The simplest way to explain this feeling is once more by reference to architecture. There is a certain relationship between the Tuscan column and its entablature, between it and the Solomonic, between the ribbed pediments or broken S’s of the Rococo rocaille and the meshes. In other words, one could claim that there is a close relationship between the elements – or lack of elements – that make up what we call the resources of a style. The second aspect has to do to the relationship between a Rococo chair and a Rococo console and a Rococo boisserie and a decoration in the Rococo style. A room decorated in a Rococo style might be said to show a certain consistency: different objects belong to a style because they bear some resemblance to each other: they use the same resources. This is what is sometimes called – by Gombrich among others – ‘family of forms’ (cf. SO, 216); the objects they contain bear a ‘familial’ resemblance to other objects, and the expression ‘family’ is quite a good guideline. Over time, certain artistic traditions have drawn on resources from other traditions. This is evident; there are common features in furniture and architecture, jewellery and ceramics. One need only mention the term Gothic for a parade of images to appear in our heads all bearing some familial resemblance: buildings, glasses and paintings, suits and calligraphy.

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11. The Resources of Style The problem of formal consistency can be traced back to the study of the resources of style. On the one hand, the resources are interrelated; on the other, the objects that use those resources, resemble one another. Gombrich has little interest in listing the distinctive features by which the ‘style’ of a work can be identified. In his Story of Art, he avoids explanations of this type, even though the book was written for a readership with very little artistic education. This is not chance; it is a consciously-taken position. In a commentary on classical architecture which he used as an example of the value of habit, Gombrich mentions that in the nineteenth century, emphasis centred on the distinctive features allowing for easy classification, the round arch, the pointed arch, methods of vaulting and forms of tracery. It may be argued, however, that these necessary classifications somewhat obscured that unity of tradition which is more relevant to my present context. (SO, 177) He may have been referring to a particular context, but it matches Gombrich’s desire to highlight every circumstance and particularly that continuity, which disfigure the histories of artistic styles. At the same time, that style is something more than a collection of easily listed features. On one occasion, when discussing nineteenth-­ century restorations, Gombrich said that the difficulties faced by the architects ‘drew attention to the fact that there is more to style than a mere repertory of forms. The Gothic churches of the Victorian age stubbornly refuse to look mediaeval’ (SO, 198–9). And I have already given one reason for this: there is a sense to form which cannot be reduced to distinctive features even if in some cases it is an easy quality to appreciate. In effect, neo-Gothic ‘versions’ (let alone neo-Romanesque ones)

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do not fool anyone; many of them have been copied from books of models, bays and copings, mouldings and decoration. In styles there are conventions, certainly, and they can affect specific features; it is assumed that when we study them, we notice what artists of previous eras have noticed, but one would have to add ‘regular occurrence of certain clusters of features and in the exclusion of certain elements’ (105, 360) – in short, something that works against our expectations and which presents things as being very likely, doubtful, extremely rare or impossible; a complex set of probabilities, which artists learn to employ from within. This sensitivity adds something more to the sense of form I referred to above. It is not so much a general sensation, but a set of formal resources appropriately combined, which are recognised as ‘apt’ by their contemporaries and, therefore, applied to different objects. Yet those resources are not only forms, but also absences of forms, repetition of forms, suggestions of forms, deformation of forms, symbolic forms; in short, something that is devilishly difficult to describe. The only aids to elucidating Gombrich’s ideas on the matter to be found in The Sense of Order are the following: 1.– There are arrangements and patterns that match biological predispositions (cf. SO, 191, 259). I said before that Gombrich believes that the acanthus leaf is one of these.10 Evidently the lotus, or even – I would add – the column, come close to those arrangements. The column admirably fulfils its role of sustaining and expressing the fact that that it is sustaining; it is a monumental role, that is to say, it is proper for a formal occasion, like an ordinary pillar dressed in a dinner jacket. The classical column, a cylinder, with a base of superimposed horizontal rings, a bell-shaped capital with plant decorations and fluted vertical shafts is extraordinarily apt; and one can understand its success. We can understand why the facade of a monumental building is given a monumental portico, supports and lintels. We can understand why the supports take the form of a classical column, and the lintel takes the form of the entablature with its many horizontal lines and its frieze of rhythmic figures. It is a formula that fits very well; in itself, it conveys a sensation of gravity and composure, of order, in other words, what

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Figure 12.3 Joaquín Lorda, Lordly column and vulgar pole, ink on paper, 1996. Collection: Joaquín Lorda.

might be expected of a monumental ‘building’. This explains why different civilisations have arrived at similar arrangements. They are very effective resources; they are efficient formulas. The formulas or resources, once discovered – take the acanthus, for example – become available to the artist, who can repeat them to achieve the desired effect over and over again. 2.– The value of many other patterns and arrangements is the fruit of habit, although it would perhaps be inappropriate to make a categorical separation between these and the previous ones; ultimately, specific formulas, even if they may fit within biological arrangements, are the fruit of tradition, modified and enriched by the contributions of artists. The same column adds a long tradition to which we can reference it; one barley-sugar column alludes to another straight one because we know that it is the normal form; and we see it as both a column and as

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twisted. Moreover, it can be charged with meaning. The Solomonic columns in the ciborium of St Peter’s in the Vatican allude not only to the ordinary column, which in turn refers back to the splendour of Rome which it took from the Greek tradition; they also add an ostentatious twisting, reminiscent of the venerated columns of the ancient sepulchre.11 And to all that heritage charged in the column, the aforementioned effects are added. Thus, a single motif such as the column alludes to an infinite number of levels of expectation and satisfies undetermined demands. And naturally, the motif can be introduced into an elaborate pattern, multiplying its effects. 3.– The conventions, innumerable or not, are in some way limited, they are selected (cf. SO, 290). This selectivity is of the greatest importance. Gombrich says: any language employs a strictly finite set of phonemes, words and grammatical forms, while the designer has unlimited scope in the choice of lines, shapes and colours. But we have also seen that historically this freedom is limited by the conventions of styles, in the choice of motifs and their use in decoration. (SO, 295) And I have already discussed the reasons for this: lack of originality in the artist, and the sensitivity of a public who would reject any radical arrangement (cf. SO, 191). Limitation allows familiarity and exploration of the last possibilities of those resources, it allows refinement, but, above all, it allows learning. This is what happens with language; the possibilities it offers are unlimited, but its resources are limited; this is why it can be learned.

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12. Imitation and Assimilation We can now tackle the first question: what relationship is there between the resources of a single style, between chiaroscuro and the undulating curves of the Baroque, between the twisted balustrades and the columns and the treatment of light? Clearly, apt and limited resources, can again share a consistency that is based on our habits. We become conditioned to certain combinations or ‘chunks’, we learn what goes with what and to expect a frame for a picture, a border for a rug and margin for a text. Thus architectural elements in particular have their expected terminations in the shape of bases or crowning devices. (SO, 295) That being so, the consistency between the members of a family is simply the result of the fact that we are used to seeing them united – it is the result of our habits. To use one of Gombrich’s examples, a rocaille does not ‘fit’ in an Egyptian temple (cf. SO, 203). However there is – there can be – something else. There can exist between the elements that same sense of form, which Wölfflin accepted, presiding over the whole style. Clearly, an austere treatment for the column leads one to expect the same of other elements. A Doric entablature is more vigorous than an Ionic one ‘because’ the Doric column is stronger than the Ionic. We can add little else for the time being.12 Nonetheless, with Gombrich’s ideas, we can interrogate the second question in greater depth. Why can a chair resemble a Rococo table? The answer is clear. Not only have we created a habit which relates the two; not only do they share in the same tendency. In this case, they use the same resources; they make use of the same forms or ‘means of doing’. And it is not difficult to understand why. If an architectural pediment constitutes a success because it satisfies a perceptual demand, it should not be surprising that the forms used as pediment ornaments

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in architecture – balls, pyramids, pinnacles, fleurons, cressets, pear shapes and obelisks – should be transferred to other arts. What was initially a pediment in a building ends up being an item of furniture or an item on a dressing table. Wherever a pediment ornament is required, there are optimal resources, whether they be balls for detaining and concentrating the upward movement or pyramids to continue and reinforce it. And so, buildings have urns, chairs’ posts have ball finials and urns have pommels (cf. SO, 179). Except that there is no need for all pediments to be made in this way. This is a difficult problem to define. However, we can at least identify three issues. Sometimes, we notice that some objects resemble others. Sometimes, we would like some objects to resemble others. Sometimes, we are capable of making objects that resemble others. I once posed this problem to Gombrich using an example I thought was original: let us suppose, I said in my letter, that various artists wanted between them to create a new type face. The first would have to take account of the customer’s requirements. He would draw on a long tradition to determine the boundaries within which he could operate. And so he would design the first letter, the ‘A’. The second artist would be in a more favourable position. He would know in what way the previous designer’s ‘A’ diverged from more conventional letter sets. He would only have to apply this same divergence to his ‘B’. Obviously, there is an indefinite number of ‘Bs’ which would match that first ‘A’. The second designer, then, is guided but not ­confined. And so, as the alphabet progressed, successive artists would encounter more and more limitations. Once the letters ‘A, B, C, D, E and F’ had been designed, it would be easy to find a solution for nearly all the remaining letters. A way would already have been defined for squaring off the isolated foot or head with vertical and curved convex lines, etc. No one would have any doubts as to how to make the ‘I’; and the ‘M’ could draw on the ‘F’ and the ‘A’. It might also happen that the artists added increasingly delicate resources, and a subsequent designer would find a restricted but extraordinarily sensitive medium. With all of this, it would be possible to create an alphabet. Only that

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there is apparently no reason to continue the game and any letter could destroy the unity. Gombrich’s answer was much as I had expected: I liked your example of the letters of the alphabet, but even here a ‘break’ in coherence can be introduced for a particular intended effect of emphasis. Naturally it is easier to read a coherent series of letters, like the one I am trying to type, bUT YoU coULd alsO reAd tHiS and worse. You might do this for demsonstrarion [sic] as I did, in which case it is not wholly incoherent, less so, at least, than a simple misprint! In many arts deviations from expectation play a part, but the doctrine tends to demand that the break is ‘prepared’, it can be so fully prepared that it fails to be noticed, these are largely perceptual problems. (London, 2 August 1987) In effect, the problem is extremely difficult to resolve in all its aspects, because, as one can see from the paragraphs above, it is difficult even to explain clearly. One can make some headway if, as I have endeavoured to do thus far, one starts from the basis that there is no omnipresent unity; rather some objects simply resemble others. Or to put it more exactly: we notice that some objects resemble others, we want some objects to resemble others, we make objects that resemble others. In his Sense of Order Gombrich gave an example of the reason why we often want to surround ourselves with things of the ‘same style’. A caricature by Steinberg shows a lectern with a severely-linear pseudo-­ Mondrian painting. The painter has signed it in one corner with a dramatic flourish in Baroque handwriting. The humour is subdued, but nonetheless eloquent and witty. Gombrich remarks:

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The clash between the two systems of form brings it home to us that a severe style of design demands an equally spare type of signature. The design and the sign are expected to draw on the same repertory of forms and if they do not the conflict results in discomfort because of the rapidity of adjustment that is demanded of us. It is only against a background of similarity that we can appreciate the distinctive variations in motifs. A word made up of characters from very different founts would be hard to read and ugly to look at. (SO, 237–8) Clearly this quotation was the immediate forerunner of ‘my’ example. Moreover, this quotation corroborates and answers the objection Gombrich raised in his letter to me. Certainly, words can be made, and indeed are made, with letters of different types, but it is displeasing and, in an ordinary text, unacceptable. Our sense of regularity requires that all letters be equal and that all the plates and dishes on our dinner table come from the same set. It may not always be possible – on occasions, it may not even be desirable – but a good housewife will usually make an effort to ensure unity on her table, and typography will endeavour to avoid anomalies in the text. On the dinner table, it is a question of pride to present all the pieces in the same style: sauce boats, serving dishes, soup tureens and plates of all sizes, for all the guests. In the case of the text, it is a pressing need (cf. SO, 229). As I have already said, not only is there a demand for regularity for reasons of pride or need, but that aspiration can be satisfied. The designer will find the way of generating objects in a given style. Given an A, it is possible to make a B in the same style; given a soup tureen, it is possible to design a plate; given a chair, it is possible design a couch; or a table, or a carriage, or some gardens, or a palace. All I was trying to say to Gombrich, and which he accepted as being obvious, is that

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given a dish, one can design an indefinite number of soup bowls to match. Indeed, Gombrich himself has addressed the problem elsewhere, in an article entitled, ‘The Style all’antica: Imitation and Assimilation’ (NF, 122–8). Style was not born out of servile imitation. The best defence of this principle was formulated by the Renaissance theorists who called for greater freedom in the use of classical Latin, in opposition to those who criticised any deviation from Ciceronian models. To support their argument, they could quote the opinions of the very classical authorities they sought to emulate. ‘Quintilian’, Gombrich reminds us in the first article mentioned, opposed the mechanical imitation of one model of style, and Seneca found the formula – frequently repeated – that the imitator must transform his material as the bee transforms nectar into honey, or as the body assimilates its nourishment. He added the happy comparison of a family likeness which Petrarch, in his turn, elaborated in the beautiful passage that I have chosen as a motto for this paper. I know no more striking description of the mysterious elusiveness of physiognomic similarity. (NF, 123) And indeed, the introduction to the article cites some very compelling words by Petrarch. The poet recommends that the resemblance between a composition and its model should be that of a father and his son: a certain shadow and [. . .] air perceptible above all in the face and eyes produces that similarity that reminds us of the father as soon as we see the son, even though if the matter were put to

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measurement all parts would be found to be different; some hidden quality there has this power [. . .] to be grasped only by the mind’s silent enquiry, intelligible rather than describable.13 Gombrich’s article is about Giulio Romano’s capacity to assimilate the resources of classical representations and use them in his own com­ positions. ‘There may be, and there are, a few direct quotations from the Antique in this example’, concludes Gombrich, ‘but the true problem it seems to me, is not so much what Giulio copied into his notebooks, as how he and other artists proceeded from copying to this mastery of a language’ (NF, 127). And Giulio managed to master that language, says Gombrich, because he was capable of finding in the examples that survive from classical antiquity ‘plenty of hints on what to avoid and what to do’ (NF, 128). The problem consists of acquiring with those clues the possibility of creating any other new configuration which integrates into the antique language. And so, Gombrich argues in his article that ‘it may help us to see more clearly where our limitations lie if we formulate the problem of imitatio less in terms of copying and more in terms of generalization’ (NF, 127).14 13. Perceptual Generalisations The problem is how to draw an acceptable work from a few guidelines on what should be avoided or followed; in other words, how to generalise. Gombrich analyses this aspect in ‘Perceptual Generalizations’, a short section of his lecture ‘The Necessity of Tradition’ (T, 190–1). And once again, he uses language as a model. As Gombrich says to learn a language is to learn to make statements which we have never heard before [. . .] we learn, as we always learn, by feedback, by trial and error. We make mistakes and are corrected. But that is not

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the whole story. Somehow we must be capable after such a correction to generalize on the new rule we have learnt. If we could not transfer it to a whole family of utterances we could never make progress. (T, 190) In reality, all our learning requires the possibility of generalising an experience on a certain range of situations that present similar characteristics, and the capacity to generalise also arises in art. Gombrich takes as his model the mime artist and even the playful student who enjoys imitating his unsuspecting master. There may be something autobiographical about this example, since Gombrich in his youth was a splendid actor, as Kris recalls (although it is only fair to say that he was also an excellent student). The reason why I am interested in this lowly art is precisely because I think it is not a matter of conscious effort. The parodist does not first sit down and tabulate the characteristics of the style he wishes to mimic. This would not get him very far. He rather acquires it by the direct method. He reads a lot and finds that gradually the mannerisms, rhythms and cadences of his prospective victim will come to him unsought. I do not know if any psychologist has devoted research to this capacity, which I would describe as that of perceptual generalization, the capacity not only to classify families of form but also spontaneously to produce fresh instances. It is this feat which the parodist performs when he learns to generate the style of an author, to the

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mortification of those who have valued the original effort as unique and inimitable. Again this process is not likely to succeed without trial and error; once in a while he will be tempted to use a word or phrase which on reflection he finds to be ‘out of character’ [. . .] I believe that if we knew more about these processes of generalizations which underlie the learning of language and the imitation of style, we would also come closer to understanding what interests the historian of the arts: the changes in style which all the arts have in common. (T, 190) I am afraid this conclusion may prove disappointing: there is something like a capacity to produce new examples which are related to previous ones. We shall call this ‘perceptual generalisation’ and trust that one day some psychologist will research these subjects and provide an explanation for them. It is not disappointing. And I think that it is time to take stock of everything we have said about formal consistency. Style does not consist merely of distinguishing features. There are extremely effective resources, which come close to biological arrangements. They are limited, to a certain extent. Their combinations are the fruit of habit. In some contexts we try to make things unitary, to form part of the same families of forms. The resources to successfully resolve a problem from one genre are logically transferred to others which have that same problem. Since the resources are not limited, the resemblance between objects that use them cannot be exactly explained. There are some possibilities of variation, within which the artist chooses his solution. We call on the artist’s capacity to create objects that belong to the same family ‘perceptual generalisations’. The artist learns to do this without knowing how, nor can he explain them exactly. In reality, it is a set of extremely revealing ideas. The ideas I have set out here are not all that Gombrich has said on the subject of style.

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However, they do allow us some effective orientation in our study of the context of the art work. The long chapter I have devoted to these ideas is in actual fact a secondary chapter to the preceding one with a single overarching theme: artistic mastery. Studying style means studying the language an artist has available to him at a given point in time. Style can be compared to a cross-section in the development of traditions, which shows the state of things, objects, tastes, resources. And so the study of style is indispensable. ‘By placing an oeuvre into a continuous chain of developments, we become alerted to what its creator had learned from predecessors, what he transformed, and how he was used, in his turn, by later generations’ (105, 357). We can now understand the radical change wrought by Gombrich with his ideas on style. Style does not consist of a limited number of features, but of something that is learnt, of certain resources – certain media – and also certain ends. The fact that the resources of style cannot be precisely and properly described does not mean that we cannot understand them. If it is true that the familial resemblance, to use Petrarch’s term, is based on ‘some hidden quality, intelligible rather than describable’, it is also true that is accessible to the ‘mind’s silent enquiry’. At the end of the day, just as the artist learns without knowing how, so too do we learn. ‘The understanding of style is not beyond the reach of the intuitively minded [. . .]’ said Gombrich in his article ‘Style’ (105, 360). Understanding is within the reach of the human mind which is capable of acquiring once again ‘what had been taken for granted’ in some time and place (cf. ibid.); and, moreover, this understanding is communicable. It is possible to allow other intuitive minds access to style. That is the task of the cultural historian. And, as Gombrich said, in certain cases, before certain artists, ‘we must be able to describe some of their modes of procedure’ (NF, 128). These statements have practical implications. At the end of the day, Gombrich makes continuous reference in his work to the means of figurative representation. For example, we have his insistence on stressing the role of conventions in Art and Illusion and all the works related to it. Studying style involves studying the means which the artist has

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at his disposal. And this has little to do with the elegant rhetorical exercises of the histories of styles to which we are accustomed. And on the subject of rhetoric, it is precisely rhetoric which opens the way to the last means of understanding style, based on Gombrich’s ideas; if artistic language is made up of conventions and positive and negative resources, then style, per se, is personal style, the style of an author. When we speak about personal style, we come close to the original notion of the term, a rhetorical term.

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13. Evolution The term ‘style’, as Gombrich reminds us in his article on the subject, comes from the Latin stilus, the common writing instrument, sometimes used as a metaphor to illustrate the particular way of speaking and writing that distinguished some writers from others. Plautus’s stilus was sharper than Terence’s. The rhetorical tradition extended use of the term to refer to the different forms an orator might adopt in his discourse: there was a plain or humble style and a high style, a simple style and an elaborate one, and so on. This tradition had already been used by some writers of the ancient world to denote the different tones they observed in painting and sculpture. Strictly speaking, it was these same rhetoricians who helped transfer the concept to the field of art, by themselves using examples taken from their contemporary art to exemplify their disquisitions. A long list of illustrious names – inter alia Quintilian, Longinus, Demetrius, Tacitus and Pliny – used the term stilus to signify that there are different means of expressing oneself. If there is one aspect of style that Gombrich has studied in greatest depth, it is the way it changes. In his writings, he has dealt magnificently

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with certain modes of change. We may therefore offer a short summary without entering into greater detail. 1. Movements and Periods Evidently, traditions experience continuous change. Each new art work changes the artistic panorama: it adds, confounds or erases the ‘hints on what to avoid and what to do’. Viewed thus, this continuous change is similar to the change experienced by language. A community of speakers of a shared language continuously alter it, creating new forms and destroying or forgetting other older ones. Gombrich again uses language as a model, when positing that, in reality, there are two modes of change. The first is the natural derivation caused by the continuous contribution of the speakers; this change can never be radical or planned. However, language also experiences another kind of change, which may be both radical and to some extent planned: academic – or cultured – reform, i.e. change from above (cf. SO, 177). These two modes of change are rated very differently. In the first case, the change cannot be attributed to a conscious determination; many different determinations have been involved and the result may perhaps have been neither foreseen nor desired by any one of them. In that sense, the change signifies nothing; it is not symptomatic. Change from above, on the other hand, is symptomatic; people who try to usher in a neologism or remove some barbarism display a considered goal; their decision is based on reasonable grounds and in general they will endeavour to achieve a following that will positively influence the rest of society. Much the same is true of art. Art is derivative. The history of art follows a free and unpredictable, although not necessarily irrational path; any contribution opens up new possibilities and defers others. No conclusion can be drawn from the development of art in a given period. Nonetheless, there are moments in which adopting a certain way of doing things signifies taking a particular stance. Such moments occur from time to time in the long development of art and when they do, the style that is adopted might well be said to be identified with a certain

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attitude. In other words, at those times – and only those – style is symptomatic of other things. The locus classicus in which Gombrich establishes this distinction is his highly important lecture ‘In Search of Cultural History’ (II, 24–59). Gombrich seeks to demonstrate that all cultural history is built on Hegelian foundations and that Hegel’s followers and critics have been unable to destroy its keystone; all manifestations of an epoch refer back to an essential nucleus. The sections dealing with this theme are followed by one called ‘Symptoms and Syndromes’ (II, 47–9). In it, Gombrich argues that there are times when the adoption of a certain style by an artist or client is a symptom that he or she is adopting a specific attitude to certain cultural options. Like everything else, Van Eyck’s paintings are linked to his time; yet the fact that a client wished to acquire one of his paintings could hardly have been viewed as a symptom. Some time later, however, an inclination for a classical work entailed a certain cultural option; it was a symptom. ‘The distinction at which I am aiming here’, said Gombrich in the following section, ‘is that between movements and periods. Hegel saw all periods as movements since they were embodiments of the moving spirit’ (II, 50). The section that begins with these words is ‘Movements and Periods’ (II, 50–1).1 This quote tells us much about the importance Gombrich places on this distinction. After all, Gombrich says, it is true that there are ‘styles’ where ‘everything’ is related to a different attitude to things, whereas there are stages in which this is not the case. However, it is not exactly ‘everything’ that is always related or not related to a single different attitude to ‘all’ things. This is a movement. And this is a notion that replaces to great advantage the spirits of the Hegelian era. Because not everything involves movements; and also because movements are begun and maintained by specific people, and therefore the individual human is the protagonist of history (cf. II, 50). A period is, quite simply, the length of time between two relevant dates; it is a more or less arbitrary means of dividing history into different stages to make it easier for the historian to handle. In a given period, certain artistic manifestations have arisen that have left a given number

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of works of art. The classification of the period in no way commits the art historian to any theory on the relationship of the works to each other or to other events that occurred in that space of time. It is simply another pigeonhole in the archive of history into which items are sorted, based merely on a chronological criterion. A movement, however, is different. A movement has a beginning and – perhaps – an end, which are independent of the historian’s criterion. A movement has been promoted by specific individuals, maintained enthusiastically by others, assisted with sympathy, greeted with approval, accepted with indifference or borne with resignation, by flesh-andblood individuals. It may have been a blazing triumph or an immediate failure; it may have been aborted or petered slowly out (cf. II, 50–1). And one feature of a movement is that its followers are distinguished by a distinct stance on some aspect of life. Frequently, those who were initially marked out by their political ideas, for example, end up assuming other defining features, such as forms of dress, cultural preferences and artistic tastes. In short, the emphasis on a position which to some extent contrasts with that of the society into which they are born, leads them to adopt significant attitudes in other areas of the cultural spectrum. Choosing to wear a wig in the Paris of 1790 was a clear sign of defiance, whereas in 1788 it would have been no such thing. There is another important factor that we should add. When we judge a movement, we judge an attitude, and so this is not a psychological judgement. It is a sociological problem and not a psychological one; it is not a problem of ‘mindsets’; these are not mindsets but attitudes, public stances, and by this token, they are recognisable and identifiable, both by the individual in question and by others (cf. 35, 882). And so we conclude our analysis of historical deeds, seen through the actions of free individuals. The recognisable feature – the use or non-use of a wig – which is one of several options, allows us to infer the attitude of the wearer to different issues; he has made a choice that is significant, committed and therefore to some extent conscious. It would be another question altogether if the choice were unconscious or if he had no choice in the matter. In the court of Louis XV, a wig signified nothing other than social rank. The poor did not wear wigs.

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But shortly before and shortly after the revolution, it was significant: Louis XVIII wore a wig.2 As Gombrich once wrote, ‘it would be the task of a future sociology of art to establish when and under what circumstances a style, a family of forms, was adopted as a badge’ (SO, 216). Even he argues that the Gothic was not a movement, but a combination of technical innovation and fashion (cf. 23, 125) and the same is true of the Rococo (cf. SO, 216). On the other hand, Mannerism and the Baroque – which Gombrich sees more as a continuation of classicism (cf. NF, 99) than the supposed expression of the spirit of the Counter-Reformation (cf. II, 51) – were movements. 2. Progress and Competition Let us now look at some of the factors of change. In discussing artistic progress, and more specifically progress in Western art, we mentioned Popper’s notion of closed and open societies. An open society is distinguished from a closed one by permitting criticism, enabling unsuccessful political hypotheses of any kind to be refuted. From an artistic perspective, an open society allows – and encourages – artistic criticism. And artistic criticism spurs artists on to improve their work. One necessary precondition for an artist to improve upon his work is that it is, in effect, improvable upon. If we presume that the artist – or at least the great artist – works to the limits of his possibilities, such an opportunity only arises when a technological advance occurs: the means improve, and it is therefore possible to aspire to higher ends. The best artistic example is still, unquestionably, the spectacular spread in the use of oils in the fifteenth century. Van Eyck’s masterly use of the medium is a magnificent example of the possibilities of oil painting. In his work, he uses glaze and gradient, fine brush strokes for detail, the possibility of correction, the excellent properties of conservation and above all brillo. Coupled with his outstanding composition, we have his exceptional depiction of flesh, the texture of the drapes, the glitter of metal and cabochons and the immense detail of the landscapes – all executed with vivid and at the same time nuanced colours.

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In architecture, well-known technical innovations abound. Examples include the Spanish wood-framed vaults, Wren’s flat ceiling and Neumann’s stone vaults, all of which blazed new trails, extending the alternatives available to the artist. There is, however, another important factor that can also exist in open societies: competition. Even in its etymology, ‘competition’ is closely tied to ‘competence’. One leads to the other; competence improves the product, and competition between artists forces them to work to the limits of their possibilities, in a spirit of self-betterment. Gombrich refers to the existence of competition in ancient Greece: Zeuxis, Apelles and others would have competed with each other, as would Myron, Polykleitos, etc. Competition requires the artist to keep abreast of technological innovation, forcing him to master new techniques, driving him to explore new paths. In reality, technique and competition are not mutually exclusive; they act simultaneously. This is the internal engine of artistic tradition. Gombrich asserts unequivocally that ‘in architecture both aspects interacted from the very beginning [. . .]’ (105, 355). Competition acts where neither people nor their functions are predetermined, but instead their position – or rather, their prestige – is at stake. Like any free market commodity, competition in art can lead to a phenomenon that economists dread: inflation. The system becomes overloaded and can be abused. We all know the famous example of the French cathedrals that grew successively taller and wider until finally Beauvais cathedral grew to exceed all reasonable dimensions, structural or economic. The result was the partial collapse of the immense structure and the inability of the town to afford an erection of its size. The choir as built was much less bold, the work advanced slowly, and the principal nave was never completed. One might also recall the collapse of the domes of Burgos and Seville cathedrals. In the case of the former, we can to some extent console ourselves with Vallejo’s substitute, less daring but very beautiful, nonetheless. In Seville, on the other hand, the timid structure we see today – which proved itself unstable – in no way makes up for the lost dome. In any case, the area in which competition has yielded the greatest fruits in Spanish art is not the architecture of our cathedrals, but their

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Figure 13.1  Dome, Cathedral of Seville, Spain. Courtesy of the Cabildo of the Cathedral of Seville.

Figure 13.2  Altarpiece, Cathedral of Seville, Spain. Courtesy of the Cabildo of the Cathedral of Seville.

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Figure 13.3  Easter monument, Seville. Collection: Museum University of Navarra, Spain.

interior fitting-out. The altarpieces, ashlar-work, grilles and liturgical furniture, the gold and silverwork, and particularly the processional monstrances have probably been the objets d’art that have attracted greatest attention among patrons, artists and the general public. How else can one explain the lavish display of the altarpiece in Seville cathedral. Little has been written, other than in very general terms, about another genre closely related to church architecture, namely, the many Eucharistic, festive and funerary monuments erected in the leading cities of the Spanish Empire, which, by their very nature, must have been the subject of fierce competition. Only a few drawings remain (and photos, in the case of the Easter Monument in Seville Cathedral) but works such as El Transparente in Toledo could not have been made

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Figure 13.4 arciso Tomé, El Transparente, 1732. Cathedral of Toledo, Spain. Collection: Joaquín Lorda.

without a long tradition of trial and error; the exuberant ensemble explores options discovered over many years. Gombrich argues that technique and competition together formed the main impulse for change in artistic traditions. This is reflected in a compendium of ideas on style in his article ‘Style’ (105).3 Gombrich’s contribution to the debate might be considered not to be very original. After all – as he himself observes – Vasari was aware of the strength and need for competition and alluded to it when he presented Perugino as being isolated and sidelined from developments in painting in Florence and in Rome. Vasari was also conscious of the innovation in means, accurately describing the consequences of the appearance of oils in Italy (cf. II, 26).

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Nonetheless, Gombrich’s proposition is highly ambitious. Like the pre­v ious binome – movements and periods – he seeks to provide an alternative to the historicist view of technique and (especially) competition. This should come as no surprise. His most important article on the role of competition, ‘The Logic of Vanity Fair’, is subtitled ‘Historicism in the Study of Fashions, Style and Taste’ (II, 61–92). In the previous distinction, between movements and periods, he sought to replace the supposed mentalities or collective spirits that dominate an epoch with something more objective, more rational and, at heart, more sociological, in line with Popper’s approach. Here, his aim is to challenge the explanation of a logical evolution of the arts, which can replace historicism, in other words, the gigantic process of the development of the spirit, with its rises and falls, with something which is also objective, rational and sociological. Gombrich bases himself directly on a notion of Karl Popper’s but applies it in an original way. Technique forces change: that is indubitable. Competition induces change: that is also true. Gombrich adds that technical innovation and competition operate with a certain logic, they are the engine of an evolution throughout which there is a real development, an authentic advance in some sense, albeit this development is free and therefore unpredictable. Moreover, and most importantly, the causes of this evolution are not obscure and inaccessible personal motivations, but objectives that transcend the subject and which are understood and pursued by a group. The art world can indeed sometimes resemble a Vanity Fair. Prestige (and prices) rise and fall, and fashions change constantly and capriciously. Taste and preferences are – as I have shown – based on just a few, albeit strong biological trends, which are in all cases insufficient to allow us to infer universal norms that determine how things must be. As a result, taste drifts aimlessly at the mercy of cultural schools of thought, which impose different criteria and hierarchies. The tides of fashion and the most persistent floods of style come and go; for the only thing that differentiates fashion and style, in the aspect we are studying here, is their persistence (cf. 105, 353). Yet Gombrich begins his article ‘The Logic of Vanity Fair’ by saying that there is a logic in the continuous coming and going of schools and

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counter-schools of thought, and it is a Popperian logic. ‘It is the purpose of this paper to apply the tool of situational logic to some recurrent problems of the history of fashion, style and taste’ (II, 61). And he goes on to say that ‘needless to say, this assimilation of art to fashion should not tempt us to think less highly of the great artists of the past or of today’ (II, 62); the goal, Gombrich would say, is to denounce the vacuity of historicistic theory. In this article, he fleshed out the ideas he had propounded in a previous and oft-cited text on ‘Style’ in the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. It is of particular interest because it was Gombrich’s contribution to a book published in tribute to Karl Popper on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Gombrich returned to this theme in The Sense of Order, in a section entitled ‘The Logic of Situations’ (SO, 209–13). The three works are characterised by being systematic (insofar as any of Gombrich’s works can be classed as such), undoubtedly reflecting the importance he placed on this issue. Nonetheless, here, as in the rest of the work, I shall also allude to other texts by Gombrich on the subject. I shall not attempt to summarise or compare them; I shall merely try to provide an ordered list of the main ideas. 3. One-upmanship The principal inner force that drives change is what comedian Stephen Potter called ‘one-upmanship’, 4 a term Gombrich has used on several occasions.5 At heart, any man has a natural tendency to want to excel in something, to gain admiration, fame, respect, or at, the very least, curiosity. This desire to stand out particularly affects the area of art, built as it is on such unsteady, restless and fragile foundations. More accurately – if I may be excused the comparison – the swaying, arbitrary structure of genres and conventions, of artistic traditions, has been constructed on the solid foundations of biological dispositions. Works of art rely on acknowledged prestige; acknowledged because there really is an achievement involved, certainly, but it is also true that there are achievements without prestige, in other words, unrecognised achievements. Prestige is important in art; and the quest for prestige is

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connatural to any artist; prestige can be achieved by gaining an advantage over others, even if it is just by a head, provided it is an acknowledged head. Building the White House out of sugar cubes may be an outstanding achievement, but it has no social recognition. It is perhaps rather depressing to find that one of the forces of artistic development is no more than a desire to stand out (cf. II, 152). Yet Gombrich has sometimes put it in even harsher terms. ‘It would be in accord with a logic of situation to say that it is rational for human beings to want to advance in the pecking order’ (SO, 210). Among certain species of bird, hierarchy is imposed through the pecking order. The individual animal who is constantly pecked by another finally acknow­ ledges his inferiority and desists from pecking back. The victor becomes the undisputed chief, in a process that precludes interminable leadership contents. At the beginning of his article on Vanity Fair, Gombrich states that mixing art with fashion does not mean debunking it; elsewhere, speaking of Homo ludens, he criticised its author for focusing only on the ‘noble play’, ignoring these less altruistic tendencies behind human action (cf. T, 159–63). The pecking order operates in human society (cf. 59, 12): children’s dares commonly begin with ‘I bet you can’t . . .’. If the opponent is incapable of hopping to the next lamp post or throwing a stone to the other side of the river, he will have to recognise his radical inferiority; not only is he incapable of hopping, but – for that very reason – he is inferior in everything (cf. T, 160). Naturally this trend is simply an extension of something that is manifested in artistic mastery: the ‘most difficult yet’ of the fatuous ringmaster, or the ‘look, no hands’ of the rash little cyclist. Perhaps, the urge to stand out is seen a more positive light when it is called a desire for self-improvement. In any case, it is an effective vaccine against excessively stereotyped approaches: the artist’s steps have not been guided by a need to materially reflect the art of our time, or the pressures of Marxist dialectic, but by a more pedestrian desire to call attention to himself (103, 135), an ambition we can understand, a goal we can take for granted; a logical motivation for a logical evolution. However, this evolution may be logical, but it is also unpredictable. It is difficult to tell in advance at what specific point the challenge will

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come; ‘I bet you can’t . . .’ may entail hopping to the lamp post, throwing a stone across the river or any other prank. The same is true in art; any aspect may become the battlefield. As I have already mentioned, Gombrich argues that style creates a level of expectation that is so narrow that any deviation from the ordinary or the regular is immediately noticeable. Not only can we see that an anomaly is occurring, but also what direction it is taking, where it is aimed at. And so not only is the deviation noticed, it sometimes inspires emulation. When the boy hops off towards the lamp post, his pals will probably follow suit. Anyone fighting to stand out will always be on the lookout for an opportunity; he will try to make sure that no peck goes unavenged; any deviation will be an invitation to compete. A good example is the speed at which some ornamental motifs spread. Motifs such as the rocaille find their way out of the palace to adorn the altarpieces of even the humblest of churches6 – all within a very short period of time. Not even the poorest of joiners can be unaffected by the race to devise new forms of cartouches or columns or use effective resources that have already gained prestige. There is a sharpened sensitivity that detects change; and change fosters emulation. One more step: any change affects the entire system of evaluation, which is taken for granted. In the case of language, it can be seen that in reality any linguistic action involves an innovation. As I said before, language turns us into creators; we are all constantly having to come up with new formulations that we have never used before. Much the same is true of art; any art work is a creation; even if it is an exact copy, it adds something to the existing panorama, to the delicate counterbalanced system of the acquisition and loss of prestige. For this reason, any creation upsets the level of normality I referred to in the previous chapter. A novelty may gain sudden and widespread prestige, provoke indignant rejection, or go unnoticed; but it is in the dynamic of things that it cannot be supressed: the change, however large or small, has already happened; and, whether or not it attains celebrity, a precedent has been set. In the early years of the eighteenth century, the rocaille clearly proved suggestive and attractive. Each new asymmetric configuration with its

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twin ‘Cs’ and its ‘Ss’, its nets, shells and ribs, brought new possibilities that fuelled the viewers’ expectations. But, at the same time, there were small – or not so small – variations in the evaluations of prestige. The altarpiece of a modest little church, packed to the rafters with Baroquesque forms, replete with Rococo cartouches, will only inspire derision amongst the cognoscenti, and the greater the enthusiasm expended on the rocaille and the more profuse it is, the harsher will be the scorn. This wearing-down of the prestige of certain effects and configurations can be compared to inflation; it is an inflationary process.7 4. Inflation The tomato is a widely liked vegetable (or fruit). Demand is high and farmers plant tomatoes where they used to grow potatoes. They tend the fields. The harvest is good . . . too good. Too many tomatoes are sent to market; too few tomatoes are sold. Some farmers lower their prices; they sell more tomatoes. All the others lower their prices. The price of tomatoes plummets and profits fall in indirect relation to the increase in yield. Things, and images, too, become devalued when they are abundant, when they are too frequent. A surplus in supply will inevitably lead to a fall in market price. The same good, with all its virtuality, can be purchased at a lower price. In art, this rule is alarmingly effective. Any form, repeated again and again, rapidly loses its value. An artistic form, device or an entire genre is devalued because it proves vulgar, ordinary – in other words, it loses its capacity to attract attention, to be conspicuous. However, this depreciation has another rational component. The first person to come up with the optimum device that fitted our biological dispositions and provoked a given effect, was indeed fortunate. Once the formula has been discovered, it is available for anyone to repeat. It therefore has no merit. It can be used even by an artist who lacks the slightest sensitivity. The mastery is devalued. And moreover, we lose our capacity to react as vividly as we did to the first examples. This is also true of that alteration in the level of

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normality, in the level of our expectations. This is what Gombrich is referring to when he cites architect Adolf Göller,8 who posited the law of ‘aesthetic fatigue’; any insistence on a single form, on a repeated and facile effect, ultimately proves wearisome: ‘a little pleases, a lot tires’ and ‘in variation lies taste’ (cf. SO, 202 and 212). The form in question drops down the shared ratings, praise is overshadowed by clouds of rumour and it gradually sinks out of view of the people who concern themselves with what is interesting and valuable. Nonetheless, there is one important difference between the production of art and the production of tomatoes. In the field of art, the desire to stand out adds its own singular twist to the competition. The farmer aspires to a good price for his tomato. The artist – as we have seen – aspires to fame, or at least, to awaken the public’s interest in himself and his work. And this aspiration adds an irrational element which might be included in a rational explanation such as the one Gombrich seeks to provide. The farmer, put off by his disastrous experience, will think long and hard before planting tomatoes again. He may fall into other traps, but at least he has gained some degree of prudence. Art operates differently. The farmer’s experience serves for naught. The artist’s ambition is to excel and excel, to outdo others, albeit only by a head. Winning means overcoming, and in a free society art is continuously threatened by these inflationary processes. All it takes is for a goal to be set, one which arises from the very context of art, for the inflationary machinery to be set in motion; whether it is a specific resource, a vague feeling that will immediately be felt in that tier of expectation that is style, or a sharpened sense of form. Whether it is ‘austerity’ or ‘gaiety’ that are called for, artists will do their damnedest to beat their colleagues in austerity or gaiety by a head. And in that race, not only will they exhaust all their resources, not only will the public’s reactions be numbed, not only will a certain weariness and fatigue creep in, but they will all too easily go to ridiculous extremes. The contemporary love of austerity stripped architecture and design of all types of ornament. Only a limited number of forms could be surreptitiously introduced under the pretext of functionality; picture windows,

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ships ladders, portholes, and so on. Conversely, Spain’s castizo Baroque triumphed to the most irrational extremes of Tomé’s flayed columns and tortured architraves. As long as one-upmanship is possible (and it always is), the game continues; or rather, it may, since it is always possible that some auspicious new aspect may appear that pushes the process in another direction. A fine example from Huizinga, as cited by Gombrich, is the female wig of the mid-eighteenth century; new fashions imposed grandiloquent forms on the plain, gathered style that immediately preceded it. Flowers and great plumes of feathers began to sprout from the top of the headpiece. Yet once the race had begun, nothing could stop it, and any object might be used to bring elegance to the ever more gigantic mountains of fakery: garlands, floral arrangements and even a model ship. The threat of ridicule can only arise where judgement is passed on unrationalisable shared values; that is to say, where value is measured in terms of prestige. Against an already garish backdrop, anyone wishing to stand out will be forced to adopt a preposterous appearance. And the result will be that, far from achieving the fame they seek, that very intemperance will earn them public scorn. A farmer may go bankrupt; the artist or patron may suffer the derision of his peers. 5. Polarising Issues Gombrich does not pay much attention to artists propelled by competition. The great contribution to the logic of the situation which Popper found in ‘The Logic of Vanity Fair’ is that, although competition induces change, change induces progress, and progress, perhaps, induces inflation and, sometimes, ridicule. Any change provokes a counter-reaction. This is what Gombrich would call ‘polarisation’. A reaction will come – for reasons related to religion, civic tradition or mere aesthetics – from conservative ranks, from those who do not want to see their evaluations ruined by the incorporation of forms that do not respect them. Moreover, if the change comes too quickly or suddenly, there will also be a reaction from the general public, which

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needs time to accustom itself, demanding gradual assimilation without too many surprises. Logically, the reaction will be all the stronger when artists have exceeded the limits of inflation, going to the most shocking – and therefore dangerous – extremes. One need only recall some of the caricatures that were circulated of the most bizarre fashionable wigs. The threat of ridicule hovers over excess, and the movement that has brought matters to this point is an easy target for the reactionary forces. Here, the word reactionary is particularly apt, for polarisation adds another dimension to the already multidimensional panorama of change I have described. Any work signifies a change in evaluation; any change is noticed; any change can arouse a reaction. An innovation can come to be what Gombrich calls a ‘polarising issue’, that is to say, a point of conflict between the innovation’s supporters and detractors.9 Certainly, a change may go unnoticed, or it may triumph quickly and without opposition; but it may also awaken such opposition. Let us assume that there is an objective – think of Tomé’s Baroque – to which a whole series of authors ascribe, as they embark on the adventure of winning, albeit by just a head. If that objective has a certain resonance, an opposing faction may well emerge which simply detests the flayed columns or twisted architraves; the appearance of opposing groups will probably bring even greater heat to the dispute, making it easier for extreme positions to be adopted. If that happens, the question of the purity of architectural orders becomes a polarising issue; and it is then that what Gombrich aptly calls a ‘field of force’ is created. Any position, whether it involves using the classical, banded or barley-sugar column, with or without cartouches, implies taking a stand. And nobody, however much they might wish, can remain on the sidelines: any column becomes to some extent purist or castiza. In a society such as ours, moreover, the changes come thick and fast: the great fashion houses go to great pains to launch entirely new collections each season. One might deplore this state of affairs, but anyone who resists updating their clothes will soon be pointed to as an antediluvian reactionary; however much one might like it to be otherwise, one cannot extract oneself from the complex world of evaluations.

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On occasions, what Gombrich calls ‘movements’ carry along with them polarising issues. In the Spain of the early eighteenth century, the wearing of wigs indicated a certain inclination to be open to European – and especially French – schools of thought, a sympathy for the ‘novadors’ and a certain hostility to unbending tradition. In the same way, the stiff golilla collar, defended tooth-and-nail by its advocates against the ruff, was a symbol of allegiance to some of the long-established native essences that gave Spain its empire. In any case, not every polarising issues is a symptom of a movement, not every aspect in dispute in the art world necessarily signifies a defined posture in some other field of human activity. 6. Principles of Exclusion and Sacrifice Clearly, artists focus on a given point which constitutes the centre of attention and also of debate. Evidently the entire art panorama cannot enter the fray without destroying any possibility whatsoever of competition; if the competition is about wigs, it cannot be about fans. Attention centres on one single aspect and that aspect awaits the contribution, the one-upmanship of artists. These are the polarising issues I discussed above. The artist excels in his medium. The more refined his medium is, the finer and less showy his contribution becomes, however admirable it may be. Clearly, competition concentrates on one aspect for as long as it can be improved in some way. And clearly, that goal may be abandoned at any time for a thousand different reasons. In this context, it is important to note Gombrich’s distinction between the ‘principle of exclusion’ and the ‘principle of sacrifice’, which refers back to the objectives of art. With very few exceptions, competition will push for a goal that varies in just one point from the habitual, a point that can be sacrificed in the interests of new achievements. Occasionally, the panorama will demand all or nothing – either the new and promising or the old and outmoded. This is the distinction encompassed by these two principles. Principles of exclusion are those in which some artistic aspect is anathematised; so, for example, neo-classical decorators eschewed any

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contagion from the Rococo – the so-called rocaille, with its asymmetric cartouches affixed to other elements, or the trimmings of the arched spaces into which the old archivolts or canopies were fused, sawn, lain, warped, etc. – replacing them instead with austere frames of rigid and canonical moulding in hard-edged blocks with a decoration of sharply-­ outlined classical motifs. It is a stance which, once adopted, brooks no compromise. Clearly, movements – in the sense that we have been discussing – use such principles of exclusion as a regulatory statement of what must be avoided. As Gombrich put it, it is ‘a very simple, not to say primitive, principle that denies the values it opposes’ (NF, 97). The neo-classical detests the Rococo. Evidently, there are plenty of examples of categorical oppositions in art history. Hence, Gombrich says that maybe we would make more progress in the study of styles if we looked out for such principles of exclusion, the sins any particular style wants to avoid, than if we continue to look for the common structure or essence of all the works produced in a certain period. (NF, 89) The principle of sacrifice is an extremely attractive idea. It describes the artist’s attitude when faced with a situation in which the goals have changed slightly: perhaps structural clarity is not so important after all and more attention can be given to ornamental opulence. Or some chiaroscuro effects can be allowed to intrude at the expense of perfect draughtsmanship. In such a situation, the artist will save whatever he can, and reject only what is necessary. The principle of sacrifice admits and indeed implies the existence of a multiplicity of values. What is sacrificed is acknowledged to be a value even though it has to yield to another value which

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Figure 13.5  Cathedral of Granada, Spain. Photo María Angélica Martínez.

Figure 13.6  Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. Patrimonio Nacional, Spain. Copyright © Patrimonio Nacional.

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commands priority. But the mature artist will never sacrifice more than is absolutely necessary for the realization of his highest values. When he has done justice to his supreme norm others norms are allowed to come into their own. (NF, 97) Some of the best examples of this principle can be found in the Spanish Renaissance. Of these, none is finer than the magnificent Cathedral of Granada. The new Italian forms, the pillars converted into bundles of columns, the thick semi-circular archways, the windows with their strong edgings, give the church a monumentality that would not have been possible with the fasciculate pillars and delicate outlines of the late Gothic. But the magnitude of the construction, and above all the traditional ribbed vaults – authentically Spanish achievements – give this work an unmatched complexity and opulence. The vaults were both technically very suitable and formally very satisfactory; it would have been difficult to end them in smooth or heavily caissoned pipes. This is an example of the principle of sacrifice. Shortly after the death of Siloé, the genius who devised this structure, Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón sought to erect a church with ribbed vaults at the monastery of El Escorial. As finally built, the church stands at the other extreme to this solution; implausibly thick pillars with tremendous mouldings support the most austere vaults of all the Spanish Renaissance. This is an example of the principle of exclusion. A regulatory imposition precludes any concession; for some years, the schools of thought of the early Renaissance flourished only in provincial and folk architecture. 7. Compensation The principle of sacrifice helps explain why, whenever possible, and despite the pressures of the competition, the artist will try to find an outlet for the masteries he has been capable of attaining. A true artist, therefore ‘will not yield to this temptation of “breaking the form”, at

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least till he has exhausted all its possibilities’ (MH, 69). In ordinary circumstances, he will not try to flout all the rules, making use instead of a certain licence. Firstly, because the public would not allow it; secondly, because, if he did, it might end up being no more than a mere sketch, a note in the margin. Above all, though, he cannot do so because his mastery only makes sense within the wider game. A rigid stance would turn him into a real spoilsport, as Huizinga describes it; he might destroy the game, but then his action could never more be evaluated using the criteria he himself has contributed to destroying. He would have destroyed the accepted set of symbols and forms that is common to the artist and his public. Gombrich’s assertion that ‘most stylistic changes have more to do with the mutual adjustment of conflicting norms [. . .]’ (NF, 97) – a clear application of the principle of sacrifice – is complemented by a call to focus on the infinite capacity of artistic mastery to compensate for the sacrifices offered up to the demands of art. Gombrich has argued that ‘mastery is not only multidimensional, it is also infinitely supple and resourceful, both in the development of technical solutions and in the compensation for technical shortcomings through novel and unexpected moves in other directions’ (II, 153). The group of artists and their public are capable of testing out new possibilities without entirely letting go of the old, in what Gombrich calls the capacity for ‘compensation’ of artistic mastery. If a group of artists come up against a new field, their repeated trials will inevitably lead ‘a compensating move, turning a handicap into an unexpected advantage’ (SO, 208). Previously, I discussed oil painting. Masters of tempera, among them Vasari and Michelangelo, might bewail the change, but oils held out unquestionable advantages, and opened the door to authentic marvels which would have been entirely impossible using the former technique. Evidently, the idea of the compensation of mastery is close to Popper’s notion of unintended consequences. A new change offers unexpected advantages and also unforeseen obstacles and difficulties. Compensation is the other face of sacrifice: what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts. When some of all the different conflicting

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conditions are favoured over others, one might well presume that in some way a step is being taken forward, but at the same time a step back as well. ‘To deny that representational skills declined in late antiquity seems to me as perverse as to withhold admiration from the marvels of Ravenna or the Lindisfarne Gospels’ (SO, 208). Moreover, the process is not determined, and it may well be that the compensating gesture does not actually take place, or not to the extent that might have been expected. Irrational confidence in that capacity for compensation is as unfounded as confidence in the novelty in itself. ‘We must hope that opportunities for mastery will always arise, but we cannot be sure, and we must let the future look after itself ’ (II, 161). In short, only the perspective of time can provide the expectations needed to dare to ask whether, after all, a given change of course has been worthwhile. Here, one can perfectly understand that each development achieves goals that must be measured from their own situation. And so it can be seen that the attitude with which one must approach art requires a catholic taste, such as that of Quintilian or Goethe, a view Gombrich clearly endorses: in art any gain in one aspect entails a loss in another, as he states repeatedly in his Story of Art (cf. SA, 196, 428, 489). 8. Field of Force With his processes of inflation and polarisation, polarising issues, principles of sacrifice and exclusion, and compensation, Gombrich comes close to positing a theory of stylistic change, which can now be seen, on many occasions at least, as the ‘interplay between sacrifice and exploration [. . .]’ (SO, 208). There still remains one important idea to add to this list. Gombrich remarks in passing on the existence in the great artistic traditions of a historical field of force (23). Any work references all those that preceded it. In one way or another, it cannot help but allude to them, either by making use of their discoveries or rejecting their way of doing things. Any evaluation of that work must take these references into account.

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As change occurs – sudden or gradual – the rejected forms slowly fade from the canon and from the consideration of artists and public. It is a very effective disappearance. Gombrich mentions that when Goethe visited Assisi, his attention was drawn to the well-preserved remains of the Roman temple, but he showed no interest whatsoever in the basilica of St Francis. Nonetheless, the basilica stood there, waiting for better times. The reader needs no reminder of what happened next; indeed, it is not unrelated to Goethe and his early praise for the cathedral of Strasbourg. Next came the neostyles. As Cicero, Tacitus, Quintilian and the rhetoricians knew, things change with time. In other words, our evaluation of the same things changes. We discover that, after all, the forms that until recently had been reviled reveal a clear wisdom of decision and achievement; ultimately, there must have been a reason why they triumphed. But there is more: looking at old forms from the position of new ones creates a contrast which the original artists could not experience. The rhetoricians had already noted that the archaic appears noble and austere to those who have seen a more developed art; and they will see contemporary art as a fatuous degeneration. Here we can return to the example of the church at the monastery of El Escorial whose authentically ‘Roman’ austerity marks it out from the other great Spanish churches. And over time, too, the promoters or immediate successors of the purist reaction will see an indubitable charm and a subtle elegance in the former compositive gaiety, in contrast to the dry, wearisome and unbearably dull forms that replaced them. It would be no exag­ geration to say that the sober architecture of Herrera ultimately yielded to the pressure of nostalgias for the architecture of Charles V and Isabella and Ferdinand. Nonetheless, it is important to remember that it is never possible to turn back the clock; the use of an archaic column in a developed medium takes on a significance that the original column never had. And the same is true of the flamboyant column in a normatively plain medium. The column takes on new connotations. We see, then, that Gombrich’s field of force (cf. 23) is created not only in a diachronic context but also in a synchronic one. The works of the

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past form part of our evaluations, whether they are praised or reviled. And that is fundamentally important. One can perfectly understand Gombrich’s insistence that art – the visual, plastic arts– does not allow formal analysis, it cannot be examined solely in terms of pure form. The norm precedes the form; ideas precede deeds. Art is a problem of evaluation. To make an evaluation is to give a measure of the mastery, and that requires entering the game. The game needs the ‘canon’, that is to say, all the great moves that form the reference point for making a judgement. The canon is transmitted by the ‘cloud of rumours’ which is the ‘tradition of general knowledge’ and ultimately creates in each player and spectator, validated by his or her experience, ‘that which is taken for granted’. What is taken for granted arouses in each of us a certain ‘level of expectation’. And each move is measured by that level, yet at the same time alters it. When we see a move in a game, we need a reference with which to judge it, a reference that comes from the game itself. What happens in art is that the rules change, the game is changed with the moves, as game, spectators and players all slide through the complex processes I have described: processes of competition that lead to improvements in traditions; the wear and tear resulting from repetition, a loss of prestige through excess and unjust partisan over – or underrating. Finally the result once more alludes back to the original reference points, taking on a new added value. The church at El Escorial is an extremely rigid, somewhat archaic structure with specific problems of design that might have been resolved if greater flexibility had been employed. This rigidity was intended as a contrast to the liberty of structures such as the cathedral in Granada. It cannot be judged without that reference, although it is nowhere to be seen in the finished form of El Escorial. A counter-example can be seen in the Petit Trianon. This is another architecturally severe construction, with classical pilasters and semi-columns, but it cannot be called archaic; indeed it is decidedly primitivist. The reference-to-the-reference occurs, not in the work of art itself, but in our expectations. And those expectations to some extent inherit the evaluations of previous generations which have been left floating in

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Figure 13.7 Basilica, Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. Patrimonio Nacional, Spain. Copyright © Patrimonio Nacional.

the cloud of rumours that is general knowledge. This is the reason why, over time, works acquire expression and significance; when we understand this process we see that there is something that can be called the history of art, and that in it the chain has not been broken – at least, not in its entirety. No one can ignore this dimension, and one of Gombrich’s great contributions is to highlight it. From this perspective, no nostalgia for the art of the past, restoration or renaissance, can allow us to return to some remote Golden Age. Works of art or elements of style cannot be stripped of the qualities and value they acquire in that historical ‘field of force’. Here I would like to quote from Gombrich himself. At the end of his article ‘Meditations on a Hobby Horse’ (MH, 1–11) he takes his hobby horse out for one last ride. Previously, this humble toy had served as an example of the value of function in representation; a simple stick looks like, and becomes, a horse, precisely because it is rideable. And

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up to this point, the example had not left the playroom. But Gombrich then adds: If – as might be conceivable – a Picasso would turn from pottery to hobby horses and send the products of this whim to an exhibition, we might read them as demonstrations, as satirical symbols, as a declaration of faith in humble things or as self-irony – but one thing would be denied even to the greatest of contemporary artists: he could not make the hobby horse mean to us what it meant to its first creator. That way is barred by the angel with a flaming sword. (MH, 11) 9. The Sandcorn and the Pearl I have spoken of the ‘chain’ and I would like to conclude this section by developing on that metaphor. Only one final consideration remains. The game as Gombrich describes it is not the noble game of Huizinga. The players and the public may have contemptible interests. This is not the agonistic combat of the Potlatch, medieval knights or minstrels. The motives of the participants may be noble or ignoble; if truth be told, it matters little. As Gombrich presents it, some of the fundamental aspects of the Vanity Fair, are rudely comic in appearance. ‘Need we be afraid of investigating these pressures, for fear of debunking man’s stature?’, asked Gombrich in his commentary to Huizinga, does the fact that cathedrals were built to proclaim not only the glory of God but also the power of the Bishop make them less beautiful? Are they not in any case astounding structures which we can admire for their own sake? (T, 161)

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And he turned our attention to that World 3, in which values have transcended. In that sense, the community of artists and their public might be said to form a game that pursues certain shared objectives; and those final objectives will ultimately transcend the minute and mediocre private ambitions, in so far as the ends arise from the game itself, and not from each of the players. For this reason, players and public constitute a ‘mankind being engaged in building up an autonomous realm of values which can somehow be conceived to exist beyond the indivi­ dual’s contribution and comprehension [. . .]’ (NF, 10). And that ensemble has not been broken over the centuries. Here we could turn to the beautiful paragraph from the Story of Art, in which Gombrich speaks of the metaphor of the chain. For there is no aspect of this story more wonderful than this – that a living chain of tradition still links the art of our own days with that of the Pyramid age. [On many occasions it] threatened this continuity [. . .] But somehow and somewhere the final disaster was always averted. When old tasks disappeared new ones turned up which gave artists that sense of direction and sense of purpose without which they cannot create great works. (SA, 473–4) The chain of ends and means on which achievements are strung, ‘the precious string of pearls that is our heirloom from the past’ (SA, 475), is identified with the History of Art. Art has a history, a meaningful cursus. But its sense derives from the succession of understandable ends and rationally applied means that achieve those ends. From that perspective, the splendid pearl necklace is no more than the canon of authors and works, the list that preserves the tradition of general know­ ledge of the works of art and artists that we need to know and admire. As I have said on many occasions, including here, the value of the pearls

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transcends the slight flaw or foreign body that brought them into being. But the form of the necklace (if I may continue the metaphor) has arisen from the multiple vicissitudes of small-scale history. Paradoxically, in order to understand the dazzling string of pearls and the reasons why they are arranged in one way and not another, we need to understand all those tiny pieces of dirt.

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14. Creation The first idea we need to address in this chapter is the notion of homo ludens, the playing man. The area of creation coincides with the area of play – private, intimate and joyful. Man is homo faber, born to make, transform and create. And homo faber is homo ludens, the man who ‘makes’ by playing, taking delight in his own action (cf. SO, 166–7), over and above its goal or need. The artist’s creation engages with that public play that stimulates his ambition, with a competition that drives him on through its continuous demands. Nonetheless, even in the midst of the apparent hubbub, creation takes place in a private space and – one might add – in solitude, silence and the darkness of the human interior. It is a question of the artist and his work; of the two equally. The artist works by playing and his work plays with him: it darts into view unexpectedly, sidesteps the feints of its maker, hides – on the tip of the artist’s tongue – mocking his best efforts, and then for one last moment surfaces once more, ­dazzling and seductive, either to be snared in the nets the artist has set or vanish for ever.

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However closely this description may correspond to Gombrich’s ideas (as we shall see), I am not sure that is entirely fortunate, and I shall not pursue the analogy. Evidently creation, as Gombrich sees it, is something that pertains to homo ludens. And this reference provides the necessary poetic dimension in an aspect of art theory which makes every attempt to come to a rational explanation. And so, above all, we have this idea: homo ludens creates through play. 1. Capacity and Will The model of play once again introduces the idea of mastery. Artistic mastery bears little resemblance to any circus-ring exercises in skill; but it does require extraordinary skill, and a very specific one to boot. Gombrich argued that the stubborn insistence of the eminent researcher Alois Riegl in extracting a unitary principle from the manifestations of an era, in order to identify a Kunstwollen, put paid to the idea of technical skill, and with it the possibility of initiating a true psychology of style (cf. AI, 20). It is not the will of form that deprives, but the artist’s mastery, his skill, the capacity to attain certain objectives. And that personal capacity of the artist depends, logically, on certain means, which are provided by tradition. As Wölfflin knew, ‘not everything is possible in every period’1 (AI, 4); the artist only has at his disposition the means that are given to him by his tradition. We like to assume, somehow, that where there is a will there is also a way, but in matters of art the maxim should read that only where there is a way is there also a will. The individual can enrich the ways and means that his culture offers him; he can hardly wish for something that he has never known is possible. (AI, 86) The artist starts from a medium, which he must tease at until he understands it, until he ‘feels’ its possibilities. That dominion, the mastery he

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achieves, guides, empowers and limits his creativity. Of all Gombrich’s ideas on the theory of art, mastery takes first place. The great artist is the great master, who knows and masters his medium. Seen from this perspective, one can clearly understand Gombrich’s preference for capacity over will. Gombrich’s thesis is not so much that the artist will resign himself to doing what he easily can. Rather he believes that the artist who has a powerful medium and knows its possibilities, will try to deploy them whenever he has a chance. The Renaissance painter who masters perspective will flaunt that dominion. One very famous example is Uccello, but there is no need to look for first figures. The magic of depicting space correctly is so powerful that the pictures are filled with prismatic architectures, porticos in regular lines, rich coffering and f lagstone-paved floors. And by the same token, a mastery of oil painting leads to a representation of textures with a perfection that was previously unknown. Each new method disrupts the possibilities. The artist must decide what to sacrifice, and in exchange for what; his work will follow the ‘principle of sacrifice’, combined closely with the idea of mastery; a good artist will not throw out the mastery it has cost him so much effort to achieve unless he can obtain some clear advantage or is obliged to do so. ‘Art presupposes mastery, and the greater the artist the more surely will he instinctively avoid a task where his mastery would fail to serve him’ (AI, 86). And when he makes up his mind to dispense with part of his skill, he will be in search of some greater gain, in what Gombrich calls the compensatory power of mastery. The forsaking of old manners holds out new advantages. Gombrich argues that the different periods should not be explained as if the artists were pursuing different goals. In history, the means are perfected thanks to artists’ endeavours to achieve multiple ends. With new means, new ends become visible and accessible. Some of them will be hard to square with the previous ones. One chooses; the new ends make old skills purposeless and they disappear. The acquisition of new skills reveals unsuspected potentials in a never-ending process of achievement and sacrifice (cf. SO, 208).

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This is where one can understand the advantage of this notion: capacity and not will. It is not so much the will of the artist and even less any type of collective will. It is the personal capacity that makes use of the capacity accumulated from a long tradition. 2. Cat’s Cradle For Gombrich, mastery does not just mean the painstaking, careful and thorough task of the medieval ivory sculptor who manages to carve infinitesimal details in full relief to perfection. The mastery Gombrich describes is also manifested in Raphael or Mozart’s proverbial ease of working. But even that miraculous facility is possible thanks to the resources of a great tradition, thanks to an accumulated capacity. It is the genius who creates the brilliant work, but the brilliant work needs the tradition, the vast resources. The first child (if there ever was such a child) who cut a twig from a willow tree and made a whistle may have been a genius, but however great we may imagine him to have been, he could not have evolved the complex instrument of the organ and written Bach’s organ fugues single-handed and within the span of a human life. (SO, 209–10) We can never know how many gifted shepherds with exceptional musical qualities have lived and died without ever knowing how to make use of them, resigning themselves, perhaps, to whistling as no man ever has before. Such men were masters: that is indisputable; but, as Gombrich sees it, mastery is what differentiates the whistling man from the Berlin Philharmonic performing Bach. Note that this example immediately leads us to query whether a whistling man is not ultimately better than a philharmonic orchestra. To find the answer, I think we must go back to the ideas that I

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mentioned earlier, regarding the relationship between capacity and will. Clearly, it is a problem of means and also a problem of objectives. The whistler has a small capacity, imposed by his lack of knowledge and experience, and therefore his goals are very limited. He may be a true virtuoso, and the symphony orchestra may be badly conducted and prove a failure. In such a case, we might say that the whistling man is the true master; but that is not the comparison that interests Gombrich. The man with his whistle cannot even begin to imagine Bach’s extra­ ordinary world of harmony and rhythm. Bach’s works belong to a rich tradition that mines the ‘discoveries’ of generations of musicians. And not only discoveries: within that tradition, means of expression have been achieved; thanks to tradition, music has become an expressive organ; and thus it contains not merely stylistic devices or artistic forms but an educated public and the reference-to-the-reference, which are only possible in an enriched tradition. The whistling shepherd could neither imagine nor savour the works of J. S. Bach, were he to hear them. Bach, on the other hand, could enjoy a simple flute and introduce it as a device into his compositions. All great art, as I have said, requires great tradition. Bach’s art is great because Bach and his tradition are great. The achievements of Bach’s tradition will always outstrip the possibilities of the music of nomad shepherds. This is how I would explain Gombrich’s thesis. The other side of the coin is that not even Bach can make a solo flute sound to the ears of his listeners as it sounded to the companions of the shepherd in our example: much has been gained, something has been lost. To get things right more often and better, one needs to start from previous successes and so the artist does not simply reject previous achievements, but seeks to use them to his own advantage, an approach that leads to more complete achievements. And so, the unsupportive is transformed into the cooperative, since it is in the essence of the game to achieve the best moves without destroying the rules, without breaking the ‘social compact’, the tacit union between players and spectators. Gombrich once described this effect as a ‘cat’s cradle’, in reference to the well-known children’s game in which players pass a string or rubber band, woven around their fingers, back and forth,

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each trying to introduce a new complexity, a new loop into the pattern (cf. SO, 210).2 The growth is effective, and it takes a given direction: it is progress. 3. The Topoi Bach’s musical system is created with simple units or motifs which are adjusted according to known arrangements into more complicated structures; and these, in turn, form part of a hierarchy of carefully related sets, which are perhaps incorporated into an even higher unity. The means of the tradition are not simple recipes of fashion; they include a vast range of procedures that pursue certain effects, depending on the goals that have arisen in the panorama of art. But goals and effects also depend on the public, which must in turn learn to master an appreciation of the works. These are not, therefore, just simple recipes: they are conventions, that is to say, points on which artists and public have agreed, or rather, traditions in which artists and public have grown up. Such elements, he argued, are limited and – by that token – manageable. The artist composes with and against them. And for this reason, said Gombrich, conventional elements, including great masterpieces, outweigh personal elements (cf. MH, 31). The shepherd and his whistling cannot make Western music. All great art, to recap, requires a great tradition. Here the conventions are not stumbling blocks, but the working medium. And the artist is called on to draw from them the optimum performance, even by exceeding them. This can only be achieved by someone who masters it, who is in the thick of things, who understands what they can produce, and, therefore, at a given point in time, can leave them behind. ‘I realize’, says Gombrich, that this insistence on the tenacity of conventions, on the role of types and stereotypes in art, will be met with

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scepticism by those who have not worked in this field. It has almost become the stock accusation against art history that it concentrates on a search for influences and thereby misses the mystery of creativity. But this is not necessarily the case. The more we become aware of the enormous pull in man to repeat what he has learned, the greater will be our admiration for those exceptional being who could break this spell and make a significant advance on which others could build. (AI, 24–5) The artist’s labour is unquestionably founded on prefabricated elements, contained within a tradition; this is something Gombrich typically insists on. Gombrich’s conception links art with any cultural manifestation. And this is because works of art can be seen to be composed of elements that are not necessarily definable, but which belong to that world, at once real and uncertain, to which I have alluded on many occasions: ‘that which is taken for granted’. What is taken for granted contains perfectly formalised and definable conventions; others, on the contrary, are only vague expectations. Standing between these two poles, there is a series that swings between the explicit and the implicit. What characterises that which is taken for granted and makes it real is the fact of being a shared set of things. And it is shared because within the same cultural area, the cloud of rumours that make up the general knowledge tradition arouses in all members of that sphere some shared evaluations and expectations, some common reference points, some topoi. The topos, the topical, is defined essentially by being something shared. Certainly, the commonplace has for us a certain connotation of an exhausted resource, which cannot be given too much importance.3 Yet it nonetheless remains available to the artist; and a true artist can turn the commonplace into a reference filled with new

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vigour. One should never forget that, however exhausted a resource may be, it has an ever-living component that alludes to our basic human dispositions. It is up to the artist to give it life, to impoverish it or enrich it (cf. 40, 267). It should not be seen as an empty formula. It is capable of articulating some aspect, it can offer us considerable help (cf. 19, 173). In any case, we must never entirely dispense with its help. The commonplace makes the understanding between the artist and his public possible. 4. Materialised Ideas Conventions in some ways take on the character of formulae; they are a synthesis of many consecutive efforts that ultimately provide a solution. The solution is transferrable to other artists; it solves a series of assumptions; or rather, it provokes a given effect. How can one build a monumental atrium that is impressive for its grandeur, envelopes the spectator and prepares him to admire another architectural feature? The answer is Bernini’s Square in the Vatican; a materialised idea and also, for his successors, a solution-made-image, a series of requirements satisfied. The same solution had satisfied similar requirements in the oval forum of Gerasa 1,500 years before. This is a common experience in the architect’s work: experience provides formulae – plastic formulae – that entail solutions. The clearest examples can be seen in classical architectures, particularly in the public buildings of the nineteenth century. The asymmetric site needs to contain a complex programme; all spaces of any importance and all facades must be symmetrical at least in one axis. In the solution, the requirements become forms which, in the initial sketches, still have a certain plasticity; those forms collide with each other until they fit, with some becoming smaller and others larger. This process would be impossible were the architect unaware of the possibilities of each form, the oval saloon here, the hall of the basilica there; if he did not have ‘materialised ideas’, images that provide solutions, images that can be adapted.

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Gombrich looked at the example of Raphael: It is revealing to see the traces of his pen circling on paper and searching for forms to develop, how he starts with simple ovals which become a head or how he shifts these elements to try out various formal and psychological relations between Virgin and Child. These records of the creative process confirm the claim that the figures rise out of Raphael’s mind – they are ideas come to life, and once he has clarified them as ideas they achieve that tender lucidity which looks so effortless. (NF, 68)4 These are formulae for making a head or much more complex schemata of psychological relations; they are materialised ideas, images that condense solutions, and those ideas must be included in the artist’s palette. For this reason, Gombrich has sometimes cited Dürer, who said that ‘an artist [. . .] is one who is inwardly full of images [. . .]’ (MH, 70). Dürer was right, evidently. Only someone who has at his disposal those images, materialised ideas, offered by tradition, can participate in the contest to create a masterpiece. An artist is expected to have a good stock of images; what Gombrich once called the ‘store houses of our mind’ must be packed with material, ready to be despatched at any time. ‘Only an artist who has mastered those principles of order codified and conventionalized in what we call style, whose mind (or “preconscious”) is stored with ordered elements, can join in this working-out process’ (NF, 78). 5. Second Nature In any case, we would be distorting Gombrich’s ideas if we were to overemphasise the role of conventions as something that is at the artist’s disposal, like an instrument, but foreign to him. Consider, for example,

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the works of J. S. Bach. Bach was the creator of the whole, but he was not the author of everything. Patterns, types and relationships were handed down to him by tradition, by a long chain of authors whose compositions had gradually incorporated themes and devices that were picked up and embellished by other composers. Bach incorporated them. And I feel that the word ‘incorporated’ admirably expresses Gombrich’s idea. Bach developed his capacity in those moulds that shaped his musical taste, his auditive memory, his sense of rhythm and harmony, his manual dexterity; his way of being a musician was made one with the virtualities of the tradition: the virtualities of the tradition were the virtualities of Bach, the possibilities he offered for new and more astonishing creations. This mutual dominion of the master over the tradition and the tradition over the master is, it seems to me, the essence of mastery as Gombrich understands it: the musician ‘articulates’ with a tradition that he himself contributes to articulating. Gombrich accurately defines that relationship when he writes that a painter as extraordinary as Raphael turned the body of conventions offered by his tradition into a ‘second nature’ (cf. NF, 79). This Ciceronian expression is extraordinarily significant. The tradition contributes the means to pour into them, to mould, our unformed potentials; this is the real meaning of Cicero’s expression: custom creates a ‘second nature’ in us that articulates us. (Famously, Pascal added that the real question was what was left for ‘first nature’.) Artistic conventions pertain to that status, they form in the artist a ‘second nature’ which articulates him. His biological rhythms, the way he performs his movements, these are all extended in the instrument, creating a perfect conjunction between his hands and his mind. The formulae, the conventions, merge with the biological propensities until, in the case of great artists, they achieve ‘the sublime feeling for rhythm and form that makes a master such as Raphael ride his circling movements which are both schemata and patterns’ (SO, 14). All of this, naturally, is the fruit of the artist’s intimate familiarity with his medium. Here the conventions of style are transformed into the habits of the artist, into routines. The artist needs to acquire a set of motor

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skills, a series of routines; the artist’s natural disposition will invite him to adopt those routines for which he is skilled, and favour those patterns and diagrams that he can attain with the routines he has acquired. These routines are integrated into routines of another order, enabling the artist to divert his attention from the lower levels to concentrate on the general progress of the creation process. The classic example is that of the musician. The pianist’s hands press down on keys that create scales, arpeggios and chords, without the performer paying much attention. It is the purpose of any learning of skills to make the constituent movements equally automatic. Whether we use a typewriter, ride a bicycle or play the piano, we first learn to ‘master’ the basic movements without attending to them all the time, so that our conscious mind is left free to plan and direct to over-arching structures [. . .]. (SO, 11) And Gombrich adds that ‘it does not seem far-fetched to think that this mastery is achieved precisely by hitching the movement to that powerhouse that directs our organic rhythms’ (ibid.). These skills are so deeply rooted that it is difficult to unlearn them (cf. 94, 345). At the same time, the routines of operation are closely related to the routines of perception or habits I mentioned before. Some compositions by Bach require three or even four melodies to be performed at once, with just two hands; operative routines allow the interpreter to concentrate only on giving accurate meaning to the composition; while his perceptual – in this case auditory – routines conduct four melodies at the same time in perfect consonance. The artist becomes one with his medium. That is indispensable. Whether a craftsman works in iron or gold, silver-wire [. . .] or ivory, we must

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acknowledge that only the most intimate familiarity with these materials can lead to that ‘feel’ for their needs and their limits on which these crafts could thrive. (SO, 66) 6. Specifications In the paragraphs above I have discussed the artist’s means, albeit in very general terms. Now I want to speak of his goals: what does the artist seek? At first sight, it might seem very difficult to determine the artist’s purpose, a difficulty that Gombrich clearly signals. Any human action [. . .] will be the resultant of many, indeed an infinite number of contributory causes. Psychoanalysis likes to speak in this context of ‘over-determination’ and the concept has its value as a reminder of the many motivations that may overlap in the motivation of anything we say, do, or dream. But strictly speaking any event that occurs is ‘over-determined’ if we care to look for all the chains of causation, all the laws of nature which come into operation [. . .] What would matter in any of these cases is only that the innumerable chains of causation which ultimately brought the work into being must on no account be confused with its meaning. (SI, 17) Although the word ‘significance’ is a confusing one, it represents a restriction. It is not a question of determining the artist’s inner world, but rather what he sought. The significance he seeks is not exclusively psychological: it is a recognisable purpose, a purpose that is intelligible

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for other artists, and for the public. Speaking of a picture by Picasso, Gombrich remarked that the point is that he found himself in a situation in which his private conflicts acquired artistic relevance. Without the social factors, what we may term the attitudes of the audience, the style or the trend, the private needs could not be transmuted into art. In this transmutation the private meaning is all but swallowed up. (MH, 43) This is why Gombrich insists that the artist’s purpose is the purpose that corresponds to his situation. It was born out of the context of the art (cf. II, 126), perhaps in the process I have described, following Gombrich’s ideas, in the ‘The Logic of Vanity Fair’. Raphael does not seek an outlet for his feelings, he seeks something recognisable, a Madonna; and Bach seeks a chorale or a fugue. These descriptions of objectives are reminiscent of the ideas of World 3: the vague intentions, feelings, private significances are subsumed into the ends and means of the situation, they are articulated and objectified in them. ‘What matters to us in Michelangelo’s oeuvre’, says Gombrich, ‘is less how it originated than what he accomplished’ (T, 101). It is the achievement that matters – an achievement that solves a complex problem, contains within it the many different aspirations it had to satisfy, the constraints it had to overcome. The problem as it comes down to the artist is not perfectly defined but it is at least delimited: the artist is free to do whatever he wants but there are presumed to be boundaries outside which any solution would be considered inviable. The public or the cognoscenti will demand that the rules of the game be upheld. The problem, ultimately, begins with those presuppositions. In speaking of style, Gombrich alluded to the multiple frameworks that are imposed by the problem – or rather that constitute it. The broadest and most unspecific of these is, undoubtedly,

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a general sense of decorum which gradually takes form in the successive frames of traditions, genres, types and multiple implicit or explicit conditions of a particular case. There are multiple goals, some of which are perhaps incompatible; goals that become impulses to competition, the balance between them varying depending on the ‘principle of sacrifice’. The Spanish architect incorporates Roman forms without sacrificing the achievement of ribbed vaults, as long as it is possible to do so. The unlimited number of conditions he has to fulfil differs to those faced by his predecessors in certain respects. Where previously the call was for fine mouldings and precious thistle-leaf decorations, now we have firm cornices and elegant volutes. But the approach to the problem requires him to endow his work with the gravity imposed by fashion, without entirely renouncing the previous richness. The context tacitly calls on him to satisfy contradictory objectives. Gombrich has sometimes used the term ‘specifications’5 – taken from the world of science and technology – to define those conditions. Specifications are the conditions that a device or instrument must satisfy; it is the programme it has to fulfil. Gombrich said that to establish a theory of style we should ‘approach artistic solutions in terms of those specifications which are taken for granted within a given period, and to list systematically, and even, if need be, pedantically, the priorities in the reconciliation of conflicting demands’ (NF, 98). At any given point in time, there are certain specifications, and they have an order. For example, opulence before clarity, the Plateresque architect would say, conjugating pilasters with beautiful ribbed patterns rising from ‘Roman’ pillars. In the church of El Escorial clarity predominates over opulence; there is no ribbed ornamentation in the vault. Again, the cathedral in Valladolid manages to bedeck itself with the very Spanish device of the encuadre, which acts as a good surrogate for Gothic ribs. The specifications are, to a great extent, taken for granted. This, says Gombrich, is what differentiates the work of art from the work of science or the technical invention. ‘there is a difference between art on the one hand and technology and science on the other. The artist works in a less tightly structured situation’ (II, 148).

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Figure 14.1  Cathedral of Valladolid, Spain. Photo María Angélica Martínez.

Fortunately, Gombrich says that it is ‘less tightly structured’; as any designer knows, it is not possible to explicitly define all specifications – even for the most functional of objects. The conditions that must be satisfied by a simple water jug could easily run to several volumes – more if one had to establish priorities among those conditions. It must be resistant, but light: how resistant? How light? How much more resistant than light? Not only would it be an exhausting (and inter­ minable) task, it would be pointless; no designer could cope with assuming all the specifications and calibrating the priorities, without imperilling his sanity over a simple jug. The jug is a formula handed down by tradition and it sufficiently satisfies its specifications. But what specifications might we establish for a symphony? Some might be easy to establish, but many could not be extracted from that which is taken for granted. Yet that does not mean they do not exist. The common notion that great artists have achieved all that is expected of them, and even more, is not a fiction. The composer who writes a

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symphony knows what he wants, but the ‘what’ will be overshadowed by that which is taken for granted. ‘There can never [. . .] be an exhaustive formulation of the precise problem a given work of art was created to solve’ (II, 148). It is there, in the ‘level of expectation’ that he has created style. Multiple different demands arise from the context. And the word multiple is important. Art has multiple functions and multiple genres and multiple ends and means (cf. II, 149–52). Such multiple conditions and specifications belong to different hierarchies that we must either favour or ignore; hierarchies of objectives which come into conflict because they correspond to contradictory demands. The multiple and inexplicit, the implicit and the contradictory, take us from the world of objectivity, of World 3, to the world of the Freudian unconscious. The purpose of the long path I have taken thus far is to help the reader understand Gombrich’s fundamental notion: the art work, which corresponds to the approach of the multiple and conflictive problem, must be a ‘complex order’. 7. Complex Orders The work of art is a complex order. As I have already said, this is the kernel of Gombrich’s idea of creation. The art work is the solution to that problem in which innumerable levels of clashing conditions are required; conditions that are born out of the situation, and that are taken for granted. In a work of art, we see ‘the highest type or organization’ (MH, 44); at heart, art involves ‘the mystery of ordered form’ (MH, 55). Faced with multiple different demands, the artist manages to create a balance between these conflicting demands (cf. SO, 209). This complex order is the solution to the complex problem. The complex order arises when everything in the art work appears to be in its place: when it ‘gets it right’, successfully satisfying all the demands in a single solution, when it seems right to us. In the introduction to The Story of Art Gombrich devotes several paragraphs to the idea of getting it right. The complex orders are not as yet mentioned. Gombrich’s most important article in this regard is ‘Raphael’s “Madonna della Sedia” ’ (NF, 64–80), published in 1955, which

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expressly mentions ‘complex order’. ‘The Use of Art for the Study of Symbols’ (111, 149–70) published in 1965, represents the application of this notion to an interpretation of the symbol. But naturally it is in The Sense of Order that complex orders form the underlying theme, albeit they are seldom mentioned per se. In reality, complex orders are the great masterpieces of painting (cf. NF, 80) and decoration (cf. SO, 83–94). And there also exist ‘such meaningful complex orders as a fugue by Bach’ (II, 129); great works of music can also be defined as such. A complex order requires that the artist has assumed ‘countless pulls and counterpulls on a hierarchy of levels’ (MH, 44). He has fought against them, making use of the means he has received from tradition. And ‘once he has succeeded we all feel that he has achieved something to which nothing could be added, something which is right – an example of perfection in our very imperfect world’ (SA, 14). The innumerable specifications and their mutual conflicting valu­ ations at different levels correspond to an ordered form in innumerable perfectly-balanced relations, ‘multiform crystals of miraculous complex­ ity [. . .]’ (MH, 44). That is what it gets right, ‘we speak of masterpieces precisely where we feel that this difficult feat has succeeded’ (SO, 209). And this is how we explain the unlimited astonishment and joy that true works of art can provoke. ‘It is an experience common to all of us that great works of art are inexhaustible [. . .] Their texture of relationships is so rich that we can never get tired of exploring them’ (MH, 66). And this is why we are both keen to understand it and at the same time have the sensation that shall never be able to exhaust it. ‘For it lies in the nature of art that it presses against the limits of our mental capacities – both in the direction of increasing refinement and discrimination and in that of richness and complexity’ (39, 66–7). Complex order as miraculous balance combines the conceptions of human creation defended by psychoanalysis and Popper’s philosophy of science. The balance alludes precisely to psychoanalysis, whereas order, in principle, stands closer to Popper’s ideas. The complex order will include beauty, of course; as I have shown, beauty was defined in a similar context: balance between contrasting

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demands. As I will now try to show, the complex order is built using the fragments of order furnished by conventions, formulae, the commonplace, references, etc. And for this reason, the ordered form is defined not only by form but also by its meaning. Form and meaning become a single inseparable thing: all art work is seen as a unity. It is order within order, and hierarchy on hierarchy, but it is a single thing. It appears in all its multiplicity in the greater simplicity of perfection. As Gombrich himself notes, his concept has nothing to do with solving a cryptic crossword puzzle (cf. NF, 77); it involves describing one of the great achievements of the human mind. Starting from the innumerable, multiple, varied, confused, contradictory and opposed specifications, prescribed at innumerable levels by artistic genres and forms and by a sense of decorum and by the possibilities of the moment and the audience’s preferences and the artist’s own possibilities, the draw of the competition and the cult of vanity itself, using formulae and conventions, resources and experiences, the perfect, unique, splendid, simple and complete solution is achieved that somehow seems always to have existed. This is the solution of the classical masterpiece; the masterpiece transcends the mediocrity of its birth, just as the pearl shrouds the grit from which it was born (cf. SA, 472); and when that happens, it will be transfigured into a metaphor. 8. Chaos and Order How is it possible, however, to create an order that satisfies the requirements of a complex problem that cannot even be formulated? The answer is to be found in the magnificent phrase from Nietzsche which Gombrich uses to round off his article ‘Leonardo’s Method for Working out Compositions’ (NF, 58–63): ‘You must be a chaos, to give birth to a dancing star’ (NF, 63). And here we have a paradox: only chaos can lead to ‘the highest type or organization’, to the ‘complex order’. The artist faces an undefinable problem, aided by the baggage of his mastery, of tradition, of the great exemplars. The solution may appear impossible. And from a rational point of view, it actually is. It is not possible simultaneously to satisfy multiple demands. The solution does not lie within

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the grasp of the rational mind, the logical process of thought that starts from the premises and from them rigorously draws solutions. It is not possible to define the problem, nor to erect from the beginning the milestones that the artist will follow in search of a solution. No one would describe a creative progress in those terms. Creation always involves something fortuitous and unexpected. One needs the means, certainly, but chaos is also required. Only from the confused and undefined can the complex order spring. And here one can see how Gombrich borrows from the ideas of Freud and psychoanalysis. Gombrich takes a basic distinction from a well-known psychologist he frequently cites, Ulric Neisser – who, in turn was referencing psycho­ analysis. Neisser distinguished between two main ways of capturing and elaborating information. The first is logical reasoning, which Neisser calls ‘sequential processing’, that is to say, the discursive reasoning that is performed step by step and consciously. However, this principal sequence is accompanied by other processes which Neisser called ‘multiple processing’,6 elaborated without any rule and performed without full consciousness. Artistic creation cannot be attributed to sequential processing. Initially, at least, the initiative does not correspond to reason (cf. NF, 77). It cannot be created step by step, and creation is inaccessible to ‘onetrack minds’ (cf. SO, 89). Creation requires multiple processing. We thus enter the confused universe of the Freudian unconscious. On the fringes of reason, the primary process continuously creates configu­ rations, merging, replacing and condensing forms and meanings. This is the chaos of the unconscious, which engenders the pristine and crystalline solution. Penetrating the unconscious is the resource every creator uses.7 Or, to put it in psychoanalytical terms, the artist seeks ‘regression in the service of the ego’. This is the formula used by Kris to summarise Freud’s theory of the joke, as set out in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. Here Gombrich’s theory of creation links in to Freud and Kris’s. A sufficiently vigorous ego can tap the possibilities of instinctive urges, harnessing them and providing them with an acceptable outlet through art. To do so, it has to employ regression; it has to in some way

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break the ties that bind it to reality; it has to break the external consistency. This is no less than ‘the willing suspension of disbelief ’, raising the anchors of reality, putting out on an uncertain sea and allowing oneself to be carried along by the strong tides. In this suspension of oversight, reason gives way to multiple processing, or – in psychoanalytical terms – to the primary process. What is interesting about this issue, in any case, is that this regression is performed ‘in the service of the ego’. That is to say, there is no complete break with reality; the ego, the principle of reality, guides the process and tries to extract from it whatever it can make use of. And so in the suspension of disbelief we find two interesting ideas coming together. One immediate Freudian idea: the artist creates as if in a dream, his controls relaxed. This allows the primary process to have free rein and the images to fuse, to disrupt one another and condense, and to find an outlet (cf. 38, 35). And the second idea is that the artist breaks his external consistency in order to play, as Huizinga had posited. In doing so, however, he finds another internal consistency, the rules of the game, to which he must submit. The artist is bound to objective rules. He must abide by the conditions that he is set, by any manner of specification (cf. 51, 223–4). His task is not a pointless digression, or a form of escapism; it is a work which pursues recognised objectives that can only be performed by provoking a break with reality. However modest his work, the artist experiences the vertigo of creation – and the term vertigo is apt, given that it is related to the primary process. It is a certain sensation of being adrift, sometimes at great speed, focusing only to what he has in his hands and removed from all else. ‘Once he is engrossed in this task of creating intricate and meaningful structures nothing else can matter to the artist. The problem has taken command’ (38, 37). 9. The Incessant Melody According to Freud’s theory of the joke, that relaxation of controls enables a condensation of images which can turn an anodyne narrative into an amusing joke. This condensation, like other effects, is the casual

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fruit of the primary process. In the incessant coming-and-going and confusion of images, the right combination emerges as if it had been summoned up by an incantation: the joke. What distinguishes this process is precisely that the ego is capable of extracting a consistent solution, which does not evaporate, as happens in the dream. However, in order to reach the solution, the images must enter freely into conflict until, from among the innumerable permutations, one fortunate one emerges. Freud argues that regression is accompanied by a regressive pleasure that emerges precisely from this constant activity: combining images and words over and over again. At heart, this activity is like the one used by children learning a language. As Freud explains, infants make a constant babble of chance – and therefore unintelligible – noises because it brings them pleasure, and through this innocuous game they learn to master language. The artist ‘returns’ to a similar state by giving free rein to combinatorial processes, and at the same time experiences an intense pleasure, a functional pleasure, that comes from this very deed (cf. SO, 290).8 This regression plays a fundamental role in creation. The artist who pursues a complex order has to reduce himself to this state. Because ultimately, the child’s babbling does not simply seek some happy combination, but a mastering of the medium, an understanding of its limits and, as we have seen, a ‘feeling’ for its possibilities. This is something inherent to the idea of mastery. And it is one of the lessons that Gombrich has drawn from Freud’s book on the joke. Freud’s book on wit gives at least one clue to this mastery which we neglect at our peril: the discussion of the role of the child’s pleasure in playing with language which, to Freud, is a functional pleasure connected with the acquisition of mastery. Surely it is convincing to think that such accidents of sound and meaning as make up the perfect pun are discovered by those

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who cultivate the childhood pleasure of experimenting and playing with words and nonsense syllables. It is in this play that the ego gains control and mastery of the primary process and learns to select and reject the formations that emerge from the welter of the unconscious. (38, 36) Assuredly, this is why Gombrich likes to present great artists as being preoccupied with their ‘problem’, fixated with testing different combinations over and over again, giving free rein to their imagination, enabling the elements of order to come together, condense and separate in an incessant melody. And à propos of melodies, this approach is best illustrated amongst musicians. What seems to me so characteristic of the great masters of the medium is the extent of their voyages of discovery through the lengths, breadth and depth of the tonal system they inherited. The mere sight of the collected works of Bach, Haydn, Mozart or Schubert is awe-inspiring even if you do not remember how short a lifetime was allotted to some of them. How did Schubert manage to write more than six hundred songs, in addition to all the piano works, chamber music, symphonies, abortive operas, Masses and choral compositions, in a period of some fifteen years? Surely only by letting music serve him, as he served music. It seems to me that music must always have filled the minds of these masters, tunes and harmonies were always running in their heads, they were incessantly

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composing and what they left us are only the snatches they managed to write down when some commission or occasion prompted them to do so. (T, 207–8) It is revealing. The artist is continuously playing with his medium, a medium that has provided the tradition but which the artist has made his own, which has been articulated in him. Precisely in this game, homo faber is transformed into homo ludens. The pleasure of mastering his art drives him on to new voyages of discovery that extend his own virtualities (cf. SO, 166). This is clearly what Gombrich is talking about when he says that Schubert let himself be served by music. The artist lets himself be served by music in the sense that he has at his disposal all the elements of order, conventions and formulae, discoveries and keys that his predecessors have found, and which have been incorporated into the tradition. However, music also has the artist at its disposal, because those elements will only find a new objective solution, a complex order, another achievement, in the depths of the artist’s unconscious, where, using them, the chaos can bring forth another dancing star. 10. Feedback Creation I have already said that for Gombrich, artistic creation involves two elements: the artist and his medium. It is a feedback creation. It belongs to the genre of processes that engineers call ‘feedback’. Popper frequently talks of feedback processes when discussing the acquisition of knowledge. Here, however, his ideas also tie in with Freud’s. The joke, says Freud, emerges ‘half-way’. It does not pertain solely to the artist; the joke was there, in the language, and it has been invoked, summoned. The artist knows how to recognise it and extract it from amidst the chaos of other images that will be confined to oblivion (cf. T, 105f.). In this sense, Gombrich believes, the joke is a paradigm of art: there is medium and there is mastery; the medium suggests and the artist answers. ‘Creative work’, says Gombrich, ‘usually proceeds in

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stages with the artist watching the emergent form and considering where to go next’ (SO, 79–80). As I have explained, creation happens by giving free rein to the imagination, in such a way that the requirements gradually crystallise into forms and images, with the aid of traditional arrangements, which previously served to give partial solutions to similar problems, and which are already fully materialised ideas. And in the process, the artist oversees the emergence of those forms, testing them over and over again, unmaking them and testing them once more. In this ­process of trial and error, the purpose is to fit together the pieces of a mysterious puzzle, in which both the background and the pieces themselves may be altered in the process. ‘Order creates order’ (NF, 78). The traditional elements of order are articulated one upon another, hierarchies are raised upon hierarchies in constellations of orders, rising to unimaginable heights in a process of ever-increasing complexity. The medium suggests: ‘Try this here’; ‘Forget that’; ‘There’s something interesting here’; ‘That works well’, etc. These are, I suppose, the expressions one ‘hears’ in one’s interior, whether one is an amateur flower-arranger or a great master resolving a work of art. This is the example Gombrich uses in the introduction to his Story of Art: Anybody who has ever tried to arrange a bunch of flowers, to shuffle and shift the colours, to add a little here and take away there, has experienced this strange sensation of balancing forms and colours without being able to tell exactly what kind of harmony it is he is trying to achieve. We just feel a patch of red here may make all the difference, or this blue is all right by itself but it does not ‘go’ with the others, and suddenly a little stem of green leaves may seem to make it come ‘right’. ‘Don’t touch it any more’, we exclaim, ‘now

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it is perfect’ [. . .] In every such case, however trivial, we may feel that a shade too much or too little upsets the balance and that there is only one relationship which is as it should be. (SA, 14) The artist may choose whether or not to accept the suggestions from the medium, working by trial and error: ‘Let’s add a little blue . . .’; ‘No, that doesn’t work’; ‘Let’s try the green and red . . .’; ‘That’s it’. And so, the complexity of the built order grows and, as it becomes consolidated, the field within which the solution can arise grows smaller. The decisions taken during the creation process may plot out a field in which the solution is impossible, in which case, it will be necessary to start again and try another way. The difference in complexity between arranging a vase of flowers and creating a work of art is probably no more than a question of degree. The elements making up the work of art are far richer: the order involves auditory or visual forms, meanings and references, historical valuations, the things to which we wish to allude and those we wish to avoid, all of which have taken form and meaning in the tradition and exist within the artist as materialised ideas. For this reason, what is of interest about the complex order – what Freud’s theory provides – is condensation. The varied and contradictory requirements become elements that harmonise with one another thanks to what I have described as multiple processing; they combine over and over again until condensing in a perfect combination. Here it is important to recall the faculty of ‘generalise’, that Gombrich attributes to artists; of entering into the resources of a style but adapting them to come up with a genuine work of their own. The elements are integrated into a new order which is the result of the artist’s meritorious work. This is why Gombrich thought it was absurd for people to be shocked that masters such as Raphael literally borrowed from other authors. Raphael is not a magpie; he takes elements within his grasp in which he discerns an aptitude to participate in an order with a higher degree of resolution (cf. SI, 99).

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11. Vicarious Creation9 Moreover, this way of viewing creation, as a feedback creation, takes us closer to a way of addressing creation that was common in the past: workshop creation. The members of the workshop adopt and assimilate the master’s way of working with that same capacity to generalise that enables Raphael to integrate other artists’ valid findings into his own works. Such cases, said Gombrich, were a matter of assimilation, and not crude and literal imitation. The artist ‘makes it his own’; he incorporates it. That same phenomenon occurs in the case of style, when the artist creates something that ‘follows in the same line’ as other objects. As I have already discussed, Gombrich calls this phenomenon ‘per­ ceptual generalization’. And he illustrated it with the example of an impersonator, who mimics someone’s gestures as if they were his own and applies them to new situations. The problem of workshop authorship, of multiple but directed creation, was one of the apparently insurmountable stumbling-blocks Gombrich faced when writing his doctoral thesis on Giulio Romano. There is not one document telling us what the young man in his teens did in Raphael’s busy workshop, but this did not seem to deter famous authorities from pronouncing exactly which figure or group in his master’s oeuvre was really painted by him and which by other named assistants. I have never surmounted this second crisis of confidence. (T, 14) Feedback creation, as Gombrich describes it, helps clarify this issue. Speaking of the members of Ghiberti’s workshop, he remarked: I think the temptation must be resisted to assign the portions we like best to the master and the parts which appeal to us

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less to a more menial hand. What I said about picking up and mimicking a manner and style of speech to the point of possible forgery must surely also have applied to the gifted members of a workshop. Working for so long and in such close association, they could probably do you a Ghiberti, that is to say, a figure of which Ghiberti would have approved. If he had not, he would have sent them away. He could always intervene at any stage as the leader of any team does, either by precept or demonstration. Like the producer of a play or of a film, he would remain in charge and take the credit. This is a point, I think, where art history can profit from the emphasis on feedback I am here advocating. It illuminates the possibility of creation by remote control. (T, 202) On another occasion, Gombrich introduced the subject of ‘vicarious creation’ giving an easy example which I will put to greater use below, maybe the most telling comparison would be with the conductor of an orchestra, who never puts his hand on an instrument and who, through explanation in rehearsal and finally through his conducting, leads and inspires the players to re-create the symphony or the opera as he had heard it in his mind. Sometimes, in watching such a maestro at work, you will see that a mere hint suffices to convey to the players that they should play a little more forte or piano and that through this subtle but

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all-important nuance the performance takes its memorable shape, as it did under Toscanini. (NL, 140) 12. Gradual Creation10 On several occasions, Gombrich turns his attention to a form of creation that has no specific author or even director – the process whereby our ancient cities were erected. A great number of artists have been involved in the creation process over the centuries, producing harmonious ensembles: there is a certain sense of unity between the different elements and in turn between them and the environment in which they stand. There are numerous different artists and their creation is gradual. This is what Popper – in a phrase borrowed by Gombrich – calls ‘piecemeal engineering’ (RH, 195). When the artisan prepares his work he has a relatively modest programme. He is helped by tradition, allowing him to adopt solutions that have been tried and tested a thousand times on similar problems to his. And he is infused with the formal language that surrounds him. Because he works in a medium that is not particularly affected by theoretical manifestos, regulatory prescriptions and proscriptions mean little to him. And thus, although he almost always designs in the style of his time, he has an unquestioning respect for things of the past. It is easy for him to predict the result, because he uses firmly established models and types; and because those formal traditions are shared by all, he will be subject to a slight but constant and effective criticism that will deter him from anything inappropriate. And in any case, his actions are small ones, and should they prove unfortunate, it will always be possible to correct them later. It might be called feedback creation in that the work incites criticism from contemporary spectators and users and prepares the action of future artists who will correct, remodel or modernise the original artifice. What makes for the superiority of traditional styles which was dimly felt and yet so badly traduced by the ‘historical’

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styles [. . .]? Perhaps the answer may lie in the fact that these styles are indeed traditional and thus the result of a relatively slow process of evolution and adaptation. In such a process one might expect features which are felt to be obtruding or disturbing to be gradually eliminated from the builder’s repertory. If one farmhouse was less successful and looked odd and alien in its surroundings, the next builder might unconsciously feel his way towards a better solution that avoids the mistakes of the first. This would be the conservative, the ‘Burkeian’,11 case for the slow evolution of tools and styles in the settled life of relatively static societies, conditions that guarantee the successful adaptation to function and surroundings. Our aesthetic satisfaction with the results would thus be an intuitive acknowledgement of the ‘rightness’ of these solutions within the requirements of a country’s life and landscape. Nor would this ‘rightness’ be restricted to utilitarian aspects. The steeple of the village church marking and accentuating the centre of the community’s life and worship, the castle on the hill that slowly developed from a fortress into a commodious residence of the local Lord, the wealthy monastery set apart in its large estate, they all gradually find the form that suits both their function and their significance within the fabric of a country’s life. This continuous significance, moreover, this

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sense of growth may transcend the changes of style and fashion that were bound to occur in the long history of a building. (59, 8–9) This paragraph is taken from the introduction to a collection of photographs of Austria. In it, Gombrich discusses the impression of harmony these modest but varied and fortunately integrated works strike in us. They awaken a certain nostalgia for simple happy times that have since vanished, leaving the evocative testimony of the ‘picturesque’. Gombrich certainly knows – and he begins by stressing the fact (cf. 59, 8; RH, 195–7) – that our romantic reaction is heightened when we look at these pictures from the perspective of our vast, loud and at the same time monotonous cities, while at the same time indulgently ignoring all the negative aspects of those times and places. Nonetheless, the harmony is real, our intuition is right to see in those ensembles something more than a reproach for the defects of our own urban civilisation. And capturing that harmony naturally requires a certain capacity to discriminate. It is a matter of appreciating a real value, the beauty of an ancient city or monument. But they are not beautiful because they are ancient; rather because their many creators got it right, they gradually created a consistent weave on which any intervention could be judged. One need only think of a city such as Venice or a monument such as Burgos Cathedral. To a large extent, the great monuments of architectural history owe their appeal to this gradual process. Gombrich includes these monuments in his scale of mastery because they are masterpieces, and in them multiple masters feed from the great traditions that have managed to survive changes in style. After all, there are monuments that are not beautiful, although they are very ancient and very famous; and others made up of different and unmatching parts, even though they may separately be considered of value. Picturesque beauty exists. And, strangely, it is due to the fact that its masters act like painters, applying small and carefully thought-out

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brush strokes that always allow some later qualification or substitution. This is the approach that Popper commends to social planners: not-­ planning,12 dissolving the great plans into innumerable decisions taken by innumerable wills, which bear small manageable, accumulatable, criticisable and improvable fruits. This is the approach that has borne the finest fruits in Spanish architecture, whose authors – with the few exceptions of some royal projects – worked on existing buildings or environments. Generally speaking, they did so with admirable tact, fusing their work with that of their predecessors, without seeking either to confuse or conceal. This approach deserves more attention. Think, for example, of the mosque at Córdoba. Whether one applauds the decision to include the cathedral choir in the former Aljama or not, the solution – once taken – is admirable. Historians generally prefer to look at the great figures, disdaining the achievements of small and gradual creations. Ultimately, the minor masters stood somewhat on the sidelines of the schools of thought of

Figure 14.2  Cathedral-mosque of Córdoba, Spain. Photo María Angélica Martínez.

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their time. ‘To be sure, artistic quality need never suffer because it is practised in a backwater. Even Bach’s music was old-fashioned in its own time, and Tiepolo was something of an anachronism even in Italy’ (59, 11). There is another reason for the indifference, too. Speaking of Austria, Gombrich said that to the Austrian craftsman richness and profusion, splendour and variety were never values to be shunned as was the case both in Italy and in the North during the predominance of the classical doctrine. The local builders and carvers were never inhibited by fear of being ‘vulgar’ or ‘ornate’. It is true that their idiom on the whole remained heavier and less capricious than the extreme styles of flamboyant Gothic in Spain or the wildest fancies of the Bavarian Rococo. But [. . .] they loved the display of intricacy and ingenuity. Faced with the traditional sneer that their design resembled a wedding cake they might well have retorted – but what’s wrong with a wedding cake? (59, 10) The historians’ inability to analyse these works is not only the product of the inattention and even disparagement heaped on some of them by educated history. I wonder whether we do not sometimes underrate the instinctive tact and aesthetic sense with which these alterations or additions were made in the past. It is my contention that we know so little about this aspect of architectural tradition because people have rarely looked for the

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evidence. I believe that this possible gap in our knowledge is due to the architectural historian’s pre-occupation with style [. . .] I wonder [. . .] whether this emphasis on changing styles has not sometimes blinded architectural historians to the sense of continuity and balance that governed these earlier alterations. (RH, 201) Piecemeal engineering is not only a useful notion for describing an approach to creation that merits more attention from historians. Above all, it is Gombrich’s advice for the future. Complementing his intro­ duction to the book on Austria is an article published in the Architectural Association Journal, from which I have taken this last quote. In it Gombrich states that the hypothesis I should like to put forward might be called one of conservative aesthetics.13 I would not want this to be confused with romantic or reactionary aesthetics. On the contrary, I put it forward in the belief it might assist the modern architect in the criticism of his decisions and therefore lead to a closer approximation in the modern idiom of the happy results that marked the growth of the old towns. (RH, 199) 13. Unpredictability and Systematics Having examined the issue of the artist or artisan, we should now look at the means they use. The medium must possess a certain capacity of suggestion. To this end, the design or skill of the art work will maintain a certain fluidity and a certain ambiguity in the configurations it proposes. Words such as draught, sketch, diagram, outline and notes

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describe instruments of creation that are, at the same time, intermed­ iary stages. Gombrich has written several articles on Leonardo da Vinci’s approach to the creative process, claiming that he was the first artist to consciously use the procedure of the ambiguous drawing, the uncertain scribble, onto which he could project forms, to give him suggestions. Gombrich’s reasoning is sound and his claim may well be true.14 There is no doubt that later artists borrowed from this procedure. After Leonardo, drawing became the medium used in the visual arts to give form, to outline initially unformed ideas. Its very lack of definition enabled a progressive approach, based on trial and error. However, if the indeterminate sketch is a Renaissance discovery, then it could not have been used – consciously, at least – by classical artists and mediaeval artisans. Generally speaking, any mediaeval drawings that have been preserved, including architectural drawings, are extra­ ordinarily well-defined. The draughtsmanship behind each constituent part of a figure or building is very precise. The artists based themselves on well-known patterns and gave them new form or combined them in a different way. This does not signify that Gombrich believes that the notion of feedback creation cannot be applied to those periods. The central theme of Art and Illusion is the role of the schema. Yet that is not to say that those schemata – so common in the ancient and medieval world – had the same flexibility as Leonardo draughts. In short, just because pre-da Vincian artists did not consciously use confused sketches, it does not mean that their way of creating cannot be defined in Gombrich’s terms. The schemata, whether or not they are rigid and profiled, display intermediary stages when the solution is as yet undecided. This simply indicates that the elements of order involved are different, and the margin of variation that can be assigned to any one of them is also different. Leonardo used elements that were unattainable for Nicholas of Verdun. Verdun’s lips follow established types with little margin for significant variation. The lips of Leonardo figures are much more significant. Nicholas of Verdun can choose unhesitatingly from several types of mouth, but Leonardo can achieve a unique expression. The defining features in the figures on the predellas of the pulpit at

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Klosterneuburg are more rigid than those of Leonardo’s Last Supper, even if both works may be defined as complex orders. The artist can only introduce elements into the complex orders over which he has the capacity of decision.15 And those elements, in which he can choose from among different alternatives, are the significant ones. In a Visigoth church the shape of plundered columns and capitals is generally irrelevant, although there may be some significance in the fact that they are Roman and ancient, since that is the artist’s purpose. In creating the building, the artist has used them as items of prestige and embellishment, but it was not in his gift to alter their shape, much less to devise them. Any clumsy design he might have achieved would have lacked the finesse of detail. And even if he had drawn them, it would have been impossible to find a sculptor to make them. And even if they had been designed and executed, it would have been impossible to find a public that would properly appreciate that finesse. In order to master form, the artist must use his design methods; to create it, he will submit to the procedures of execution; to exhibit it to the public, he will fall back on the generalised degree of nuance. A Visigoth architect may ‘design’ the capitals of San Pedro de La Nave but not those of the Erechtheion; a seventh-century Visigoth cannot draw them, cannot build them, cannot appreciate them. The medium that an artist uses to design is dependent on the possibilities of his mastery. The creation is entrusted to a medium that must be suggestive; the solution will meet the artist half-way. Therefore, the result of the creation is unpredictable. The artist does not know exactly what he is looking for until he finds it. He knows to some extent what the problem is, but he cannot quite see its solution. The solution emerges in the course of the game: the painter will be inclined thus to play with forms, the musician with tones. Both of them may be no more able to predict these possibilities than anyone can predict what happens when we shake a kaleidoscope; but

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having shaken it we can admire and remember some of the results; we can even elaborate them when they strike us as meaningful while we discard and forget others. (38, 38) However, for this very reason, Gombrich does not present the artist sitting around waiting to be inspired. Precisely because the solution is not something that is achieved systematically according to a plan, the artist must be a man who tirelessly spends his time testing out solutions; the great master must be a conscientious inquisitor, a systematic explorer. Gombrich alludes to this characteristic on several occasions when referring to painting (cf. HA, 42; AI, 323), and the decorative arts (cf. SO, 92). Chaos requires constant oversight, continuous trial and error; the artist cannot neglect his part in the process. He must keep watch. An accidental result is, at best, unrepeatable, since it is impossible to reconstruct the path that has led him to it and take it a second time (cf. AI, 323). A vigorous ‘ego’ is required to lead the process to a successful conclusion (cf. SO, 185). Otherwise we would all be great artists, since we all dream (cf. 38, 35). But only the person who has the elements of order stored in his mind, who knows how to judge the results he is offered in his imagination and make a decision, can become a great artist. Even a Mozart, when writing a lighthearted divertimento, may not have known or thought precisely what was going to happen to the simple theme he chose. But he knew that by putting it through the paces of certain modulations and developments something delightful was bound to emerge. Naturally his genius and his training made him select a theme suitable for this exercise, and even allowed

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him to foresee and reject out of the corner of his eye certain alternatives which would result in less interesting developments. (38, 38) 14. Transcendence and Inspiration The process of creation, as Gombrich describes it, does not have a given conclusion. The artist proceeds by trial and error in search of a solution that he may perhaps guess at but does not know with certainty in advance. And the solution may possibly not present itself, or it may appear without his knowing how to exploit it, or he may reject it in favour of another less successful one. Or he may just capture it successfully. Some element of luck is required, certainly, since a complex order, a marvel, is not within the reach of all mortals; strictly speaking, it is not within the reach of any mortal. The artist, Gombrich tells us, senses the challenge of the problems which his tradition and his task present to him. He feels, and rightly feels, that his own powers alone would never suffice to bring the shapes, sounds and meanings into perfect harmony, and that it is never the self, but something outside himself, call it luck, inspiration or divine grace, that helps to bring about that miracle of the poem, the painting, the symphony he could not have willed. (II, 128; cf. SO, 87; NF, 78) However, the master who is a systematic explorer, who uses a system with which to explore, will undoubtedly have more opportunities to know the range of his medium and his virtualities. On the one hand, the number of elements he has available to him, formulae and conventions, is not infinite. As I have mentioned when discussing style,

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language needs be selective; the resources of style, the recognisable elements, are difficult to innumerate since they belong to very different levels of order, but they are limited. At the same time, the artist does not start from scratch; he has the help of complex orders created by those who preceded him, based on which he will seek to create a new order. Finally, the systematic explorer tests again and again, delimiting the field in which the solution will emerge. The greater the complexity involved in the order he is looking for, the more he has to reduce the number of solutions (cf. NF, 77). One example can be seen in the baldachin in the Vatican: four helical columns, a magnificent scalloped and curved entablature. In these circumstances, if the artist’s imagination insistently presents configurations and they are properly analysed, it is not impossible that some of them fit and the feat is achieved. And so Gombrich argues that there is no intrinsic reason here why the solution should always elude the artist bent on ordering a large but limited number of elements which may and do fall into place and come right, as do the tones in one of the great fugues by Bach. Such an artist, as I have said, works within a medium that is pre-shaped by tradition. He has before him the benefit of countless experiments in creating orders of a similar kind and value. Moreover, in setting out to create another such ordered and meaningful arrangement of tones, he will, during the process of creation, discover new and unintended relationships which his watchful mind can exploit and follow up, till the richness and complexity of the work transcends in fact any configuration that could be planned from scratch. (II, 129)

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The complex order is out of reach of any one man, a man without tradition. Even the man who can call on the support of all the elements of order passed down by previous generations needs a stroke of ‘luck, inspiration or divine grace’, in short, something ‘outside himself ’ (cf. II, 128). These phrases are taken from the article ‘Art and Self-Transcendence’ (II, 123–30) whose very title reflects a certain Popperian inspiration. I would like to compare these words with a magnificent paragraph that Gombrich borrowed from Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. At such moments Yuri felt that the main part of his work was not being done by him but by something which was above him and controlling him: the thought and poetry of the world as it was at that moment and as it would be in the future. He was controlled by the next step it was to take in the order of its historical development; and he felt [. . .] only the pretext and the pivot setting it in motion. (38, 37) I have taken this passage from the article entitled ‘Freud’s Aesthetics’, whose inspiration is obvious. Freud might prefer to say that it was something that was ‘beneath’ him; but, for whatever reason, it was something removed from the artist. Above all, the artist has the elements of his tradition – means and objectives – and he has to await the inspiration of something outside him. This overcoming of the area of the merely subjective is very important. What Popper identifies with the epic construction of World 3, the set of great objective ideas, of discoveries, Gombrich sees as the art canon, the chain of great authors and great works. To a certain extent, it is as if the great traditions were waiting for the occasion to produce a new pearl but required the chaotic primary process of a human mind to bring it together. In that context, the elements of order of tradition have the opportunity to adopt a new configuration,

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to be condensed and crystallised in a simple and at the same time complex work, in a felicitous solution of the conflict. The work of art will be the work of the artist, but, above all, it will be the work of tradition. To quote Gombrich: ‘Those who stress the importance of style are right in so far as they remind us of the prefabricated elements out of which alone a more complex masterpiece can be built’ (II, 153). Although the passage is ambiguous, Gombrich is clearly not stating that it is the elements by themselves that lead to a work of art, but rather that with those elements alone, a masterpiece can occur, in a combination that is again felicitous. The act of combining corresponds to the artist, to the multiple processes that evolve in his mind. 15. The Unity of Art Art requires from the artist an ability to condense. And to acquire that capacity, the artist must become one with the tradition, he must articulate himself in it; and in this way, he can articulate it a bit more. Remember, the artist takes from tradition and tradition takes from the artist. In the channels of tradition there is no place for the elements that form the goal of psychoanalysis, the instinctive impulses of the artist, his intersecting motivations, his hidden intentions. There are only means, ends and achievements. The artist is assumed into the tradition; but the tradition assumes from him only the participatable. His inner problematics hold no interest; what matters are his intelligible solutions to the shared problem, a problem whose enunciation falls within that which is taken for granted. What is important is not what Michelangelo was like but what he achieved. In this regard, art is comparable to science and other areas of human activity. The history of science, of political ideas, of technique, cares little for the particular disposition of the individuals who have contri­ buted to it; it is interested in their objective contribution. Kepler or Galileo are of interest only in the measure of their contributions. The ideas that they each contributed were in some way contained in the previous formulations. A logical development, made by human intel­ ligence in a felicitous moment, has revealed those ideas, deduced them

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through trial and error. From this perspective, ideas arise at a given point in time, if there is someone at that moment who is willing to find them; they are, therefore, children of their time and of chance. But, because they can be deduced, they are above all the fruit of their tradition. And so each human activity may be thought of as a chain of autonomous achievements, effected by human intelligence, which extend into one another in what Popper called the intellectual unity of the human genus. Authors follow one another in a continuous reasoning, following logical laws. In the same way, one might see artists as succeeding one another in a constant melody produced by their minds, circumstantially producing remnants, specific works, that constitute the visible landmarks of art history. I cannot recall any occasion in which Gombrich has posited this idea in reference to music, but he does quote approvingly the words of the author of a masterly book on ornament, A. H. Christie, ‘to which I owe so much’. And Christie says, The slightest change in a pattern suggested others, either to be pursued at once by the same worker, or at some future time by another who might by chance pick up the thread. Thus, in the course of ages an infinite number of cognate designs, derived from a root idea, have been logically evolved, step by step, by the united efforts of many minds [. . .]. (SO, 87) This is the same idea that Gombrich encapsulates in the expression ‘cat’s cradle’, as we have already discussed. Each artist passes on his work to his successors with a new loop, and they in turn add other new ones before passing it on to another generation. I think that it is in this context that we should interpret Gombrich’s remarks on Pasternak’s paragraph: It is the medium, not he, that is active and that expresses these thoughts. There is

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something objective in his discoveries that rids the work of art of the taint of subjectivity and exhibitionism. Even the idea of historical forces whose instrument the artist becomes at such a moment can be stripped of its Hegelian and ‘historicist’ guise and placed in this objective context. For, surely, it is true that it is not only the medium and its potentialities but also the historical situation which the artist finds in the stylistic developments of his art which suggest, and sometimes even dictate, the solutions of which he makes use. (38, 37) And this seems a good moment to recall the idea I developed in the chapter on mastery: traditions convert art into a medium of expression, with the contribution of artists, public and art works. I would also like to remind the reader of the idea of the reference, which I discussed in the chapter on style, when I mentioned that Gombrich looked at society spurred on by artistic competition over the centuries, transformed into ‘mankind being engaged in building up an autonomous realm of values which can [. . .] be conceived to exist beyond the individual’s contribution and comprehension [. . .]’ (NF, 10). This is the world of objective values. And yet, creating the landmarks of that world that will transcend everything that any one of the subjects that have contributed to building them can contribute and understand, requires something more than the mere exercise of the human faculty for condensing images. And here we should also remember Freud, or rather, certain aspects of human conduct he examined. For if the art work, according to Gombrich, should be defined as a complex order, something that unites forms, meanings and historical evaluations, then the art work is also, according to Gombrich, a metaphor. And to produce a metaphor, something that can contain the finer calibrations of a qualified human

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reaction, the artist has to respond in a personal way that does, in this instance, include his instinctive urges, his intersecting motivations, his hidden intentions. For ultimately, only if his work is in some way significant for him, will it be significant be for others. This is the world of subjective responses.

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15. Expression It is not easy to apprehend the full importance of artistic expression among Gombrich’s theoretical formulations. A cursory examination of his work might show that while he has spent a lot of time on the matter, he largely seems to have been bent on debunking erroneous theories. That same cursory examination would also show the reason for this determination. Theories postulating that art is the ‘expression’ of the age and that the art work is the ‘expression’ of the artist’s subjectivity have guided the course of the great European art traditions, demolished criticism, intimidated the public and left the artist at the mercy of any intellectual trinket that may be in fashion. I address these issues here in the chapters on Western art, the value of criticism and the temptation of primitivism. Gombrich might seem to be content with placing obstacles in the way of these theories. The superficiality of such arguments make them an easy target of his erudition and wit. Yet this is not his only purpose, nor indeed the most important one. The question of artistic expression lies at the heart of Gombrich’s work; and its constant topicality is closely

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linked to his need to find the right theoretical framework for music, the expressive art par excellence and one for which he has shown the greatest inclination. Music has spurred Gombrich to find a fitting solution for ‘an art of expressive forms alone. Instrumental music is always there to remind us of the possibility of such an art [. . .]’ (MH, 54). Gombrich’s interest in music also means that his ideas on ‘expression’ have a considerably wider application than if he had only applied them to his usual field of study. In considering music, he is obliged to relegate the more obvious expressivity an artist can obtain to second place. Figurative painting and sculpture, in depicting the human body, can operate directly on human expressions, using gestures and elementary postures which – in principle at least – allow for unequivocal interpretation and demand an immediate response from the viewer. As in classical theatre, we have the masks of comedy and tragedy, laughter and tears; sorrow upsets us and joy cheers us; tears attract tears and laughter attracts laughter. Music also owes its existence to the natural response caused by certain sounds in the human ear. But upon that elementary foundation, tradition has accumulated a vast, rich and complex body of conventions. Indeed, there is no other art that owes quite as much to conventions (cf. T, 207). And so in music, unlike any other art, expressivity is clearly far removed from any type of natural or immediate response to sound forms; conversely, it depends to a great extent on the proper knowledge and use of conventions. The easiest way of overturning any theory of the ‘language of the emotions’ is simply to tune in to Radio Rabat. We find it quite impossible to interpret the sound we hear coming through the speakers. It might be a funeral lament, an epithalamium, the latest hit or some ancient chant. In music, we can clearly see the central role of the musical language. Like any other language, it has much that is arbitrary and formulistic, but it also expresses certain marvellous and seriously unimaginable potentials of expression, as Gombrich’s theory of ­creation demonstrates.

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1. Fallacies of Expression As I did with style, I shall begin my discussion of expression by stating what expression ‘is not’. Just as he did in the case of the style, Gombrich has had to combat some very widely-held theories. In this discussion it is important to distinguish between different meanings of the term ‘expression’ which might cause confusion, though it has to be said that Gombrich is not always as clear as he might be in this regard. Indeed, the following distinction does not appear in any of his works. However, I do not think I am forcing things by using it.1 The most obvious meaning could be articulated in the idea that in any art work there are particular features that allow the spectator intuitively to induce the artist’s personality. The art work constitutes the ‘expression’ of the artist’s personality; that is to say, some aspect of the artist’s personality has been materialised in his work and an astute viewer will be able to reconstruct it; a picture of Picasso ‘is’ Picasso or some aspect of Picasso. This meaning is set out in a theory Gombrich sometimes calls ‘graphological’ or ‘physiognomic’. Another way of viewing art as the artist’s ‘expression’ is to consider that the artist has expressed his response to things from his inner or outer world, that is to say, his feelings; the artist expresses his feelings in his work and in this way he communicates them, he makes them communicable. Art is the language of sentiments; of those feelings that are otherwise inexpressible. Privileged beings with extreme sensitivity ‘vibrate’ in the presence of things, deeds and phenomena that leave lesser mortals indifferent. Their vibrations impregnate their work, and in this way they reveal themselves to us, who can resonate with them. This interpretation of expression gives rise to the theory of ‘resonance’. Thus, there are at least two meanings of the word ‘expression’ in art: the expression of the artist’s personality and the expression of his feelings. However, if the artist is anonymous or unknown, or his personality is irrelevant, one can still add an important historiographical resource to the list: art is the expression of collective spirits – be they the spirit of the times, the spirit of the nation or the spirit of the race.

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In this case, the artist’s personality and feelings are of little importance; what matters is his capacity to synthesise, to ‘express’ the spirit that drives the context in which he lives. This mission places the artist in a higher role within history, as an interpreter and a prophet. And ultimately, the artist need not even be aware of the magnitude of this task. One might even say that any art work – and therefore any artist – ‘expresses’ this spirit whether he likes it or not. One may therefore conclude that any object, however modest, is enough to reconstruct a civilisation imaginatively. In reality, Gombrich’s position remains the same throughout his work. If there is a framework of firm conventions, then it is possible to make a graphological analysis.2 One thing must be made clear from the outset: graphological analysis cannot be applied to the study of eras, of styles, in search of some supposed prevailing spirit. ‘We lack the clearcut context which may justify graphology’ (SO, 200), says ­Gombrich, categorically. Let us look at the first notion: that we can get inside the artist’s personality through the art work. The argument often used by Gombrich is summarised in his essay ‘On Physiognomic Perception’ (MH, 45–55). The title itself is an indication of Gombrich’s theme: the ease with which we see physiognomies and expressive physiognomies, that is to say, characters. It is one of Gombrich’s more amusing articles and to try to sum it up would be like dissecting it. I shall limit myself to taking a few ideas from the piece. The problem does not lie in the difficulty of reading the ‘expression’ of what surrounds us, but rather the ease with which we read it and the immediate conclusions we reach. Naturally it is all the easier when we are analysing humans. We are accustomed to making assumptions about the character of the people we meet, whether or not we have sufficient elements of judgement. This attitude can be extended to the pleasant or threatening appearance of animals. And, albeit to a more limited extent, it can be applied to any object. Something basic and compulsive that precedes reason induces us to classify everything in relationship to our survival; classifications are established following a process of categorisation. Metaphor helps to ensure that such

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classifications are elastic enough to cover a rich and changing world. Finally, as Charles Osgood has shown, we classify our impressions of the outside world non-randomly according to a fundamental matrix, however distant such impressions might appear to be from the coordinates forming that matrix. And so, everything may be good or bad, strong or weak and active or passive. The positive poles of the matrix attract the positive aspects of new dichotomies; for example, hot/cold can be grouped in such a way that if the hot is positive, it is also good, and strong and active. If cold is positive, then exactly the opposite occurs. In short, it is reasonable for things to seem expressive, but that does not mean that they actually are. Sometimes the physiognomic perception manifests itself powerfully and irresistibly. But ‘the intensity of a personal intuition is no measure of its correctness’ (MH, 49) and popular cautions against first impressions make sense. As we have already said, such impressions will almost certainly form a judgement. For this reason we have to be aware that our judgement is rash, even if it serves as a starting point.3 What can we say then when the study of the artist’s character overcomes those first impressions by resorting to scientific tools? Gombrich’s answer can be found in an interesting article, ‘Psycho-Analysis and the History of Art’ (MH, 30–44), to which I have alluded on several occasions. Psychoanalysts have naturally sought to apply psychoanalytical methods to the study of art. Yet we need to remember that the twentieth-century psychoanalyst cannot have the information required to come up with a diagnosis. ‘For try as we may’, says Gombrich with humour, ‘we historians just cannot raise the dead and put them on your couch. It is a commonplace that there is no substitute for the psychoanalytic interview’ (MH, 31). And so, with the mistrust of the father of psychoanalysis and the stigma of lack of psychoanalytical rigour, one possible scientific road to a graphological theory of art is closed off to us. This does not mean that Gombrich does not recognise that the artist leaves his mark on his work; rather he argues that this is a banal statement, and it is not possible to ascertain the artist’s personality from it, at the risk of constant error.

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No doubt it is true that any creation of a work of art will also be linked with the personality of the creator, but saying this, one does not say very much, for it is surely untrue that those who respond to the work will thereby come to know the maker. (42, 17) Elsewhere, Gombrich, who enjoys pointing out apparent contradictions, alludes to an obvious example of this lack of transparency. ‘There is no reason to think that those artists who finally achieved a perfect equilibrium in their composition had very well-balanced minds, nor to attribute to those who upset the equilibrium profound mental crises’ (NF, 95). Speaking of the famous Francis I salt cellar in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, he remarks that ‘the smooth elegance of Cellini’s figures may look a little over-elaborated and affected. Perhaps it is a consolation to know that their master had enough of that healthy robustness which his work seems to lack’ (SA, 280). A similar path may be taken for the second meaning of the term ‘expression’, the theory of resonance. Art is the language of sentiments. The artist ‘expresses’ his feelings in the work. The art work is run through with sentiment; and the observer has to resonate with the work in order to receive the spiritual message it contains. Gombrich voices the limitations of this theory systematically in an article eloquent entitled ‘Expression and Communication’ (MH, 56–69), written in 1962. Again, he mentions Osgood, noting that one cannot speak of colours or forms that awake emotions. However, his main line of argument involves a hypothesis that was in fashion at the time, which Gombrich applies successfully: ‘Information theory’, although he warns that is only a model. Even in Art and Illusion, information theory already formed the thread upon which Gombrich based his argument. Information theory postulates the need for a code which precedes the message, and which is known to both transmitter and receiver. The code must be limited, since otherwise it would be impossible to communicate. The information on the event is inversely proportional to the

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probability of its happening. If an event is highly likely, very little information is provided by its advent; if it is certain, none; if it is highly improbable, a lot. Thus, says Gombrich – in a phrase he borrowed from the well-known author Colin Cherry – the means ‘do not convey information as railway trucks carry coal [. . .] Signals operate upon the alternatives forming the recipient’s doubt’ (MH, 61). There is a choice between alternatives.4 The most primary example I can think of is the picturesque method still used in the Vatican to announce the election of a new pontiff. There are only two possible alternatives, affirmative or negative. The medium is rudimentary: the smoke is produced by burning the votes used in the conclave, to which, depending on the result, a little straw is added. Clearly the code chosen has nothing to do with the message, albeit the white smoke is reminiscent of the Pope’s white robes. Black smokes contains a lot of information; white smoke contains complete infor­mation. If the first cloud of white smoke were to be followed by a second, it would add no new information. It is an entirely expected alternative. But if the first cloud of white smoke were followed by a black one, the message would be undecipherable; that possibility does not exist. It is not a great example, but at least it illustrates the central theme: the medium and the code. Cardinals have no way of expressing their satisfaction or excitement over the election. The model of information theory highlights the apparently more prosaic aspect of the question: the conventional medium and its limitations. And, as we shall see, Gombrich is right to present it like this. 2. A Valid Theory We can never reach the artist’s personality through art or determine his personal feelings. If expression in art were to consist of attaining those goals, one would have to accept that it is impossible. For Gombrich, however, these are not the aims of art. They are not even very important circumstances. ‘But does it matter all that much?’ (MH, 31), asked Gombrich in 1953 at a meeting of psychoanalysts in the aforementioned

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lecture; and in the same context, he added; ‘What right have we to inquire after an artist’s private feelings?’ (MH, 24). It does not matter, we have no right to and, above all, we cannot. And yet these theories, in different versions, have triumphed to such an extent that they form part of the little cultural baggage a person from our Western world is presumed to carry around. The consequences have been serious. Not only have such ideas been shown to be false; they have damaged our understanding of art, its functions and its achievements in important ways. Any theory built solely on the foundation of the artist’s personality ignores a fundamental quality of art and one that Gombrich constantly emphasises: such a theory cannot reflect the value, cannot argue why a work is good or why it is bad. Not even the distinction between good and bad makes much sense. At heart, this inability to judge affects what Gombrich considers to be the key to artistic appreciation: the recognition of mastery. If there were only expression of the personality and the feelings, there would be excellent personalities and high sentiments, but this has nothing to do with the great works and great masters. There is one immediate consequence to this. ‘If art were only, or mainly, an expression of personal vision, there could be no history of art’ (AI, 4). Firstly – as Gombrich himself says – because history would be reduced to a shapeless heap of unconnected deeds, with no possible connecting thread. There is nothing that can links works that are the exclusive fruit of personal, idiosyncratic visions. Secondly, this identification of art with the expression of the artist’s mind and soul should have made it hard to appreciate the art of the past: the many works and monuments made by anonymous masters and craftsmen, about whose personality we know nothing and can know nothing. (42, 17)

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Thirdly, this theory devalues what is known as ‘vicarious creation’ (cf. NL, 140), i.e. workshop creation. ‘The secrets of artistic teamwork were probably fairly impenetrable to outsiders even at the time, and have become much more elusive to an age which thinks of art as self-expression’ (RH, 48). And in another passage, he adds; ‘I am not sure that in our individualistic age and with our individualistic aesthetics we can ever quite reconstruct the processes of collective creativity’ (T, 202). And, finally, because a theory that relates to the artist’s interior ignores the importance of the processes of generalisation, of imitation and assimilation, of which I have spoken in relation to style and creation. And so it is impossible to understand and explain the phenomenon Gombrich calls ‘piecemeal engineering’; i.e. the minute labour of those artists and artisans whose works contain the unity born out of respect for the standard forms that make up the backdrop from which great masters stand out. We need a theory that overcomes these limitations and confusions and, at the same time, allows for an interpretation of art as expression; because however worn and hackneyed such manifestations may be, works of art unquestionably have an important expressive component. But such a theory can only be built on the idea of feedback creation, as defended by Gombrich. And feedback creation refers to the role of the medium. And the medium is shaped by conventions. The importance of conventions should remind us that artistic creation is a search for complex orders, for a way of coupling together elements of order, and that the masterpiece is in the way of being a solution that stands far above the mere exteriorisation of interiorities. We therefore need to realise that complex orders include expression. And that expression is aided by articulation. Hence Gombrich says that ‘we must help the artist to find a valid theory of articulation that does justice not only to the expressive character of his elements but also to the mystery of ordered form’ (MH, 55). No more would need to be said on Gombrich’s ideas on expression, were it not for the fact that he himself delivered a lecture in April 1980 at the Japan Foundation, in which he ventured his own interpretation. Entitled ‘Four Theories of Artistic Expression’ (42), Gombrich has

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subsequently emphasised its importance by citing it in some important contexts since its publication.5 The text of the lecture contains very few footnote citations, although there are some references in the body of the text. Gombrich refers to his work ‘Expression and Communication’ (MH, 56–69) and to ‘Freud’s Aesthetics’ (38). But he particularly mentions the presidential speech delivered in 1978 by the well-known scholar, linguist and poet, Ivor Armstrong Richards, to the English Association under the title of ‘Verse versus Prose’. This is a significant quote. Richards (a personal friend of Gombrich’s) had died just seven months before, in September 1979. And when in November of the same year Gombrich delivered the Darwin Lecture in Cambridge University, he entitled it ‘The Necessity of Tradition. An Interpretation of Poetics of I. A. Richards’ (T, 185–209); it was a heartfelt tribute, in which he quoted from ‘Verse versus Prose’. This is an important text, in which Gombrich interprets Richards’s poetry based on his own ideas, very particularly his ideas on expression. This is not to say that he distorts Richards’s work – Gombrich fully agrees with him on the importance of the role of language and on many other matters.6 There are other important texts on expression in Gombrich’s oeuvre. A brief mention is in order, given that Gombrich’s theory has a long history, and his conclusions are recent. The article ‘Expression and Communication’ (MH, 56–69), which I have already quoted, is Gombrich’s most systematic statement against expressionist theories. In it, he limits himself to debunking certain misunderstandings and explaining the value of the medium. In the final paragraphs, he offers an alternative. Four years later, ‘Freud’s Aesthetics’ (38) developed on the ideas contained in the previous article. Gombrich argues that Freud never either shared or defended expressionist theories. And on the other hand – and this is his contribution – in his study of Freud’s book on the joke, there emerges what Gombrich calls a ‘centripetal theory’, as opposed to the centrifugal theory advocated by the expressionists. In ‘The Necessity of Tradition’, thirteen years later, he highlighted the importance of the ‘authentication’ of the artist’s work. Finally in ‘Four Theories of Artistic Expression’ (42), published the

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following year, Gombrich sought to set out various positive aspects of theories on expression and integrate them into his own. To this short list I would also like to add another important text ‘Verbal Wit as a Paradigm of Art’ (T, 93–115) where, as I have said, Gombrich again introduces his thesis that Freud was aloof from expressionism and that his book on the joke contains the key for a theory of expression that takes account of both medium and mastery. On this occasion he re-­ apprises his version of Freud’s aesthetic, adding his latest notes and championing (and herein lies the source of the article’s interest) an ‘aesthetics of effects’ and a branch of psychology which might be called ‘metaphorics’. ‘Centripetal theory’, ‘authentication’, ‘aesthetics of effects’ and ‘meta­ phorics’ are the ideas I shall set out in the following sections. I shall have to allude to many other ideas that complete what I think can rightly be called Gombrich’s theory of expression. 3. Functions of Language Because it is in ‘Four Theories of Artistic Expression’ (42) that Gombrich sets out his theory most systematically, I shall try to follow this article, although, as elsewhere, I shall add notes and references to other texts. This text contains a small, probably marginal, dilemma, which I would like to draw attention to, even if I cannot resolve it. Gombrich begins by clarifying the meaning or meanings of the word ‘expression’; this is in itself significant as it is something he seldom does elsewhere. As soon as we study and analyse the ideas of critics and philosophers about the rôle of expression in art, we discover that underneath a similarity of words, we often find a difference in meaning. It is to this difference that I should like to draw your attention; for it seems to me that in the history of western aesthetics, we can

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distinguish three distinct theories about the relation between art and emotion; three theories which I should like to characterise briefly before I shall venture to present my own interpretation which will be the fourth. (42, 14) Gombrich’s argument is clear enough. There are three Western theories of expression, to which he believes a fourth can be added. He knows this is a simplification and that in reality, such theories have rarely been presented clearly and in isolation. But this arrangement will help us to understand them. And he goes on: These abstract possibilities have long been the concern of students of language and other systems of communication; and looking at art from the aspect of communication, it is best to take the result of their analysis as a starting point. (Ibid.) His discussion of the theme of expression is initially related to language. At heart, as I have already mentioned, Gombrich’s theory stresses the role of the medium. And for this reason Gombrich turns to theories of language. ‘There are three functions which can be distinguished in any such context’ (ibid.). Gombrich then goes on to describe the three functions of language: as a symptom, as a signal and as a symbol. Symptom, Signal and Symbol; these are three convenient terms which I propose to use to distinguish the three main theories of artistic expression which have succeeded each other in the history of European thought. But they did not occur in that order. (42, 15)

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Anyone with the slightest familiarity with Gombrich or language theory, expression theory or the psychology of perception will immediately recognise these as the three functions assigned to language by Karl Bühler.7 However, Gombrich makes no mention of him.8 As for Gombrich’s ideas, it should perhaps be noted that he had already tried to apply this distinction between symptom, signal and symbol. He uses it in ‘The Logic of Vanity Fair’ (II, 60–92), where he studies the corruption of language as a model of inflation in fashion and styles. The application is somewhat forced and it is in any case peripheral to Gombrich’s argument (cf. II, 65–6). But Gombrich also quotes Bühler in articles on expression. For example, he refers in general terms to his theory when discussing the symbol in ‘Visual Metaphors of Value in Art’ (MH, 12–29),9 although in the same article he draws a distinction between expression as a symptom and expression as a symbol (cf. MH, 25). And the same is true in ‘Psycho-Analysis and the History of Art’ (MH, 30–44)10 and above all in ‘Expression and Communication’ (cf. MH, 57). The distinction between symptom and symbol is, of course elementary, and for many authors it is sufficient.11 The distinction that Bühler makes is slightly more complex, but very practical. In any case, developments in linguistic sciences have made Bühler’s terminology obsolete. Symptom, signal and symbol are the functions of language and the names Gombrich gives to three supposed theories of expression. The symptom function is very simple to explain: a subject affected by a strong feeling or passion involuntarily reveals his emotion. Grief, sorrow, joy, have an organic repercussion. The signal function means that certain actions by one subject awaken a reaction in another; this reaction is also automatic. Thus the sudden alarm of one subject communicates alarm to others. Clearly, what for one subject is a symptom, for others may often be a signal; for example, signs of fury – a symptom of anger – may be a signal that arouses alert, fear or bravado. Defined in these terms, one can see that the signal function and the symptom function are common to the language of both humans and animals. The symbolic function separates the subject of passion, the symbol does not contain passion but alludes to it. This is an exclusive function of human

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language. From the point of view of its effects, the symptom might be said to affect the subject who suffers the emotion while the signal affects his companions, whereas the symbol affects neither of them; it alludes only to emotion. Of course in human language there are three functions, and in any phrase they can only be distinguished theoretically and not practically. Moreover, as Gombrich knows, a symptom can become voluntary, and a symbol can arouse emotion, acting as a signal. I shall speak of this issue and its relationship to the James-Lange theory in a later section.12 4. Three Ancient Theories I explain below, as briefly as possible, the three theories that share the names of the functions of language. And whereas in his article, Gombrich describes his presentation as schematic, mine might be said to be a caricature. The first of the three is the ‘signal function’. It was born out of the discovery that it is possible to influence human emotions with external agents, in much the same way as mood changes can be provoked through drugs or enchantment. For this reason, Gombrich proposes calling it ‘magico-medical’. This is the classical theory and it lasted until the Renaissance. Plato said in The Republic that music can arouse vivid emotions, good and bad; it can deceive. Something similar happens with rhetoric, where what matters is the effect of the discourse on the spectator. The same is true of drama; the Katharsis postulated by Aristotle is a medical term. And finally, it also occurs in painting and sculpture. Gombrich recalls the legends of Zeuxis, Apelles and Praxiteles who were supposed to have tricked men and animals, arousing passions in them. Gombrich’s argument is so deliberately schematic that it is difficult to find fault with it. Unquestionably, we must include in this theory the art of primitive or prehistoric peoples who – half-seriously, half-­ jokingly – attribute certain magic powers and effectiveness to their images. But Gombrich seeks to outline another issue, viewing the history of art as a succession of discoveries for provoking and steering the

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spectator’s emotion. This is the first step: to emphasise the capacity of the medium – be it discourse or painting – to arouse sentiments. And in this way of understanding art, the model is, of course, rhetoric. As Gombrich repeatedly reminds us, in his Brutus, Cicero presents the orator as a wizard of language. The point I should like to stress in this first theory of the power of art over human emotions, is mainly that it is a theory of art, not of artists. Just as I said of the mother who sings her child to sleep that she need not feel sleepy, so, in this theory, it is not necessary for the artist who casts his spell on the audience to feel the same emotion himself. He can, and if he does it may even help him to achieve more power, but what matters is the power of his creation, not his personal feeling. (42, 15) The second theory corresponds to the symbolic function, or, as Gombrich would now say, the ‘dramatic function’. This theory emerges in the sixteenth century and lasts until the eighteenth. This involves learning to ‘paint’ emotions, to describe them as vividly as possible. This was the great age of the theatre. The author is called on to spare no effort in presenting his characters’ emotions. And the same is true of the painter, who presents his scenes as Leonardo did and advised others to do, by painting the man and painting his mind as revealed by his gestures. To do so, a mute language is required, or more accurately the language of deaf-mutes; the figures reference each other by means of gestures.13 What matters are the emotions that the different characters experience in their relationship. Perhaps the art form with the greatest potential for expression is opera, where music has the specific task of representing human passions. Possible exaggerations matter little; what matters is the author’s mastery in setting out the emotions.

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‘We go to see the human heart bared, and if the expression of the emotions convinces us, we gladly forgive the unconvincing plot’ (42, 16). But moreover, the bared human heart ends up moving the spectator. ‘The more his description conformed to our own experience, the more his narrative would move us’ (ibid.). And the third theory is the last of the functions: the ‘symptom function’. Expression is the symptom of the emotions. This theory began to spread from the eighteenth century on and achieved widespread acceptance. This process coincided with the romantic movement. ‘Briefly, what this movement stressed was the need for sincerity, for genuine emotion’ (42, 16). This is why Gombrich uses the term symptom: the art work is a symptom of the artist’s true sentiments. The artist becomes the centre of everything, and, in doing so, any vision that is reminiscent of the part corresponding to the medium, to the language, becomes obsolete. Moreover, any false rhetoric from the art of the past is accused of being insincere. As Gombrich remarks, it became such a widely-held view that it is difficult now to appreciate just how revolutionary it was. From then on what distinguishes the poet or, quite generally, the artist from other human beings, therefore, is not his skill, his mastery, but the intensity of his feeling; and it is this intensity alone which really matters. A work of art produced without feeling, in cold blood, is really a fake; it is dishonest and immoral, for the public is deceived if a poet writes of a love he did not really feel in his heart. (42, 17) In this chapter, I have already discussed Gombrich’s response to these ideas and I have spoken of the repercussions Gombrich says they had on Western art and, in particular, on primitivism. ‘Briefly, I have come to the conclusion that it is far too simplistic to be of any help for the historian and critic’ (ibid.). He goes on to say that in some respects the

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theories of the past – particularly the aforementioned one – were better. Nonetheless, none of them properly expressed the relationship between the artist, his work and his public. ‘I believe that the fourth theory, which we need, should incorporate the three preceding ones, but modify them in the light of such criticism’ (42, 18). 5. A Centripetal Theory Gombrich presents what he calls a ‘centripetal theory’ (cf. 38, 36), in opposition to the expressionist theory which he calls ‘centrifugal’. The expressionists say that the artist experiences feelings, materialises them in his work, and delivers them to the public; the public interprets the artist’s feelings and resonates with him. Gombrich calls his theory ‘centripetal’ because it emphasises that the artist discovers what was already in the medium; he uses its expressive elements. ‘The code generates the meaning’ (38, 36). Firstly, the artist can only convey conveyable feelings, that is to say, feelings that are in the language, that are contained in the code. The architect has his orders and mouldings and his level of expectations; the same is true of the musician and the poet. But Gombrich also insists that the code does not simply ‘limit’ the message; the code ‘generates’ the message. The artist makes use of the elements that can ‘in themselves’ provide another magnificent combination. It is not a question of a simple equation: when the poet is sad, he writes epitaphs; when he his happy, he writes epithalamia. The artist, regardless of whether he is sad or happy, discovers his verses in the language; they have been suggested to him, they were waiting for him, and they provide the solution to his work. ‘It is the language which inspires the poet’ (42, 18). The poet notes that there is something of value, and therefore ‘it is the medium, not [the artist], that is active and that expresses these thoughts’ (38, 37). To simplify Gombrich’s idea, one could say that the artist expresses because he uses expressive symbols. When he wants to compose an epitaph, he turns to the conventions of his tradition; when he wishes to compose an epithalamium, he does the same. Naturally this theory coincides to some extent with what Gombrich calls the symbolic

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function, the second theory of expression, the Baroque theory. Do you want to depict mourning? You have all the formulae you want at your disposal. Presented in this way, expression is a matter of formulary rhetoric but not empty rhetoric: it is made of formulae . . . and effective ones. To dismiss formula as empty is not to understand one of Gombrich’s fundamental contributions. We should remember what articulation means for Gombrich: man is an articulate being, in the sense that he has to use external resources to make his intelligence into an effective instrument. And as stated in the introduction, language is a powerful aid to articulation, since it furnishes our mind with innumerable distinctions and nuances which, by itself, it would be incapable of elaborating except at a very elementary level. Formulae are guides, condensed experience, which man finds in his tradition; he can adapt them and improve them, but he cannot dispense with them; firstly because he could not build himself, and secondly because he would lose the possibility of communicating with others. Gombrich referred to this question in an article entitled ‘A Classical Topos in the Introduction to Alberti’s Della Pittura’ (19). In his famous introduction, Alberti expresses in lively terms his enthusiasm for the progress of the arts, which he had noticed on his first visit to Florence, and his admiration for Brunelleschi’s genius. Gombrich demonstrates that this is in fact a topos, a commonplace, which very closely follows the praise heaped by Pliny the Younger in one of his letters on a now unknown author, Vergilius Romanus. And Gombrich’s comment is revealing: Needless to say, this does not mean that Alberti’s praise of Brunelleschi was any less sincere. We have long given up the naïve habit of referring to every formula as ‘empty’. Without the existence of such formulae which we can modify and apply as necessity arises, we could not express ourselves at all.

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Alberti’s less articulate contemporaries, when confronted with Brunelleschi’s stupendous cupola, probably gave vent to their admiration in a whistle of surprise. Alberti owed it to his training in rhetoric and in the classical tradition of eulogistic literature that he could translate this whistle into eloquent words which distilled the feeling of a moment into a record of historical awareness. (19, 173) The formula helped Alberti to articulate a sentiment. And only with the properly applied formula could he find an outlet for that feeling, recognise it and put it on record for posterity. Gombrich argues that the formula creates the expression. The conventional words of condolence help to explain real feelings for which, we know from experience, it is very difficult to find any unconventional channel. The handshake, compassionate face, soft and serious voice, words of comfort . . . all of these are formulae that are repeated over and over again, but they are not cold and empty: they are appropriate channels for an expression which is, to a greater or lesser extent, actually felt. And secondly the formula teaches us to feel and think; we discover that there is in us something that we were unable to appreciate; and we discover it when we come up against a formula that serves to express it, which expresses it in fact. This is a crucial point in Gombrich’s theory of art which I am attempting to describe, since it directly concerns the value of cultural deeds. There is an important paragraph in Gombrich’s work summarising this point. In Cambridge, in 1969, he concluded his inaugural lecture, to the international conference on ‘Classical Influences on European Culture A.D. 500–1500’, entitled ‘Personification’ as follows: What makes it worth while to busy ourselves with the period between 500 and 1500 is not, after all, that it provides

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material for the academic industry, but that people of flesh and blood lived at that time whom we would like to understand. If we give up this ambition we are left with the empty husk of forms and formulas. They would not be worth preserving in our libraries and museums if they did not point to a living experience. But we have no right to assume that they always point in the same direction; it is a false dichotomy to assert that those words and symbols which do not immediately reflect or express the inner life are mere empty conventions. Cultural conventions, in their turn, react back on their users, they are handed down by tradition as the potential instruments of the mind which may sometimes determine not only what can be said but also what can be thought or felt. (80, 256–7) 6. Interaction between Sentiment and Form For Gombrich, formulae are not necessarily empty. Rather, they are an indispensable vehicle for the articulation and external manifestation of feeling. The condolence – the serious, sorrowful words, the compassionate face – all these are a means of finding an outlet for compassion; they are the formula for expressing it. And as I have said, condolence is, firstly, the formula that expresses what feelings should affect us in a situation such as this. And formulae are also a medium for arousing those feelings in us. Expressive formulae, artistic conventions, are capable of instilling feelings in us; there is no contradiction between the feeling and the formula, but rather a constant and effective interaction. From this perspective, one cannot trace a categorical distinction between genuine,

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spontaneous and natural expression, and highly conventionalised feeling, between the symptom and the symbol. Precisely, in the most immediate expressive medium to man, the language of facial and body gestures, in mime and pantomime, this interaction takes place. In psychology this property has been called James-Lange theory.14 In general, the emotions cause a spontaneous somatic alteration; and the appearance of certain postures, gestures or features reveal that state; they are its symptom. Thus, frowning is a symptom of anger. Yet equally, we can frown on a whim. The James-Lange theory postulates the unity between physical and mental states; frowning does not require anger: we can frown at will; but, when we do, it causes a certain psychic reaction. The passion is manifested in its symptoms, it arouses them, but there is also something of the opposite. That is to say, the symptom of anger sometimes causes authentic anger. When we want to get angry, we know how to do it; and we are capable of inducing authentic anger using the external symptoms. We only have to tense the muscles of our face, raise our voice and, with a bit of practice, we can unleash an untamed fury with all the guarantees of authenticity, until we lose control of ourselves altogether. Even little children know how to do it. They can cry themselves hoarse, giving themselves up to an emotion that they themselves have sought to arouse, but which they are incapable of dominating, and by which they get carried away. Gombrich alludes to this theory in some important texts.15 He reminds us that the principle behind the James-Lange theory is particularly obvious in some animals: in them the symptom and the feeling are not only related but are, presumably, the same thing. I remember reading somewhere that when the cockatoo feels happy, it nods its head up and down; allegedly, it is easy to change the mood of the bird from anger to happiness, simply by grasping its head and moving it up and down. I do not vouch for the accuracy of this observation, nor do I subscribe to the doctrine of a complete

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identity of physical and mental events; but in a way, we all such cockatoos. My mother, who was a piano teacher, would advise her pupils who had to play cheerful passage, to lean back and to smile, and this deliberate action passed into the expressiveness of their performance. As a matter of fact, orators and actors had discovered the James-Lange theory long before the science of psychology was established [. . .] It is not the grief that creates the impassioned speech, but the impassioned speech that creates the grief, or at least all the symptoms of grief, including tears. (42, 18) Thus, as the basic level of expression, we find that sentiment makes use of formula to express itself, and formula also demands sentiment: formula leads to sentiment and sentiment leads to formula. Gombrich incorporates this principle into his theory in general terms. It is easy to see that this interaction exists, although it is also easy to appreciate that not every formula leads to feeling. Nonetheless, says Gombrich: Using a term borrowed from engineering, I should like to call this fourth or centri­ petal theory of artistic expression, a ‘theory of feedback’; it is a theory which stresses the constant interaction between the feeling and the form, the medium and the message. (42, 18) In any case, Gombrich’s theory of expression extends beyond the scope of the James-Lange theory. Ultimately, we would argue, gestures – symptoms – are something immediate. It is clear that the degree of expressivity varies from one culture to another, and that the joy of a

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Neapolitan requires a display of enthusiasm and physical movement that would be completely out of place, entirely disproportionate, for a person from the Andes. I have already used this example. But anyone can recognise it as joy. The meaning of a smile or a guffaw needs no explanation, although it may require a certain knowledge of the context. The same does not appear to be true of artistic conventions, yet here too, Gombrich tends towards the power of tradition. He asserts that the achievements of artistic traditions, the means they employ to obtain them and the expressivity of those means, are based on bio­ logical and psychological arrangements that are to be found in all men. Conventions are effective because they act on that substratum. This affirmation encompasses what Gombrich defined as ‘first theory of expression’, the ‘signal function’, or the ‘magico-medical theory’: the arts have the power – like a drug – to act on human feelings. 7. The ‘Ego’ and the ‘Id’ Gombrich discussed the theme of conventions at some length in his plenary lecture to the Seventh International Congress of Germanic Studies, held in Göttingen in 1985. His lecture was expressively titled ‘They Were All Human Beings – So Much is Plain’, with a subtitle that left no room for doubt: ‘Reflections on Cultural Relativism in Humanities’. Gombrich argued that the arts make use of elements that awaken universal psychological reactions. And I believe this paper contains three ideas that are of enormous interest, and which I shall use as my starting point here. The first is that the art of a given time does not contain all the experiences of the inner world. That is to say, not all feelings are channelled in the works of art. This may be blindingly obvious, but it is helpful to start from here. Gombrich wants to stress that one cannot draw any conclusion from the art of a given era (in this case Gothic) – as to ‘the psychology of Gothic man’. The people of the Middle Ages, he points out, were perfectly capable of hiding behind a column when necessary, even though they made no use of perspective in their paintings,16 while the Chinese could take shelter in the shade of a tree on a hot day despite

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the lack of contrast between light and shade in their art. Similarly, one cannot infer that the classical Greeks were colour-blind from the fact that their language had few words for colours: language is always limited.17 But the effort that we expend on these tasks should not tempt us to equate the world which we encounter in the poetry and prose of foreign civilizations with the everyday reality from which they sprang. What applies to language, after all, applies even more to the means of these art forms: the topoi, the types we encounter in these texts never reflect the infinite variety of experience but rather the autonomous traditions of literary genres. A book such as Auerbach’s Mimesis18 has shown us to what extent new means of expression become receptive to new experiences, but even where they do not enter into literature we have no right to assume that these experiences never occurred in everyday life. (106, 693) The literature of times past, just like the literature of the present, is enormously selective and only covers those aspects that find an outlet and are well received among the literary genres, ignoring many others that it is not possible or of interest to highlight. The reference to topoi is reminiscent of Curtius’s influential book, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages.19 In it, Curtius gives various examples of descriptions which appear spontaneous and natural, when in reality they are commonplace references taken from books that were circulating at the time. This explains why poets sometimes allude to animals or plants that they have never seen but only heard – or rather read – about. For example, the formulae for the idyllic landscape invariably include a mention

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of babbling brooks, flower-studded meadows and cool shade beneath beautiful trees. To describe a landscape such as this, the poet must have taken his inspiration more from writings than his real surroundings. Having formulated and explained the first idea, I shall now take the liberty of formulating the other two together. The first idea is banal: not everything finds its expression in art but there are experiences that can only be found in art. The second and third ideas, however, are not trivial. The second idea is that artistic traditions are founded on basic human reactions. However, like basic human reactions, they are sublimated or censored by cultural pressures; the arts are built on the polarity established between nature and culture. This statement will undoubtedly sound utterly general. At the end of the day, it is not difficult to reduce all humanity to the complex of nature and culture. It may confuse matters even further to add the third idea; biological dispositions can be developed or atrophied, sometimes irreversibly, by the patterns of behaviour imposed by social life, which creates something akin to a second nature, leading to certain human types with their own virtualities and limitations. And this is the reason why the development of the arts, which is based on basic human reactions, conforms to that second nature. In the article I have already alluded to, ‘They Were . . .’, Gombrich stresses that conventions are not without natural foundation. Gombrich reminds us of old Adam, the old man who insists on satisfying those drives that all people have in common. 8. Metaphors of Value Gombrich is clearly alluding to Freud. Indeed, he cites here an article by Hartmann, Kris and Loewenstein.20 The drives which Old Adam seeks to satisfy are something very basic, even simply animal: hunger, sexual appetite, etc. In this we resemble all men. But also all cultures resemble one another in that they try to eliminate or channel those trends (cf. 106, 694). However, humans resemble one another in many other aspects.

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We must not expect too much. It may sound trivial to say that enjoyment of rhythmical movement is common to all normal human beings, but without this basic disposition we would not have the various types of dance, or those refined forms of rhythm which have so marvellously blossomed forth in Western and Indian music, and have also led to ever-fresh miracles in the poetry of all nations. I am convinced that the visual arts also rest in a similar way on biological foundations. Like the disposition for rhythmical orders which here manifests itself in the decorative art of all peoples, so the pleasure in light and splendour is common to us all. Man is a phototropic creature; if he were photophobic, like the termites he would always have shunned the light. Thus radiant splendour, sparkle, and glitter have always been seen as the prerogative of secular and religious power out to impress and to overawe. (106, 696) In the paragraphs that follow, Gombrich refers to an old (1952) article, entitled ‘Visual Metaphors of Value in Art’ (MH, 12–29). Gombrich has not always placed much value on this work, but he quotes it often.21 One of the main examples of those metaphors of value was precisely ‘gold as a symbol’ which he used as the title for one section. Anything bright and luminous is naturally pleasant and appears as a basic metaphor for glory and power. Glory is bright and power also shines. The metaphor is especially suitable for representing the divine. Gombrich quotes Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis’s famous reference to the anagogico more22 and concludes: ‘Suger’s account is exception only through the clarity of

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his analysis. The use of the precious and the gleaming as a metaphor for the divine is, of course, almost universal in religious art’ (MH, 16). Indeed, it is not difficult to understand why objects related to religious worship often contain gold or are golden in colour, embellished with gems and can be described as bright and splendorous.23 The love of light, surely, reaches deep into our biological nature, and so does the attraction to glitter. What wonder that this elementary reaction provided mankind with its basic symbol of value? For what else is gold but the glittering, sunlike metal that never ages or fades? Or what else are jewels but gaily sparkling stones which do not break? [. . .] There are many documents from the past which testify to the appeal of what might be called mutually reinforcing metaphors of value, sparkle and costliness [. . .]. (MH, 15) This is a particularly interesting passage. Our basic biological dispos­ itions to light, our reaction to brightness, serve to support a metaphor. The reliquary is coated in gold because it is thus dignified, and it is dignified because it dazzles. The Shrine of the Three Kings in Cologne Cathedral, made, at least in part, by Nicholas of Verdun is impressive in several ways: it is large – magnificent; gilded – bright; gem-studded – precious; enamelled – luminous; adorned with figures – beautiful; and finished off with intricate filigree – costly. The adjectives we would have chosen to classify a ‘worthy’ object, are here converted into a visual metaphor. The experience of viewing the shrine at once manifests all those qualities: the costly and the beautiful and the luminous and the precious and the bright and the magnificent; all suitable metaphors for a sacred reliquary. We cannot separate all those impressions from our judgement of the art work. And because we cannot, the artist who made

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the work knew how to calibrate its effect and place it at the service of a sacred function. I think Gombrich’s thesis can be summarised by saying that artistic formulae ‘shift’ our basic reactions to another order: our pleasure at the light, at complication, at brightness, at costliness, are incorporated into artistic conventions. The ‘shift’ is precisely what gives the art work the nature of a metaphor; a metaphor, in Gombrich’s understanding of the word: our intelligence relates objects and qualities bound by links that are not broken in the process of categorisation by which we seek to understand our world. In short, expressions such as a radiant smile and a radiant sunset, and a radiant idea and a radiant work of art, reveal that, at heart, our reaction to each of these things has something in common. The metaphors of daily speech may provide a convenient starting point for the study of these equivalences, particularly those which ‘transfer’ qualities from one sensory experience to another. These so-called synaesthetic metaphors which make us speak of a ‘velvet tone’, a ‘black bass’, a ‘loud colour’, etc., are specially interesting for us, because here no conscious transfer takes place. Somehow in the centre of our minds the qualities of blackness and of a bass voice converge and meet. (MH, 14) And I believe that the property of synaesthesia allows Gombrich to argue that works of art, and therefore artistic conceptions, are built on biological dispositions. The minor tone of our musical scales is ‘effectively’ more intimate, melancholic and subdued than the major. Dance music is ‘effectively’ cheerful, and the overture for a coronation is ‘effectively’ solemn. And the golden vessel containing the relics of the Three Kings is ‘effectively’ impressive. In this case, at least, it is not difficult

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to describe this work in terms that can be applied to applicable many other gratifying things. Above all, the Shrine of the Three Kings delights the eye for its brilliance, its vivid colours, its meticulous details and the work expended on it. But this is not sufficient; Gombrich goes one step further. The Shrine of the Three Kings is dazzling; it is a sacred object – in terms which are not precisely canonical. And here the gold and the gems and the intricate work are offered as metaphors of something higher: of the sacred value, of its dignity, of its importance. The Shrine of the Three Kings is not only delightful and dazzling, but also venerable; it inspires a suitable degree of grandeur, honour and majesty. Once we accept this, we can understand the power of art. Art incorporates these reactions, it places them at its service. And, finally, art not only makes use of those obvious inclinations for glitter or material wealth, as metaphors of moral value. ‘In fact, art has long since conquered regions of metaphor far beyond such simple identification’ (MH, 16). Once these metaphors have been discovered, not only can they be combined, mutually strengthening one another; they can also be used through contrast with one another. The greatest sweetness can be reinforced when juxtaposed with the bitter; or it can be tempered. Gombrich speaks of music in these terms. A glance at the spectra of sound may illustrate my point. It suggests that the dimensions of louder, of faster and of higher may tend to be experienced as parallel. There are memorable passages in music, such as the climax of Beethoven’s Leonora No. 3 in which these dimensions are used to reinforce each other and volume, speed and pitch rise to tremendous tension. Practising musicians know that these three dimensions do indeed tend to fuse, that there is a natural

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temptation for the ‘expressive’ player to turn a crescendo also into an accelerando and to press on a high note. But music would not be the subtle instrument of expression it has become in the hands of our masters if this link were, in fact, always observed. The crescendo that remains disciplined within the tempo of the movement is often the more impressive because of its sense of control. No artist is worth his salt who cannot keep the various dimensions of his language apart and use them for different articulations. (MH, 64–5) There are plenty of examples in other arts. In Spanish architecture, many great facades boast elements set with voluminous decoration, shrill and cramped: coats of arms, niches, frontispieces . . . all underscored by placing them against a vast and entirely plain wall. The more enriched an architectural language is, the more precise these effects are. The unforgettable interiors (and exteriors) of the monastery of San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo offer a very common example of the Spanish Gothic; multiplication of strongly-moulded imposts inserted in sharp and complex thistle-leaf decorations, interrupted by strong vertical accents of pinnacles whose sections twist about one another, opening niches that crown incredible canopies. And all this on a plain wall, with strong horizontal lines. Not everything is lightness, not everything is verticality, not everything is tumult, not everything is colour. 9. Renunciation In addition to material richness and brightness as the expression of high values, there is also another possibility: simply to renounce – to renounce that which could or should be expected. In effect, simplicity and renunciation are also values. To give an example in reference to

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Abbot Suger, the Abbey of Saint-Denis was splendidly rich and dignified, but its dignity did not rival the austere contemporary bulk of the Abbey of Clairvaux. Cistercian abbeys were impressive not so much for their poverty as their bareness; in them we see a church disrobed of its immense ambulatories with all its rich chapels, lavish facades and ornamented capitals. We see what is there and also what is not there. This decision not to go for the most primary and effective devices operates using what is taken for granted. Renunciation makes it necessary to transcend another plane: anything too easy and obvious or too attractive seems deceitful, a cheap temptation – and frequently affected and decadent. And, in such cases, renunciation, more than any other device, takes on a moral character; it becomes a tremendous visual metaphor. In his Apologia,24 Saint Bernard upbraided those who sought to empty the pockets of the naive by presenting them with beautiful reliquaries; and he restricted the use of material wealth to the unschooled masses, for whom it may serve as some help, reserving for the monk something that was better suited to his higher calling. Whereas wealth is facile and profligate, renunciation is virile and noble. Whereas wealth is wasteful, renunciation is holy. Saint Bernard advocated the purity of the monastic rule. But in art history, there are innumerable movements that value renunciation as a symbol of a higher perfection – more human, more rational, more intellectual. In my discussion of style, I mentioned Gombrich’s ideas on the inflation processes caused by competition. The endeavour to emphasise the originality of a hairstyle, the majesty of the crinoline or the profusion of lace . . . all end up being taken to an extreme, a ridiculous exaggeration, which can be seen as a metaphor for affected decadence and degeneration. In all civilisations, therefore, there is a call for pristine and original purity. However, more generally too, renunciation is associated with sensitivity, maturity and education. Cultured people despise facile frippery; and adults are revolted by children’s over-sweet candies; civilised men look down scornfully on the decorative excesses of underdeveloped peoples. In reality, the immediate metaphors only provide an elementary starting point. But artistic traditions easily transcend that plane, initiating a process of reference upon reference.

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Admittedly it would be wholly misleading to try to explain the origins of art exclusively with reference to these inborn positive reactions. Only the interaction between fulfilment and denial, between the delay of satisfaction and the surpassing of expectation leads to what we call art, and for this to happen it needs a developed tradition and a universal admiration of masters who can control such psychological effects. But however varied these structures and these sequences may be which result from such an interplay of elements, they all operate within fields of tension which derive their energy from the original polarity of universal human reactions. In any social community every colour, every sound, and naturally also every word has a feeling tone which determines its exact position within this system. (106, 696) When Gombrich speaks of the original polarity of human reactions, he is undoubtedly referring to the basic conflict that serves as the foundation of psychoanalysis: the demand for immediate satisfaction of an instinctive longing is restrained by the need to adapt to the principle of reality, under pressure from cultural constraint. Nobody can be permitted to eat sweets all day: the bitter and the savoury are also values. Only on this disjunctive can the art of gastronomy be constructed. On the one hand we find the horror vacui, or as Gombrich likes to call it, amor infiniti (cf. SO, 80ff.), the pleasure taken in the immediate deployment of richness, lushness and complexity. And on the other hand, the fear of kitsch: the lace edging, the chocolate box, the cloying and the affected, the vulgar and mannered.

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If I have described Gombrich’s insistence on stressing rhythms and light, and if lustre and intricacy immediately resonate in any human nature, now we need to turn to kitsch, which – Gombrich says – has been one of the most important forces in artistic developments (cf. 82, 242), and has now risen to endemic proportions (cf. 106, 698).25 This ‘holy terror’ is related to what Gombrich calls the ‘social test’; to allow oneself to be carried away by such crude and facile inclinations leaves one open to derision. It would be appalling to be thought of as liking such contemptible trinkets or of being incapable of distinguishing true value. This is an apprehension that can be seen in all civilisations and artistic traditions (cf. 82, 242). This play of affirmation and negation, of impetus and containment, forms the substrate of artistic traditions. If there are effects that provoke a given response in any human nature, it is also true that all cultures have their ways of denouncing such inclinations. And so, if the effects are anchored in human nature, so too, in some way, are the reservations. Precisely because different combinations of impetus and containment appear, not all artistic achievements are accessible to everyone. And indeed, this is the case. However, this experience does not invalidate Gombrich’s claim that art is rooted in universal dispositions. On one occasion, Gombrich gave the example of Chinese calligraphy. An expert teacher described how in the hands of a vain man, the letters might take on a rigid and pompous bearing; indiscipline led to broken rules, excessive kindness caused affectation, and excessive strength provoked shrillness. And Gombrich concludes that although we might not be able to appreciate these qualifications, we would know what criteria they correspond to. Surely one is entitled to say that there is something universally human in psychological states [. . .] embodied in the arts, states like gratitude for recovery from illness, the feeling of new strength, undiscipline, or effeminacy. To insist on

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this universality is not to ignore the surprising plasticity of ‘human nature’, the possibility of different attitudes to illness, discipline, or effeminacy. Suffice it that the ultimate elements that go into these art forms belong to the common experience of humanity [. . .] But all the arts, whether music, calligraphy, dancing, poetry, painting, or architecture, send their roots deep down into the common ground of universally human response. (II, 158–9) On the same occasion, Gombrich told a long anecdote, which included a wise remark by Arthur Walley: ‘when asked by a lady at a party how long it would take to learn and savour the form of Chinese cursive known as Grass Writing, replied “Hm . . . five hundred years” ’ (II, 158). He was absolutely right. One needs to form part of a five-hundred-year tradition of education and derivation, of sublimation, of renunciation and overload to understand Grass Writing. If one does take five hundred years, though, one can understand it. 10. Expression and Reference Here we must return to something we said a long time back. The arts are constituted on a bedrock of satisfaction and renunciation which provides basic metaphors. But on them, tradition has erected the complex system of artistic conventions. Traditions have become instruments of expression. With the passing of the years, certain modes come to be established which the artist can use because the public recognises them. At a given point in time, in the musical tradition, there exists a disposition from the artist, in his palette, the triumphal and the mournful forms of music, the joyful and sad ones, the important and the banal. At a given point in time, a ‘level of expectation’ occurs which may be called style.

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That is the shared level that serves as a reference. Certainly, music varies over time. We cannot use the same criteria to judge Gregorian chant and nineteenth-century programme music; the dies irae of the mass for the dead and the ‘Songe d’une nuit du sabbat’ from the Symphonie Fantastique. In short, there are some very varied conventions which, at any given moment in time, form the level of reference. And when a level of reference is established in a social group, any work becomes expressive. We can all appreciate that some architecture is vulgar and anodyne, even if as an art form, architecture might not appear to be very much given to expression. Yet it also true that one would be hard pressed to describe great works without alluding to the expressivity of their forms. There is grandiloquent, simple and severe architecture. There is gracious, rigid and flexible architecture. And, in reality, these classifications can be multiplied as many times as one likes; and the same is true when it comes to describing the element of an order or even a decorative motif. If we say that a capital has some delicate or heavy or solemn volutes, we are referring to the expressivity. Moreover, in analysing any theme, once we have established the genre to which it belongs – a church, a palace, a semi-detached council house, a capital, a peony, a string of Lesbian leaves – we immediately add something that indicates its expressive disposition, even if we cannot define it too precisely; we say of an acanthus leaf that it is fleshy, or solemn, or rigid or soft. Clearly, we can only speak of expression where we have a scale of reference. But when that scale exists, we must speak of expression. There are indeed fleshy or dry acanthus leaves, because there are ‘normal’ acanthus leaves, or at least we have a certain – shared – idea of what is ‘not’ a normal acanthus leaf. The level of expectation, or level of normality, is provided by assimilation of a tradition at a given point in time, that is to say, style. An eighteenth-­ century architect knows which acanthus leaf is excessive, and which is restrained, and which is scraggly. When he wants to draw an acanthus leaf, he gives it that character, something an architect of the second half of the twentieth century cannot do, since neither he nor his public know anything of acanthus leaves. Within its tradition, genre and type, the

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acanthus leaf of the first half of the eighteenth century is expressive, as all architecture is. In a context such as this, not only may we speak of expressivity, or of an ‘objective’ expressivity, but we must presume that the targets the artists set themselves, and which I have referred to as will-to-form, included those expressive qualities (cf. SO, 215). 11. Psychological Keys When we encounter an example such as the Petit Trianon in Versailles, any one of us will naturally calibrate the differences between it and the palace, with its magnificent facades facing onto the gardens and the courtyard. In Gabriel’s style, the treatment is always highly elegant and solemn, without being heavy. It has a certain amiability, even a theatrical touch of fiction and playfulness, which is the secret of its appeal. The rest of the palace boasts some imposing architecture, but it lacks that elegant and charming solemnity, even if it possesses other values. Assuming that within a certain tradition, expressivity ‘exists’ or, rather, there are expressive forms, we can state with certainty that Gabriel or his disciples inclined towards a form of architecture that was endowed with unconceited poise, an amiable, elegant grandeur. Here one should add that these aspirations are fulfilled because they are fulfillable; there are certain ways of doing things that may be interpreted as elegant and imposing. And they can be interpreted because within that context, they really look that way to all connoisseurs of the architectural game. It is not too difficult to identify some of the devices used in the Petit Trianon. Some are used to make it imposing, such as the severity of the facade, the height of the base and attic, the size and austerity of the pilasters. And then there are other devices employed to give it an amiable touch: the pilasters have little relief; the large, appositely arranged door and window openings, with their simple, delicate edging, bring elegance to the ensemble. Such devices ‘tie in’ with biological dis­ po­sitions: they bring satisfaction. The discovery of these devices is a real discovery. And, once they have been circulated, anyone can make use of these devices of style – that is

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to say, of the discoveries of others. We do not know exactly why or how they work but there are devices, formulae and configurations, that trigger a specific response. From this perspective, we can define the devices, the formulae, as ‘keys’, configurations that are capable of automatically activating psychological mechanisms; and Gombrich uses this term very precisely in one of the most important paragraphs in Art and Illusion. The history of art, as we have interpreted it so far, may be described as the gorging of master keys for opening the mysterious locks of our senses to which only nature herself originally held the key. They are complex locks which respond only when various screws are first set in readiness and when a number of bolts are shifted at the same time. Like the burglar who tries to break a safe, the artist has no direct access to the inner mechanism. He can only feel his way with sensitive fingers, probing and adjusting his hook or wire when something gives way. Of course, once the door springs open, once the key is shaped, it is easy to repeat the performance. The next person needs no special insight – no more, that is, than is needed to copy his predecessor’s master key. There are inventions in the history of art that have something of the character of such open-sesame. Foreshortening may be one of them in the way it produces the impression of depth; other are the tonal system of modelling, highlights for texture, or those clues to expression discovered by humorous art [. . .] Admittedly the degree

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to which they do depends to some extent on what we called ‘mental set’. We respond differently when we are ‘keyed up’ by expectation, by need, and by cultural habituation. All these factors may affect the preliminary setting of the lock but not its opening, which still depends on turning the right key. (AI, 359–60) Viewing these artistic formulae as keys is Gombrich’s favourite theme. He already mentioned this interpretation in ‘Meditations on a Hobby Horse or the Roots of Artistic Form’ (MH, 1–11). There, he interpreted representation not as ‘alike’ but as ‘equivalent’. Something represents something else when for us it ‘works’ in the same way: the hobbyhorse – a stick – is a horse because for the child it is rideable. And this phenomenon occurs amongst animals and humans without the use of reason. The cat plays with the ball as if it were a mouse. And the baby calms itself by sucking its thumb. The ball has nothing in common with the mouse except that it is chasable. The thumb nothing with the breast except that it is suckable. As ‘substitutes’ they fulfil certain demands of the organism. They are keys which happen to fit into biological or psychological locks, or counterfeit coins which make the machine work when dropped into the slot. (MH, 4) Here, Konrad Lorenz’s ‘trigger theory’ comes to the fore: certain arrangements immediately ‘trigger’ a specific response in some organisms. Subsequently, in Art and Illusion, he reminds the reader that ‘we are not simple slot machines which begin to tick when coins are dropped into us [. . .] we have what psychoanalysts call an “ego” which tests reality and shapes the impulses from the id’ (AI, 102).

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Gombrich uses the metaphor of the key, or more exactly, of the ‘master key’, when referring to figuration, but that field may easily be extended. After all, Gombrich expressly recognises that in ornamen­ tation and architecture we can find that elements ‘are found to fit certain psychological dispositions which had not been satisfied before’ (SO, 191). And when it comes to music, Gombrich says, ‘I believe that this [. . .] experience cannot be divorced from our inborn disposition’ (SO, 304–5). This illustration – the master key – is very appropriate because it alludes to certain qualities of conventions. Firstly there is something which immediately stands out: the artist does not know anything of the inner workings; he must keep probing until it finally clicks into place, or use tried-and-tested formulae. The artist does not require the psychology of perception or the psychology of art. No purely psychological study could result in formulae that are of immediate artistic interest; it is not possible using psychology to make a range of master keys, a formula for artistic success. And the reason it is not possible is because the workings are not accessible. Furthermore, because we are not just machines; the ‘ego’ exists, and with it, habits and tastes. Referring to ornamental factors, Gombrich remarked that it is this subjective element in the visual effects of pattern which seems to me largely to vitiate the attempts to establish the aesthetics of design on a psychological basis. There is a large literature reporting on experiments arranged to study preferences [. . .] No doubt something can be learned from these investigations, but by and large the result seems to me to be incommensurate with the effort. (SO, 117) The artist will turn to his own experience and that of other artists and there he will learn to use their language without even knowing the grammar, as Gombrich likes to say.

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12. Artist and Discoverer If the arts draw help from effective formulae, one can understand that Gombrich should interpret art history, at least in part, as a history of artistic discoveries and as a history of formulae. However, this statement is not entirely true. For Gombrich, art history is above all the history of artists (cf. SA, vii and ff.). It is the specific artists who have appropriately brought the resources of their traditions into the light and used them masterfully. They are the protagonists: the great masters and the great masterpieces. This is not just a pretty phrase. Artists with their discoveries and their works enrich their artistic traditions. And we can see a thread of logic running through artistic development: there are demands from our first or second nature which expect to be satisfied; in this regard, artistic development may be seen as a series of discoveries that satisfy them. However, each contribution alters the rules of the game; each new work disrupts the force field through which it gains expression and through which it can be evaluated, and it gives rise to new demands. As I have already said, although the formulae thus discovered act on basic dispositions, they do so on a changing second nature, which eliminates, transforms or develops them. It is up to the artist to make use of one or other possibility from his medium, knowing that his choice will inevitably upset the panorama of art. This is why artistic deeds manifest themselves in this way, at once logical and arbitrary. And for this reason the artist plays the central role in art. Had he not intervened in a specific way, things would have been different or even would not have happened. The artist is a protagonist, but he is a protagonist within the game of art, in the context of the tradition from which he imbibes and which he in turn enriches. He is a discoverer and as such he is a discoverer of a world that was already there, but which nobody had noticed. Let us remember for a moment how the artistic creation came about, the creation of a complex order. The artist tries and tries until the solution emerges, he finds it in the medium he is using, and he captures it. As in the creation of a witty joke, the language already contained – and even suggested – the solution. One can

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therefore understand why Gombrich sees the artist as a ‘discoverer’. In his tribute to Freud, he illustrates this idea with artistic works from the city of Vienna. That is why I like to insist on the formulation that the artist must be a discoverer. Just as the verbal joke is discovered in the language, so the masters of other artistic media find their effects prefigured in the language of style which – to return to Freud’s words – ‘meets us halfway’ [. . .] Without the mason’s lodge and pattern books Anton Pilgram could not have designed his beautiful pulpit in St. Stephen’s Cathedral, and without the achievements of Romantic landscape painting Ferdinand Waldmüller would not have been able to conjure up for us his Springtime in the Vienna Woods [. . .] As for architecture: however original Fischer von Erlach’s Karlskirche in Vienna may be, he too discovered rather than invented its forms and even their combi­ nations; far from creating them out of nothing he merely modified and re-interpreted what he found in tradition [. . .] Music I need hardly talk about, since the whole structure of the tonal system of Western music can be describes as a series of discoveries which enabled the composers to create their towering works. (T, 109–12) The artist is, above all, a discoverer, a term (as Gombrich reminds us) that was already used by Pliny the Elder: the artist is a heuretes (cf. AI, 286). He is a discoverer and not necessarily a revolutionary. What the artist needs to make his discoveries is not a fanatical eagerness for

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novelty, but a special sensitivity for capturing nuance, a capacity to discern the possibilities hidden in the commonplace of his tradition. And his mastery comes from dominating his medium, from continuously playing with it, alert to the new possibilities it suggests. 13. Authentication However, the artist is also a forger of metaphors. When he configures his work, a complex order, the work acquires meaning, it has expression. When speaking about creation, I said how artistic traditions needed the artist’s primary process to fuse into new and promising combinations. The driving force that can set this process in motion may consist of the impulses from the artist’s inner world. This is the point at which the third theory of artistic expression comes in: art as the communi­ cation of feelings. Gombrich sets out his opinion on this matter in ‘Freud’s Aesthetics’. The artist who thus experiments and plays – who looks for discoveries in language if he is a writer or a poet, in visual shapes if he is a painter – will no doubt select in that preconscious process of which Freud speaks the structures that will greet him as meaningful in terms of his mind and conflicts. (38, 38) Evidently, he will take those combinations that ‘tell’ him something. ‘But it is his art that informs his mind, not his mind that breaks through in his art’ (ibid.). It is not his feelings that govern the process, but rather, faced with certain configurations, the artist resonates, that is to say, he finds an outlet for his feelings, ‘a mood or an experience that would have remained dormant in the artist but for his vital suggestion’ (ibid.). The artist suddenly finds he resonates in a special way before a configuration and he borrows it. The artist resonates before his medium.

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The artistic conventions he uses have certain effects on him. What then is the artist’s task? Very simple: the artist places the stamp of authenticity on the formulae he uses – he takes them because, given that they have had an effect on him, he is guaranteed that they will have the same effect on his public. This is the fourth theory, the theory of authenti­ cation, which forms the final stone in Gombrich’s theory of expression and incorporates all the other three, as explained in ‘The Necessity of Tradition’ (T, 185–209). The artist, architect, musician or painter is interested in the possibilities of his medium, possibilities that are also expressive and which arouse a human reaction. And the first person to experience that reaction is the artist himself. As Gombrich had said a long time before (reminding the reader that it was an expression often used by Popper), ‘in playing these games, the artist becomes his own public [. . .]’ (MH, 68): he is his first public, ‘the creator is also his first beholder and critic’ (SO, 92). That is the artist’s primary criterion: his own response. On a deeper level it must surely be the effect which the creation has on the maker himself which must be decisive for the real artist: the process I have called authentication. Trying out possibilities within his range and medium he will find that his self – and here I would like to speak of his ‘self ’ – resonates to a particular configuration. (T, 206; cf. T, 198–200) Gombrich then alters the traditional equation of art as an expression of sentiments, as stated in Horace’s famous phrase;26 ‘you must feel pain yourself if you want me to cry’. Gombrich had already said that it was more a piece of technical advice than a moral maxim (cf. MH, 25–6 and 56). Now it can be seen for all its worth. The funeral march need not be composed by the musician in a moment of complete despondency. It need not contain ‘authentic’ feelings. What is important is that

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it is effective, that it causes a suitable effect, the effect that is expected of a funeral march. Now, in order for it to be effective, ‘before I cry, you must feel the same pain’; the artist must try out the effectiveness of his composition on himself. 14. Unique Metaphors And, finally, we should mention one last issue. The artistic tradition needs the artist’s primary process. Moreover, it needs his sensitivity to come together in great works. The artist contributes his sensitivity and not his high sentiments, not his burning sentiments, not his innumerable sentiments; he brings his capacity to resonate in the presence of slight variations of nuance that are significant for him; that is his contribution: the extraordinarily nuanced reaction to a change in colour, or texture, or volume or time. For if they are significant to him, they will be significant to others, or, rather, others will learn to see them as significant, precisely through his work, through which they are articulated. It matters little whether the interest in one particular configuration over another is due to a private sentimental circumstance. What remains in art is not that circumstance but the configuration that a given effect is capable of provoking in the spectator; a given effect because that configuration operates on shared assumptions and beyond the psychological or biological dispositions, and causes the expected reaction in all the spectators who, in one way or another, are familiar with that artistic medium, with that language. What is expressed, Gombrich insists, is not a feeling, ‘not [. . .] translatable symbols, at the most [. . .] metaphors which only have meaning within the context of the language itself ’ (T, 112). Any small inner conflict that might exist has been the opportunity for agglutinating the pearl, for composing a new metaphor. And those who perceive it do not experience the private conflict of the artist but participate in what is common to the human species, which is perhaps synthesised only in that work. And if the artist finds an outlet for his feelings in his artistic language, the spectator too will experience that

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liberation. This may be confusing and one last quote from Gombrich may perhaps shed some light on the matter. Concluding his lecture ‘Franz Schubert and the Vienna of his Time’, delivered to the Musicus Concertus of Florence on the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the composer’s death, Gombrich had some truly heartfelt words of tribute for an artist that ‘always had the consolation of music within him’. These discoveries of which his oeuvre is so rich were not intended as conscious innovations, however, let alone as revolutionary gestures. As the heir to a great tradition he had acquired the idiom of classical music, of his teacher Salieri, of Mozart, Haydn, Rossini, and of course of Beethoven, of whom he stood in awe, but also the idioms of folk music cultivated for so long in the yodels of Alpine villages and the dances of his native Vienna [. . .] We can never cease to marvel at the variety and number of his creations, but what he wrote is surely only a fragment of what he heard in his mind. All he could do was to select and note down as fast as he could some of the miracles that had unfolded within him. Sometimes the task of setting a poem to music was the catalyst that caused this constant stream of divine music to crystallise, sometimes, we may guess, he would be arrested by a sequence of tones and modulations in this internal musical monologue which mysteriously answered the mood he described, hovering between love and pain, pain and love, that union of bliss and melancholy which exists nowhere but in his music.

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Some of the elements in his life which must have contributed to his sadness and to his longing for a better world have here been adumbrated – the sufferings of his country, his poverty, his illness. But though these and other heartbreaking aspects of his biography are worth knowing for their own sakes, they neither explain his genius nor make his music more intelligible. For his music transcends the situation in which he noted it down. Pain and love are part of the human condition and the need for solace will remain with us. How fortunate we are, that we have Schubert. (43, 35–6)

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16. Understanding Expression is just one side of the coin. To complement our examination of the artist and his work, we also need to study the spectator or beholder. The other side of the coin is understanding. However, here too a few preliminary caveats are required. Understanding, as Gombrich defines it, has little to do with the reception and deciphering of the ‘message’ of the art work, and still less with some form of ‘spiritual communication’ or anything of that ilk. Romantic theses stressing expression, communication and understanding as extraordinary phenomena were supplanted by those who tried to find the key to art using scientific or pseudo-scientific methods. Examples include those books on the ‘hidden geometry’ in Raphael’s pictures or psychological studies that seek to measure aesthetic taste. For Gombrich, understanding a work of art is an enormously profound matter, but, at the same time, it is an experience that is within the reach of everyone – albeit not to the same degree. It is, after all, a phenomenon with which we are all familiar and about which (with varying degrees of accuracy) we can all speak with the confidence of being understood.

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Understanding means understanding something. But what is that something? ‘What has art to do with knowledge, what sense is there in speaking of understanding a masterpiece?’, wonders Gombrich ‘We can never know what it meant to its creator, for even if he had told us he might not have known himself. The work of art means what it means to us, there is no other criterion’ (II, 156). That phrase, ‘means what it means to us’, can be interpreted in two different ways: either ‘it means to us what that art work really means’; or, ‘it really means only what it means for us’. Needless to say, Gombrich intended the phrase in the first of these two meanings. Yet here, too, he refers to a book and its author, for whom he has a great regard: Validity in Interpretation1 by E. Donald Hirsch. Gombrich often mentions Hirsch when discussing the meaning of an art work. 1. The Intended Meaning Hirsch’s book is very appealing, written with clarity and order. His discussion of the subject concurs admirably with those of Gombrich that I have tried to highlight here. Hirsch himself quotes Art and Illusion2 approvingly on two occasions. Validity in Interpretation is divided into five chapters and various appendices. In the first chapter, ‘In Defense of the Author’, Hirsch negotiates his way through the difficulties that have arisen between different theories of interpretation, particularly over the last few decades, which may be summarised in four sentences: the meaning of a text changes over the years; the author’s meaning is immaterial; the author’s meaning is inaccessible; and the author does not know what he wants to say. To neutralise these objections, Hirsch sets out a series of ideas that have proved very useful. Firstly, he says that we need to distinguish between the verbal meaning of a text and its significance. The significance of a text is the response it may arouse amongst its readers, and therefore it belongs to a specific social context. The significance can change over the years but not the meaning. Plato’s dialogues are inextricably bound up with our literary and philosophical culture and are viewed differently with the passage of time, but their sense, their

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meaning, continues to be the same as it was for Plato and those of his contemporaries – and people of all eras – who were capable of understanding them. What matters is that meaning, and that meaning is accessible. However, that meaning is what the author meant to say, the intended meaning, and it is not the same as any inner meaning, sentiment, etc. So what matters is the will of the author. However, because that meaning has to be transmitted or conveyed, it is constructed using types, that is to say with the possibilities of the shared language, and it therefore becomes a ‘willed type’. In the first chapter, Hirsch sets out to emphasise the importance of the author’s will: a text is what the author meant to say, in so far as he has known how and been able to say it. In the second chapter, he tries to define verbal meaning by basing himself on the notion of type. Generally speaking, this notion coincides with Gombrich’s. Hirsch identifies two characteristics: a type is something that has a limit, it is possible to distinguish whether a statement belongs to one type or another; and a type may be presented with more than one example, in other words it has an element of generality. There is some margin with regard to what the author meant. The author uses types and those types are general; the meaning of a phrase is not fully defined, because they are types. Therefore, when an author makes use of these types, implications appear. Hirsch says that implications are to meaning as the part is to the whole; they form it. Verbal meanings are like icebergs. Only a small part protrudes, and the vast remainder is connected to that exposed part. Behind the patent meaning there are many other latent meanings. But Hirsch warns that not all the depths of the sea form part of the iceberg, only the ice that is connected to the summit. There are implications that the author did not actually think of, but which are present in the type he uses and which the author not only does not reject, but – I believe – takes for granted. And he takes them for granted, he assumes them, because they are already contained in the type, and they can be conveyed because the type is shareable. In short, verbal meaning is a ‘shared type’. The next chapter, on genre, is fundamental. Here, Hirsch quotes Gombrich to remind his readers that communication is performed with

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shared types, and therefore all creation is supported by prior and previously accepted facts. Variants can be controlled and checked only against a series of invariants.3 Everything that is said is in some way present in the pages that precede it. And here we can see a clear parallel between Gombrich’s ideas and Hirsch’s. The final chapters on ‘Understanding, Interpretation, and Criticism’ and ‘Problems and Principles of Validation’ are of less interest, as they are perhaps less applicable to the theory of the plastic arts. Gombrich unreservedly accepts Hirsch’s conclusions in those first chapters. He agrees that the meaning of the art work is what the artist wanted it to be, not his hidden, unconscious desires; rather, those desires which can be found in the world of art – however difficult it may sometimes be to define them – and which are shared by other artists. They form part of a genre; even if they are not describable, they are recognisable. Gombrich advocates returning to the old common-sense idea that a work is what its author wanted it to be. What matters is the intended meaning, to use Hirsch’s expression (cf. SI, 4–5; RH, 86–7). And that meaning is not a psychological category, something that belongs to the unattainable interior realm (cf. SI, 17–8). Gombrich therefore accepts the separation between the meaning and significance of the response provoked (cf. RH, 110; SI, 4). He accepts Hirsch’s criticism of the historicists and psychologists, who argue either that the author matters little, since he is only relevant as the sounding-board of an era, or else prioritise the interiorities at the expense of any form of objectivity (cf. II, 156 n. 18; 188 n. 10). Finally, Gombrich entirely agrees with Hirsch on the supremacy of the genre in interpretation. Any hypothesis must start by considering which genre the image we wish to analyse belongs to. Only against that backdrop of invariants do the determinations of the specific art work take on relief and meaning. It is also the only way of guarding against a misinterpretation (cf. SI, 5, 32, 45–6; T, 24; IE, 296 n. 19). I do not want to labour a point that is already amply debated in this work, but I do at least need to sum up. The meaning of a work is the meaning that the author wished to give it and that meaning is acces­ sible. This statement is completed by the supremacy of the genre, which

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is ultimately no more than a transposition of that context which we defined when speaking about mastery. The intended meaning makes sense within the game of art. And the immediate consequence is that the meaning is accessible to the players; it is accessible in general, ergo it is not always accessible nor is it accessible to everyone. Understanding is a question of participating in shared circles of assumptions. 2. Art and Language On several occasions Gombrich has analysed the important differences between literary texts and artistic images. This is of no passing interest, since the great majority of his works deal with the figurative arts, and more specifically to the European figurative arts, including classicism. As I have already stated, Gombrich’s thesis is that the old classical and modern traditions were supplanted by artists who sought to place their audience inside their depiction of sacred or historical events. These artists, after a bold effort to improve their medium through trial and error, came up with the skilled resources they needed to represent divine or legendary characters as vividly and movingly as possible. Gombrich’s notion of representation as a mise-en-scène highlights both the similarities and the differences between painting and the written word. After all, the goal of classical tragedies was the same as that which Gombrich saw in classical painting. The two means of communication – painting or sculpture and written language – deal with general and particular notions in very different ways. On the one hand, in painting it is not possible to represent universals, such as joy, or even whiteness; at most, they can present us with one ‘joyful’ man and one ‘white’ cloth. Literature, on the other hand, can evidently not define a form in the same way as painting can: the characters, the poses they adopt, the context in which they move. This is too obvious to be of interest. But the visual arts (not only painting and sculpture) have characteristics of their own, resulting in an exclusive manifestation of their meanings. The creation of an art work, as Gombrich defines it, is the confection of a complex order. Expressive, significant elements are involved in the

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complex order. The first – and hugely important – consequence of this is that it is impossible to separate the form of a work of art from its supposed content, from its meaning. There is a perfect fusion, in such a way that form is meaningful, and meaning can only be understood within the formal context (cf. NF, 77). Gombrich is convinced that all art requires form; it would be mistaken to see form as just the wrapper around the package of meaning, which can be discarded once that meaning has been received. Clearly, the genuine emotion that a great work of music can unquestionably provoke requires the musical form and is explained within its context. And this is also true of more obvious programme music: there is no ‘message’ outside, at the fringes of, through, or in the background of form. Even in symbolic forms, where form and content might appear most distinguishable, Gombrich says categorically: ‘for wherever art does enter the service of symbolism, the division between content, form, and material becomes artificial’ (111, 157).4 ‘The allegory of electricity’ requires the aid of a determined-looking young lady, gracefully holding up some triumph of electricity. The words of a text or the sounds of an address tend to become transparent, to disappear in benefit of the content of the message. When we read a text, the material support (the letters and the paper) and the linguistic support (the vocabulary and the syntax) tend to fade in favour of the statement or narrative. But the same is not true in the arts. Even figurative painting takes its value from the fact that it is not entirely transparent; we are aware that the landscape before us was created by the painter and our astonishment comes from an awareness of the way in which he has achieved it. And so, Gombrich says that ‘all art needs an awareness of form’ (39, 67). And it is precisely this awareness that is exclusive to art. Artistic images are immediate; they present themselves in one fell swoop (cf. NF, 78). This is the consequence of their nature as complex orders. We are presented with a whole and, in the case of great works of art, a ­harmonious whole. They are also immediate in another sense. Since form and meaning are conjoined, they operate on us directly. The light in a beautiful Gothic

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church provokes an immediate reaction that requires no translation. As I have already mentioned, even conventions, which are far from being basic dispositions, also arouse immediate reactions. To use Gombrich’s expression, the image is ‘open’. It may contain a whole multiplicity of meanings, a quality traditional authors were already aware of (cf. SI, 212 n. 96). It is in the very nature of things that even in the case of symbolic images – those artistic figures that come closest to a literary transcription – it is not possible precisely to establish which features are significant and which are not. As I have already said, what signifies is the whole (cf. SI, 36). Gombrich draws on one of Bühler’s most important contributions (cf. SI, 95; 111, 150, 155, 164): the concept of abstractive relevance.5 This is the term used by Bühler to explain that in any sign there are some elements that signify and must always be present and others that can vary and do not signify. Abstractive relevance is somewhat more subtle and complex than it might first appear: a written ‘a’ is distinguished from an ‘o’ by a single, small line, a miniscule feature. Many other features, however, may vary greatly; they do not belong to the sign in the same way. A cross may have enormous variations, provided the symmetry between its arms is maintained (sometimes even this requirement need not be fulfilled) and the upper section of the upright may be the same length or smaller than the lower section. In symbolic images these features cannot so easily be distinguished. And in reality, they cannot be separated from one another. The allegory of electricity is a dynamic and attractive girl and her qualities embody electricity, even though without doubt, many aspects do not have an established symbolic content. This opening-up, which enables a work of art to fulfil many different functions and sustain multiple different meanings, can also obscure the starting point; there is a meaning sought by the author, an intended meaning. To use such an ambiguous term as liberally as I am doing can only lead to complete confusion. I would like to make some final clarifications before turning to look at ambiguity in art. The intended meaning of a work of art has the category of a metaphor. It is something which is to a certain extent identifiable, discernible and for this reason pursuable, but not necessarily describable. We can

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understand Juan Guas’s intended meaning in the church of San Juan de los Reyes. We can see the magnificent use of the light that comes from above and spills onto drapes of a smoothness that is underlined by the gentle moulding that surrounds them and which contrasts with the clustered adornments running tightly between horizontal mouldings. The play of fine lines, the trepanned, affected adornments and smooth drapes all contribute to the general effect of solemnity, with elegant grace and richness, of detail and magnanimity that is so characteristic of this work. Clearly it is here that we need to look for Guas’s conception of a royal funeral chapel. And to realise that concept, he draws on Burgundian and Mudejar traditions on the recently developed type of the single-nave church, and at the same time the funeral chapel; it is the felicitous combination of these that is Guas’s contribution. We cannot separate his goal from his architectural traditions, where it acquires meaning and becomes significant. We know nothing of Guas’s character, and no one could ever claim that this solution reflects any particular feature of his personality, other than his taste and mastery. There is nothing there of the spirit of the times, only of the prevailing tastes and techniques being disseminated; if further proof were needed, we know that this leading example of the Isabelline Gothic did not meet with the entire satisfaction of Queen Isabella. Guas has brought to the stage all the resources at his disposal to create a funeral chapel, monument and at the same time an offering for victory at the battle of Toro; he has built an architectural metaphor. Gombrich proposed an excellent example, the Solemn Masses composed by some great musicians. ‘The composer’s mood and even his innermost beliefs’, he says, are private and for ever inaccessible to us. What we understand is not him, but his work, his choice, that is, of musical metaphors that reflect the majesty of the Sanctus or the sweetness of the Benedictus to all who have learned to assess the significance of his choices. And

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whatever the private beliefs of either the composer or the listener, the music can still convey the untranslatable meaning of the text. (111, 160) Clearly in both cases, we see a known type, willingly pursued and shared by members of society. The personal interpretation of that type enables authors to exercise their mastery. And their goal will be to pursue that metaphor – grandeur, majesty, clarity, delicacy. It is important to stress that, by its very nature, that goal, which is the ‘meaning’ of the art work, cannot be entirely vivid and actually conscious. Neither the author knew exactly what he was looking for before he created it, nor can he or anyone else describe it once it has been achieved. Here, it is worth mentioning the useful distinction Hirsch draws between meaning and implication; it is the implications that form the meaning. But not all of them are immediately and currently present, though this does not mean they are involuntary, let alone that they emerge against the artist’s will. Some are inferred as a consequence of others and must be taken for granted. 3. Extrapolations of Meaning This issue is of the greatest importance because it highlights the inherent defects in two ways of analysing art. The first of these is formal analysis. This scarcely requires any further commentary; formal analysis is not capable of simply collating the implications. Anyone seeking to explain the history of architecture as a mere succession of styles is ignoring something fundamental. As I have said, Gombrich argues that artistic traditions can turn a medium into an expressive medium: any option chosen from amongst all those offered by the tradition is viewed as significant. A courthouse cannot be given a light treatment, and nor can a garden pavilion be oppressive. Yet lightness and weight can only be captured against a backdrop. This is why reference, the gravitational field established by an artistic tradition, is so powerful: expressivity comes not only from the form, but also – and primarily – from its

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position within the field, from its relationship with other forms. For this reason in a form of art such as the neo-classical which (in some manifestations) takes as its starting point a programmatic spurning of previous excess, the classification of a facade or even a teapot entirely escapes any formal analysis. For formal analysis, Gombrich said, Raphael’s Madonna della Sedia ultimately has the same interest as any wallpaper pattern (cf. NF, 72); formal analysis cannot explain expressivity and cannot explain the value of a work of art; all works are made, at best, with different criteria (cf. II, 120). Formal analysis ignores artistic meaning. At the opposite extreme, we have iconology. As a science (if one can speak of it in those terms) iconology studies the meaning of symbolic forms. ‘When Aby Warburg’, says Gombrich, reintroduced the old term of ‘iconology’ he delimited a new area of interest, of which Panofsky was to become the acknowledged master. Yet even at that time the general science of signs [. . .] was merely a cloud no larger than a man’s hand on the horizon of the humanities. Today the cloud has burst and the mists are rolling in, threatening to blur the outlines of once familiar distinctions [. . .] Where it is proposed to treat everything as a sign, it becomes doubly important to re-interpret the old commonsense terminology, which had served the student of art for so long. (SO, 217) There is an entire spectrum between forms that are pure symbols – such as the cross in certain contexts – and others that are only forms.6 The intellectual fashion for iconology has spawned an entire academic industry. Important findings have been made and Gombrich himself

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has worked as an iconologist, revealing important interpretations.7 But the industry itself demands new material to analyse and the field has been extended to matters whose symbolic value is highly questionable. As Gombrich says, ‘there is no spell more potent than that cast by mysterious symbols of which the meaning has been forgotten’ (SO, 218). And it is never possible to determine the limit of the symbol, since the image is open, as Gombrich has observed (cf. 111, 164–5). There is an enormous risk of over-interpretation. There are a certain number of specialists who are eager to find a new interpretation for any work; the image enables it and it cannot be proven with any certainty that any given interpretation is false. Unearthing mysteries is an attractive occupation. Interpretation requires a certain ostentatious display of erudition, with all its overpowering apparatus of footnotes. Above all, there is a feeling that such an interpretation gets to the heart of the art work, reaching the deep and definitive meaning that escapes the superficial beholder. Gombrich is unequivocal in his judgement: ‘I believe that the very pleasures of the symbol hunt have tended to obscure the fact that the vast majority of monuments in our churches and museums do not present this type of riddle’ (111, 149–50). And Gombrich tries to put iconology in its proper place. The most important work in this regard is ‘Aims and Limits of Iconology’ (SI, 1–25), essential reading for anyone interested in the subject. His thesis can be summed up in a clear warning: ‘in iconography no less than in life, wisdom lies in knowing where to stop’ (SI, 95). I would like to make Gombrich’s position on symbolism very clear. In most cases, the symbolism of symbolic figures is immediate and conventional. Gombrich insists that religious figures should be interpreted first and foremost for what they are. That is their intended meaning; they are religious symbols (cf. NF, 80; 111, 154–5; RH, 87, 188). And he reminds us that the church itself warns that they should not be taken literally, but rather be seen as analogies (a term he considers far superior to denotatum or references, the name traditionally used in some treatises) (cf. 111, 157). Any visual symbol involves an opening, which can be found in the intended meaning; the ‘sweet’ Virgin, or the

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‘merciless’ Herod. They are at once obvious but untranslatable and, to a certain extent, indeterminate meanings. On one occasion, speaking of the symbolic figures that were so common in the Renaissance, he remarked that ‘the humanist allegory frequently oscillates between the search for the Orphic arcanum, bordering on primitive magic, and the sophisticated conceit, bordering on parlour games’ (SI, 60). It is true that pure – or almost pure – symbols do exist, as do pure – or almost pure – forms. And we are still left with the whole spectrum: on most occasions, the symbol is incorporated into the art work as another ­element, which varies between a deeper seriousness and a parlour game, between profound reference and mere decorative enhancement. It is just one more element in the complex order. Gombrich refers extensively to this no-man’s land in the closing chapters of his Sense of Order (SO, 217ff.). Where there is no firmly established convention, we clearly cannot speak of a symbol but of a very vague mode. The dome is not properly speaking a symbol of power of the sort that the cross is for Christianity. However, in architecture, the dome can be seen as a suitable metaphor, for its roundness and elegance, to be included in edifices housing institutions with some sort of authority. At the same time, the cross, as well as being a symbol, is a very suitable pinnacle for a dome. There is something of a game, between form and meaning, even in the more terrifying of primitive symbols (cf. SO, 272ff.). And this is particularly true in those forms that cannot be considered as symbols per se. It is this delicate balance that iconologists too often upset. I have already mentioned Gombrich’s favourable judgement of Homo ludens. Seriousness and play are bound together. ‘In my own field, the history of art, we have become intolerably earnest. A false prestige has come to be attached to the postulation of profound meanings or ulterior motives’ (T, 161). As an antidote, Gombrich has sometimes used Father Christmas as an example (cf. 106, 690; 80, 255; RH, 36), ‘a “subliminal incarnation” of man’s benevolence’, said Gombrich entertainingly. Clearly many symbols remain in that state of indefiniteness: what are they meant to signify? The response is that they belong to the manmade world of dreams and fiction, a world that has accompanied

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humans throughout their time on earth. ‘Such motifs and figures do not have determinate meanings, they rather lend themselves as metaphors or outlets for an ever-changing variety of ideas and emotions’ (RH, 36). Many of these motifs, incorporated into tradition, can be effectively understood and explained without the need to isolate them from their ambiguous context. Anyone writing a treatise on Father Christmas would end up with a likeable figure. There is no need to turn to structural anthropology to know what Father Christmas means. The same is true with motifs that are very frequent in all arts. Architecture constantly makes use of symbolic elements. In this field too, we should take heed of Gombrich’s warning. Do the magnificent coats of arms in the cross vault of San Juan de los Reyes, or those in the Chapel of the Constable in Burgos Cathedral, or the Vélez Chapel in Murcia, offer the key to their interpretation? I believe they do not. They contribute – and to an extraordinary extent – to enriching the setting. But does their size, at least, not express a desire for affir­ mation on the part of the monarchs or their nobles? The question is inappropriate. These motifs form part of that which is taken for granted. There must be coats of arms; they are found everywhere, and they are a magnificent way of bringing a sense of dignity to the ensemble. If Guas or the Colonia family had been banned from including them, they would have been mightily annoyed. Coats of arms look great. Does that mean that coats of arms are mere decorative motifs? Clearly not. Coats of arms come quite close to being a pure visual symbol, although the coats of arms of Guas and the Colonias are very beautiful. For this reason, and because they require a more attentive eye to decode them – the form is highlighted by the meaning (and the meaning by the form) – they are excellent devices of Spanish ­ornamentation. And speaking of architecture, we should recall Gombrich’s warning about possible interpretations of the Palazzo del Te in Mantua. When Gombrich wrote his PhD thesis on this palace (117),8 he erroneously thought that the characteristics of the era and its architect would become more transparent through the building. Later, other authors

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Figure 16.1  San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo, Spain. Collection: Joaquín Lorda.

Figure 16.2  Chapel of the Constable, Cathedral of Burgos, Spain. Collection: Joaquín Lorda.

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Figure 16.3  Chapel of the Vélez, Cathedral of Murcia, Spain. Collection: Joaquín Lorda.

were to reveal its symbolic content, enabling it to be viewed as political propaganda, or as a sign of the imperial aspirations of the Duke of Mantua. Eventually in a masterly article to which I have already referred, Gombrich interprets the palace as a rhetorical exercise. And he concludes: ‘What we can learn from the parallel with rhetoric is to respect the autonomy of art [. . .] If we place too much weight on these rhetorical fictions we make them dissolve’ (NL, 170). 4. Ambiguity and Emotion The many different meanings of a work of art – corresponding to the many different functions of art – do not hamper understanding, ­Gombrich believes; on the contrary they stimulate our capacity for

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understanding. And here we need to make reference to another of the ideas that Gombrich takes from the world of psychoanalysis: ambiguity as a value in art. Ambiguity – the lack of clarity in a work, the difficulty of understanding or exhausting a meaning – summons our partici­ pation. We have to say what our interpretation is. And our decision makes us participate subtly and effectively in the art work. In looking at a work of art we will always project some additional significance that is not actually given. Indeed we must do so if the work is to come to life for us. The penumbra of vagueness, the ‘openness’ of the symbol is an important constituent of any real work of art [. . .]. (SI, 18) It is from his study of figurative representation that Gombrich takes this idea of ambiguity as a value; ambiguity that requires active participation to understand; meaning that is not imposed, but rather requires our acceptance. Perhaps one of the illustrations most often used by Gombrich is the well-known visual joke (also used in psychological experimentation) of the Duck-Rabbit. Indeed on one occasion Gombrich humorously apologised for presenting the example yet again.9 The drawing shows a figure that is ambiguous, even if its meaning is elementary. Whether the picture shows the head of a duck or a rabbit depends almost entirely on our own decision. In Art and Illusion, Gombrich uses this simple drawing (which Wittgenstein had raised to a certain philosophical status)10 to introduce readers to the disturbing idea that all the images we see are actually ambiguous and that ‘ambiguity – rabbit or duck? – is clearly the key to the whole problem of image reading’ (AI, 238); it shows us that our mental apparatus always intervenes to clear up the ambiguity and choose the most likely interpretation of the stimuli received. However, this psychological game becomes more interesting when Gombrich shows that painters deliberately use ambiguity. Perhaps no ambiguous representation is more famous than Leonardo da Vinci’s

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Mona Lisa, in which he appears to recreate the observation made about Praxiteles’s Aphrodite, that a smile dances on her lips. Gombrich uses Leonardo’s paintings to explain his idea. This is Leonardo’s famous invention which the Italians call sfumato – the blurred outline and mellowed colours that allow one form to merge with another and always leave something to our imagination. If we now return to the ‘Mona Lisa’, we may understand something of its mysterious effect. We see that Leonardo has used the means of his sfumato with the utmost deliberation. Everyone who has ever tried to draw or scribble a face knows that what we call its expression rests mainly in two features: the corners of the mouth, and the corners of the eyes. Now it is precisely these parts which Leonardo has left deliberately indistinct, by letting them merge into a soft shadow. That is why we are never quite certain in what mood Mona Lisa is really looking at us. Her expression always seems just to elude us. (SA, 228)11 This discovery by Leonardo, writes Gombrich, not only allowed him to make his figures more interesting, but also to endow them with suggestions that he may not even have noticed, and which are there waiting for the attentive spectator. In my discussion of Gombrich’s ideas on artistic creation, I remarked that Leonardo used his test-pieces to stimulate his imagination; his own work suggested new ideas to him. Evidently this would not be possible if there were not a certain ‘cloud­i­ ness’ in Leonardo’s preparatory drawings. Gombrich says:

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In the vast universe of Leonardo’s mind this invention is contiguous with his discovery of the ‘indeterminate’ and its power over the mind, which made him the ‘inventor’ of the sfumato and the halfguessed form. And we now come to understand that the indeterminate has to rule the sketch for the same reason, per destare l’ingegnio, to stimulate the mind to further inventions. (NF, 61) However, the simple fact that this indefiniteness makes the subject more interesting does not reflect the importance of ambiguity in art. Here there is an element typical of psychoanalysis which will no doubt not prove easy to understand nor to explain. It was Kris who noted the importance of ambiguity in art, as the most important and frequent stimulus for the aesthetic response. He set out this theory in the chapter entitled ‘Aesthetic Ambiguity’ written in collaboration with Kaplan for his book Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art.12 Kris insisted that the creative process, as Freud explains for the joke, comes together in art works that necessarily have to be ‘overdetermined’, i.e. overloaded with meaning. The primary process leaves a trace of ambiguity in the art work. To this Gombrich adds – as I understand it – that the nature of a complex order as an inexpressible metaphor, making form and meaning indistinguishable, means that it will always be ambiguous for the ­spectator. And that ambiguity is all the more obvious in the case of great works of art. We are urged to search for the meaning, to try to use it in a rational approach, but the inextricable tangle of relations resists being reduced to an argumental thread. Reason, with its linear sequence (the main sequence as Neisser called it), cannot perform the task of understanding the multiple and ambiguous. On one occasion, Gombrich remarked that in paintings by Rembrandt and other masterpieces of his time, the figures do not manifest their feelings and reactions to one another dramatically and unequivocally;

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there is in them an ambiguous expression which shares the same nebulous ambiguity, of shadow and light, in which they are submerged. And he comments: ‘The very element of ambiguity and of mystery makes us read the drama in terms of inner emotions [. . .]’ (IE, 99). And he makes exactly the same remark when referring to the task of the grotesque, in which human and animal forms merge, here and there becoming plant stems, architectural mouldings or calligraphic features; strange beings are offered up in what is, at once, a bawdy burlesque, an erotic appeal, a reminder of evil beings, or protective charms, a sophisticated game and a cultured decoration. ‘What is equally vital to our understanding of these effects is that the uncertainty of response ­carries over from the perceptual to the emotional sphere’ (SO, 256). And even when speaking about decorative motifs with no figuration, such as the Moorish interlacing, he makes a similar remark. We are able to absorb much more of the general character of a decoration than we can ever consciously analyse, let alone describe [. . .] The skill and inventiveness of the master craftsman is not only aimed at our conscious awareness. It rests on the experience that we can sense the all-important distinction between confusion and profusion without piecemeal examination. We are confident that we are facing orders within orders which would respond to our probing for regularity without making us lose the feeling of infinite and inexhaustible variety [. . .] history shows that some of the great traditions of ornamental styles transcended the limitations of pure decoration and were able to transmute redundancy into plenitude and ambiguity into mystery. (SO, 116)

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Ambiguity obliges us to introduce ourselves into the art work, to see it in emotional terms. The Madonna della Sedia is not the ‘symbol’ of maternity, it ‘is’ in some way maternity, a sweet, delicate and welcoming maternity. The metaphor requires that we achieve analogy and analogy can only be achieved because we realise that that is the response – sweetness, intimacy, welcome – that the art work arouses in us. This is the effect that the artist has found in his process of creation. And he has ‘authenticated’ it by discovering it in himself. The artist invites us to share in his discovery, to replicate that reaction in ourselves, to discover and enjoy the metaphor; but before we dare to do so, we must know that we are moving in a subtle world; if we try to load ‘too much weight’ onto those fictions, they will dissolve; we are invited to participate in a shared dream. 5. A Dream for Those Who are Awake Ambiguity, as Gombrich presents it, leads to an idea we have already mentioned, but whose rightful place is here in this theoretical ­discussion. For Gombrich, art is clearly related to fiction; indeed, the world of fiction is the art world, works of art are presented as metaphors, in a new world where reality is transmuted – partly with our collaboration – and it is not possible to determine where the illusion begins. ‘Should we not remember that civilization has created a special zone in which we are forbidden to ask this very question – the zone of “fiction” which is also the zone of art?’ (SI, 125). Here, Gombrich is referring to symbolic figures, which are, ultimately, representations. But there can be no doubt that what Gombrich means can be extended to at least all of the plastic arts, since he evidently includes ‘that curiously unexplored realm of fiction which we call ornament [. . .]’ (MH, 95), to use his own words. And he certainly includes music; music constitutes a different world to the world of things (cf. 20, 5). That realm of fiction needs to be interpreted on the basis of a trivial statement that takes on new meaning. The realm of art, which is a realm of fiction, is a realm of dreams. The art work, which is produced in a similar way to dreams (as we already saw when discussing

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creation), maintains some of that character – an inseparable form of meaning, condensation, substitution, multiplicity of meanings, over­ determination, etc. – and it is therefore presented wrapped in a typical ambiguity. As Gombrich says, many theories of art believe that the state of inspiration is like the dream (cf. 82, 348). Gombrich presents the art work as a metaphor, and hence we can see that the work of art falls within the realm of illusion. If we are to understand the metaphor, we must see it in this way, as a dream. Any endeavour to find its literal significance would destroy it; it would mean loading too much weight on those fictions. It would destroy all poetry were we to literally see on Amaryllis’s mouth the corals of which Lope de Vega wrote; or to see flocks of sheep in place of teeth in the mouth of the wife of the author of the Song of Songs, as Fray Luis de León patiently explains in his wonderful commentary. Ultimately, the art work is not simply a dream. Art, to borrow Plato’s beautiful expression, is ‘a dream for those who are awake’. Gombrich often cites these words.13 For they add to the idea of the dream something that is peculiar to the work of art – it is a dream for those who are awake. The art work is a shared dream, and this need to be shared means that the artist constructs his work using the formulae and conventions that make up the common heritage. It is just that formulae and conventions, the commonplace and the multiplicity of meanings, are inseparable once the work has gelled, as happens in a dream. Above all, in order to understand a work of art, we need to be willing to dream, to abandon ourselves to the requirements of contemplation, to stand back from reality, to break with external consistency, to become part of the game. 6. Willing Suspension of Disbelief The idea that Gombrich borrows from Plato, that ‘art is a dream for those who are awake’ clearly shows what is expected from the beholder: a spectator who wishes to enter the realm of art must be effectively willing to let himself be won over by the art work; he must be disposed to dream, to break with the real world. ‘We cannot enter this realm without entering into that compact which Coleridge described as the

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“willing suspension of disbelief ” ’ (SI, 125–6). ‘Willing suspension of ­disbelief ’ is an expression Kris had already used14 and one which Gombrich repeats frequently.15 Coleridge applied it to the elaboration and understanding of poetry. And its meaning is clear. It is precisely the same attitude required of someone wishing to join a game. Once they have joined, they must forget the rules of everyday life and submit to the new rules and new values. The game justifies itself: awake, it steers and soothes emotions that only take place in that context. And it is there that its achievements are evaluated. Anyone who refuses to surrender to the game becomes what Huizinga called a spoilsport. And there is a little spoilsport in us all. The aesthetic response requires us to abandon a misunderstood critical awareness. Gombrich once mentioned what Jerome S. Bruner termed ‘gating processes’.16 Ordinarily, we seek with our senses the information necessary in our surroundings to be able to act; and when we no longer need any more, or we cannot obtain it, we batten down the hatch, avoid loading unnecessary or redundant information and supplement anything that is lacking. ‘What we call the esthetic response in front of works of art involves a certain refusal to gate’ (111, 164). At heart, what the beholder has to do is dream, dreaming requires a certain state of regression. And here we come back to the realm of psychoanalysis: an understanding of a work of art requires more than purely formal contemplation; it is not formed solely by what the work of art constitutes. The work of art is a metaphor; it can be seen as such and evaluated when one becomes aware of the background within which it has been created and the choices that the artist has taken to embody it. These choices against the backdrop, are what make the work significant. Such choices cannot be appreciated discursively and rationally. We need to act like the dreamer, freeing up our imagination to reconstruct the artist’s creation, in other words, to place the primary process at the service of the ‘ego’ (cf. 83, 203).

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7. The Beholder’s Share The spectator’s basic disposition to surrender himself begins what Gombrich likes to call ‘the share of beholder’. Like almost all of Gombrich’s formulations, the beholder’s share has its origin in his study of figurative representation. It is used as the title of one of the parts of Art and Illusion, although it is not defined as a notion. Gombrich went on to use this formulation on many occasions.17 In Art and Illusion, the beholder’s share is used as the title for chapters dealing in general terms with the psychology of the perception of paintings. These chapters follow and contrast with others on the psychology of the creation of images, built around the myth of Pygmalion and the study of conventions. Gombrich uses the myth of Pygmalion to introduce the reader to ‘Trigger Theory’, the knowledge that there are certain arrangements that trigger an unexpected effect in the beholder. Like keys opening psychological locks, these arrangements have, one might say, a life of their own, unrelated to their creator. Gombrich borrows this idea from Kris, and it is the equivalent of what Kris calls the ‘aesthetic attitude’. Gombrich has acknowledged this debt on several occasions (cf. MH, 35–6 and n.). With the expression ‘beholder’s share’, Gombrich is alluding to the effort by the sensitive beholder to reconstruct the work in order to understand it. In the domain of figurative painting, the meaning of the term is obvious. Beholders have to bring something of their own to bear in order for the marks scattered around the canvas to take on some meaning before their eyes. The operation will be largely unconscious, but not entirely involuntary; there are effects such as the perception of a face, to which everyone responds. Such a stimulus triggers an immediate response. But not all the devices of art are like that. There are effects that can only be apprehended by looking, in part at least. Impressionist painters had to acclimatise their audience before their pictures could be enjoyed and appreciated. In this case, the painter entrusted much of the picture to the beholder. The spectator has learnt to see it and understand it, because he remakes it. In Art and Illusion Gombrich spoke of ‘projection’

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(although later, he sometimes avoided the term). The spectator is expected, for himself, to add anything to the picture that may be lacking to bring it to life. The spectator, who is already trained, knows what is expected of him and acts accordingly. But this is not only a projection of forms; the spectator has to guess the meaning of the scene for it to make sense. The artist trusts in his public. Or at least, he trusts to a certain degree: ‘He can be sketchy only where we can supplement’ (IE, 266). A well-trained audience will participate to a great extent. And that participation is naturally decisive in painting, as in all other arts, in overcoming the limitations of the medium. ‘The importance for art of mobilizing the beholder’s projective activities in order to compensate for the limitations of the medium can be demonstrated in a variety of fields’ (IE, 100). No one could paint a tree if they had to draw each and every one of the leaves; Gombrich devotes a magnificent article to Leonardo’s pre­ occupation with solving this problem (cf. NL, 51–8). Any painting, any representation, requires a capacity to summarise. It is not possible to represent nature in all its richness. However, great artists know how to avoid these difficulties, for example by making the spectator recreate their mere suggestions. ‘The painting by Rembrandt [. . .] demands much more active participation on the part of the beholder [. . .]’ (IE, 99). This transference is not only a requirement of art, a consequence of the limitations of its media; it corresponds to a primary aesthetic discovery. When the beholder’s imagination is mobilised to perceive a work, when the spectator voluntarily suspends his disbelief, he joins the game, he becomes a player by being obliged to recreate, by completing the works that the artist has begun. And in that transference, he experiences the true pleasure of creation. ‘The willing beholder’, says Gombrich, responds to the artist’s suggestion because he enjoys the transformation that occurs in front of his eyes [. . .] The artist gives the beholder increasingly ‘more to do’, he draws him into the magic circle of

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creation and allows him to experience something of the thrill of ‘making’ which had once been the privilege of the artist. (AI, 202) This is one of the mainstays of Gombrich’s theory of art. In this way, the beholder actually takes part in the work, creating it and contemplating it. He becomes a recreator; the artist cedes his position to the spectator, or rather, to the good spectator (cf. 39, 72). And to a certain extent, the more work he destines to the trained spectator, the more attractive the work becomes. Gombrich quotes the famous poem by John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn: ‘Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.’18 And Gombrich remarked in Art and Illusion, that these allow us to experience vicariously the very process of creation, the virtuoso’s control over his medium and that awareness of essentials which makes him cut out all redundancies because he can rely on a public that will play the game and knows how to take a hint [. . .] The artist creates his own elite, and the elite its own artists. (AI, 234) Naturally all of this applies immediately to painting, but also to music (cf. 50, 39ff.); and to musical interpretation (cf. RH, 51); and finally to ornamentation. ‘The pleasure we experience in creating complex orders and in the exploration of such orders (whatever their origin) must be two sides of the same coin’ (SO, 12). The invitation to dream a ‘dream for those who are awake’, to dream about a work of art by repeating, in some way, the artist’s work, involves an important property, transference, observed in psychoanalysis. I shall return to this subject a little later on. ‘This experience’, says Gombrich,

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is bound up with love. There is an element of initial yielding in this response that can perhaps be compared with what psychoanalysts call trans­ ference. It includes a willingness to suspend criticism and to surrender to the work of art in exploring its complexities and its finesse. (II, 84) 8. The Experience of the Ineffable It is clear that all art requires the active participation of the spectator, all the more so when the tradition that sustains it is sophisticated and nuanced. When a spectator who is sensitive to and familiar with a tradition come face to face a great work of art, he immediately sees the ambiguity it presents; indeed, that ambiguity is necessary in order for his active participation to take place. Yet the ambiguity with which he is faced in itself induces a certain sensation of ‘depth’, of something ineffable. The reader will recall that Gombrich says that conscious intention advances in a single direction. It is difficult to retain in one’s mind simultaneous orders that may even be contradictory. In an important article, ‘The Use of Art for the Study of Symbols’ (111, 149–70) Gombrich postulates that the sensation of the ineffable, of unfathomable depth, occurs precisely when the mind is faced with a complex order. He notes that there are multiple different levels of order and meanings that are so closely related that it is not possible to analyse them one by one. The mind is obliged to abandon the attempt to continue with what Neisser called the ‘main sequence’. Multiplicity is mobilized and forced into consciousness with all that feeling of richness and elusiveness that goes with the abandonment of the main sequence. We are a little closer, I hope, to a

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psychological account of the experience of the ineffable [. . .]. (111, 150).19 This description parallels that of the artist as a creator of complex orders found in his ‘Madonna della Sedia’ (NF, 64ff.). The discovery of multiplicity and vagueness obliges the beholder to follow the steps the artist has taken in his creation. In ‘Icones Symbolicae’ (SI, 123–91), Gombrich had linked this sensation of infinity to the neo-Platonic tradition of the symbol, arguing that Ficino and other Renaissance authors believed that the symbol is distinguished by the need for a direct intellectual intuition. This intuition is characteristic of higher intelligences, such as God and the angels, who are not obliged to have a mediated knowledge of reality (cf. SI, 159).20 It is characteristic of humans to feel perplexity and astonishment before the multiplicity that does not allow a straight approach. But in that same accumulation of different interpretations lies the key to the fruition of art. At the end of one chapter of The Sense of Order, Gombrich remarks that for once this limit of our capacity is not a liability but a gain. For such higher Intelligences who take in the whole of the pattern at once it could not possibly have the same interest and beauty as it can have for us. There is something in being human after all. (SO, 148) If the process of capturing is unique, immediate and total, there is no sensation of depth, nor is the beholder’s active participation needed. It is that very participation that gives meaning to the art work. The spectator tries to grasp the meaning and with the formal structure of what he sees and his own effort, he cloaks pure form with the references it needs to make it significant.

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9. The Search for Meaning For Gombrich, our limitation consists precisely of not being able to achieve a total and immediate understanding of the art work, which ends up bringing it to life. So in The Sense of Order, commenting on the many ways in which a Gothic rose window can be interpreted, he says: ‘it is our search after meaning, our effort after order, which determines the appearance of patterns, rather than the structure described by mathematicians’ (SO, 147). The rose window is not a pure form but comes from a tradition that has developed until coming up with this marvel. We cannot help being astonished by the capacity of the artist, which was born out of the same complexity he has managed to create, and which proves inexplicable (cf. SO, 150). Our effort to understand what the rose window is and to what it refers, to place it on the corresponding scales, follows a certain course, in which it takes on meaning. In his Sense of Order Gombrich postulates that not only do humans have a sense which immediately enquires after the meaning of the things that surround them or appear before them senses; in addition there is a sense of order that seeks to determine spatial relations (as I have explained). The exercise of these two systems of orientation endows pure forms with their meaning and their structural order, before they are seen as pure forms. In order to get a better understanding of what Gombrich means by a sense of order, we need to read the chapters in The Sense of Order carefully. In this book, Gombrich seeks to identify the grounds for the effect that ornamentation causes among humans, and therefore its function. He postulates that nature has endowed us with this sense for our own survival and it is from this sense that art draws to create marvels – marvels that can only be marvels for beings who have a sense of order. No matter how one looks at it, the sense of order tries to couple up in a biological foundationing of the arts, with the sense of meaning, on which – Gombrich argues – the figurative arts have been built. The central thesis of Art and Illusion is that the artist can create substitutes

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for things, formulae that trigger the right response, because our sense of meaning is especially alerted to look for arrangements that may signify threat or pleasure. Strictly speaking he is prepared to search for meanings and not mere forms. A rounded shape is unremarkable, a shark is a terrifying threat. The immediate perception of eyes and mouth automatically alerts us. We immediately apprehend the threat. For this reason too, Gombrich believes, when we draw two dots and a line on a simple piece of paper, we cannot help seeing a face and even a face with an expression. The artist uses these keys to create his works of figurative art which are, for this reason, substitutes – they provoke the same response – and not representations. The thesis of The Sense of Order is that we are prepared to detect irregularities in our environment. And that in some way presupposes the existence of immediate awareness of regularities, of whatever kind. Gombrich wisely argues that in fact elements of composition are involved in the figurative arts that affect our sense of order, and in the non-figurative arts, references also appear that trigger the sense of meaning. In artistic traditions, the arts, although they are still based on formulae that affect biological dispositions, have many other formulae that pertain to another fields, that have been learnt and incorporated into those first formulae to such a degree that they have merged with them. In this way, the reactions of our senses of order and meaning stand on another level. For whatever reason, Gombrich has studied in much greater depth issues relating to the sense of meaning. What activates the confron­ tation with a work of art with its disconcerting ambiguity and multiplicity is, first and foremost, that sense of meaning. Gombrich likes to quote F. C. Bartlett who said that following the first perception, an immediate search for meaning or effort after meaning21 is established. Unquestionably, this endeavour ends up giving meaning; in fact, it ends up by recognising the meaning that is present in beings and things. And it ends up following the channels left to it by the artist, not because it discloses all the relations of the art work, but because it demands that the beholder also uses the potentials of his imagination. When the beholder strives to guess the multiple relations before him, he becomes

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a creator, as the artist who gave birth to the work of art was, and he experiences true pleasure when he discovers what the artist wanted to do. But in order to understand this, we have to take a few steps back and once more recall Freud’s theory of the joke. 10. Visual Discovery22 In Freud’s theory the enjoyment derives from the confluence of two distinct sources of pleasure. We like to ‘regress’ to the stage of the babbling child who playfully learns the use of language in nonsense chatter. We also gain satisfaction by lifting the repressions inhibiting us from giving vent to aggressive or erotic drives [. . .] Generalizing on this model, Kris stressed the importance for art of a strong ‘ego’, mastering and ordering the instinctual urges through giving them the outlet of an acceptable shape. (SO, 272) We have already mentioned one of the sources of pleasure that Gombrich mentions – the nonsensical babbling of children – when discussing artistic creation. The artist plays with his medium by elaborating different permutations, until from amongst all of them, he draws what pleases him. The beholder too, in some way participates in that game; and insofar as he recreates the work, he feels the pleasure of its construction. The other source of pleasure is the elimination of repression. This is achieved through the dominion exercised by the ‘ego’ over our instinctive urges, leading to acceptable forms of satisfaction. The most obvious form taken by this kind of pleasure is the art derived from the erotic. Yet evident examples of erotism that have no other value will be rejected by that very obviousness, which clashes with individual and social repressions. The erotic example can be accepted in society, if it is accompanied by a certain artistic quality,

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which allows it to be judged as a work of art. For example, Gombrich mentions that Philip II of Spain could gaze on some openly erotic pictures by Titian, without any feeling of guilt. This is what Kris would call the ‘compensatory nature of aesthetic satisfaction’. Clearly, a theory based only on these ideas will not easily explain not just music, but the great majority of paintings. I believe that Gombrich’s position, although linked to this approach, is much more interesting. As I have said before, Kris’s interest in these matters led him to write an essay on caricature with Gombrich’s help. Caricature is closely related to the joke, but it is considered as a true (if minor) artistic activity. Caricature allows us to explain the revelatory nature of the work of art. There is one splendid example of caricature which Gombrich has sometimes discussed. This is the Les Poires print, published in 1834, by Philipon, editor of Le Caricature. Philipon was fined for his attacks on King Louis-Philippe d’Orleans which repeatedly depicted him as a poire (a pear or, popularly, a simpleton). The print he published as a comic defence, graphically demonstrated in four steps that the king’s face really was a pear. The entertaining (or annoying) thing about the affair was that, once that resemblance had been pointed out, everyone began to see the king as a pear. ‘It offers a visual interpretation of a physio­ gnomy which we can never forget and which the victim will always seem to carry around with him like a man bewitched’ (AI, 344), said Gombrich in Art and Illusion. The same idea can be found in the work he wrote in collaboration with Kris: If the caricature fits, as Philippon’s poire obviously did, the victim really does become transformed in our eyes. The artist has taught us how to see him with different eyes, he has turned him into a comic monstrosity. He is not only abused as a fathead or unmasked as a stupid man – he simply cannot shake off the poire. (83, 201)

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This interpretation certainly ties in with the artist’s capacity to make visual discoveries, in the case of the visual arts, and to transmit them. The beholder is invited to see things in an unsuspected way and, if he accepts the artist’s interpretation, in his own way. In this way, the spectator is shown not only the pleasure of ‘doing’ – the pleasure of the child’s babbling – but also the pleasure of revelation, a pleasure similar to that experienced from receiving an erotic charge masked by a clever exhibition. In the art work, we unexpectedly discover an outlet for our emotional needs. This revelation is a shared way of creating. Artists teach us to see. We discover facets in the world that had been veiled from our view, which now affect our inner world. They are the metaphors with which we articulate our experience. We articulate and enrich ourselves: the images transformed by the painter invite us to participate and suggest a new nuance. Just as language teaches the poet to articulate his experience, so the visual arts serve as instruments for the discovery of new aspects of the outer and inner world. Whether you think of Michelangelo or of Rembrandt, of Rubens or of Van Gogh, we know what we mean when we say that the visual and psychological experiences they embodied in their work only entered our heritage through their mediation. (T, 206) It is not only painting or sculpture that are capable of creating metaphors, although certainly Gombrich is referring to them (particularly figurative painting) when he speaks of ‘visual discovery’. The painter can recreate the nature of a mode in a way that a musician cannot. But the musician (or the architect) has our sense of order at his disposal. It is not difficult to find melodies that have a special resonance for us: a resonance of joy or melancholy, with which we can identify. Musical structures and architectural compositions can also be seen to be significant. That is to say, they present themselves to us as metaphors of an inner state.

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11. Metaphor and Escape Thus far, we have followed the beholder in his quest for meaning, surrendering himself like the artist to the pleasures of childish babble, of the permutations and choices he makes from among the different interpretations of the art work, guided by the safe hand of the artist. With his guide, the spectator has discovered the existence of a new and wonderful metaphor. Now we must explain the other source of pleasure: the way in which the spectator finds an outlet for his needs through art. I have already referred in passing to a quote from Gombrich that speaks about a somewhat obscure notion: ‘There is an element of initial yielding [. . .] that can perhaps be compared with what psychoanalysts call transference’ (II, 84). The notion of transference in psychoanalysis can be defined roughly as the capacity to transfer the sentiments we feel for one particular person to another or even to an object. The little girl strokes her doll; the little boy punches his teddy bear. They both transfer sentiments from another field to their toys. In psychoanalysis, the best-defined form of transference is that which the patient makes of his problems onto the figure of the psychoanalyst. When this occurs, there is one more step. By becoming aware of this unconscious conflict, hidden by self-censorship, the patient can recognise its cause. This ­creates a certain liberation. What Gombrich appears to argue is that, following a search for meaning leading to the discovery of a metaphor, that metaphor provides an outlet for multiple charges of tension. This may seem somewhat abstract, but in The Sense of Order there is a surprisingly autobiographic passage in which Gombrich takes this phenomenon for granted. Even in the life of a cloistered academic there are moments when difficult decisions have to be made – for instance whether or not to move to another cloister. It was during such a crisis that I wavered a good deal, but when I went to bed at the end of the day on which at last I had made

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up my mind, I vividly saw in front of my eyes what is called a hypnagogic image, the visual experience that can precede sleep. I remember it as a regular flower bed with a group of tulips in the centre. It was certainly accompanied by that feeling of harmony and peace [. . .]. (SO, 246–7) And Gombrich adds that the explanation, perhaps, is that the order can serve as a metaphor for order, that in short ‘what may be part of our psychological make-up is rather the disposition to accept degrees of order as potential metaphors of inner states’ (SO, 247). The bed of tulips was not a work of art; it was at most a dream. But what matters is that that ordered image is offered up as a metaphor of an inner state that has recovered the lost order. It is hardly surprising then, that in the final paragraphs of the same book, at the end of the chapter in which Gombrich compares the visual arts to music, we find a solemn statement that seems sufficient evidence that this notion has been incorporated into the theory of developed art. ‘The satisfactions we owe to our sense of order lend themselves as metaphors for many escapes from tension, physical and mental, superficial and profound’ (SO, 305). The work of art is a form of escape. In reality, if Gombrich believes that art to some extent functions as a game, it seems logical to conclude with a statement like this. The willing suspension of disbelief is no more than a break with the outside world. Learning to play means learning to find a safe outlet for our emotional needs (cf. T, 160). From this perspective, the art world stands as a world of perfection, of solace ‘art alone might give us a glimpse of perfection in this very imperfect world [. . .]’ (SA, 487). I would like to conclude by quoting the final words to Gombrich’s Commencement Address in 1973 to the students of The Curtis Institute of Music. Even on this occasion I need not hide from you that life is not always pretty. It is

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sometimes thought or said that our age is particularly violent, brutal and anxietyridden. But as an historian I believe that there never was a Golden Age. There always was an abundance of folly, greed, crime, cruelty and sheer malice. Is it not wonderful that mankind has found such a realm of refuge where suffering is not denied but transfigured? Don’t talk of escapism here, where would be if we could never escape? (20, 5) 12. Expectations Up to this point I have considered things from the perspective of the art work. It was the work of art with its potential that called the shots, dazzled the spectator, urging him to seek its meaning, projecting onto himself – by transference – the tensions that needed to be made explicit in order to find a way out, and with it the resolution of the conflict. I have studied the beholder’s role in bringing the work of art to life. However, I have also said that this beholder does not enter the playing field by magic: in order to play properly, he needs a trained sensitivity and a knowledge of the field and rules. The time has come, then to consider what the spectator brings with him. In the previous part it is clear that what prevails is the model of the Madonna della Sedia or of the complex decorative order, which is presented uniquely and immediately to the spectator and disconcerts him precisely because of the demand it makes on him to be simul­ taneously aware of different keys of organisation and meaning. In this part, I think, what prevails is the model of the symphony, which is deployed over time, gaining meaning from the spectator’s different reactions has to that development. However, although one of these exemplary models is visual and stable and the other auditory and changing, I believe both can be applied to any form of visual or ­auditory art.

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Again, Gombrich comes to my rescue and spares me from having to try to explain this in any greater detail. In comparing the arts of time and space in The Sense of Order he resolutely challenged those theorists who, since Lessing, have tried to erect an insurmountable barrier between the arts of space and time. Where Lessing and those who followed him erred was in equating perception with sensation. They thought of the eye taking a snapshot and of the ear registering successive sounds like a gramophone record. But our perception can never be explained in terms of momentary stimuli. It is not the impression we receive at any particular moment in time which determines our experience, but its relation to our memory and our anticipation. Without these resources of our mind neither the arts of space nor those of time could ever have come into being. Even the perception of a regular row of dots depends on our ability to compare what we have just seen with what we are seeing at the moment and also with the continuation that we expect. There is a genuine analogy here with the perception of rhythmical sounds, since the idea of rhythm depends on the memory of a time interval, and our ability to hold this memory in anticipation of the next sound [. . .] We are no doubt aided in this feat by what has been called the iconic or ‘echo memory’, the continued presence of a sensation in our consciousness before it fades and is filed in the long-term memory

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store. If this were not the case we could not have a mental image of a movement, a signal or a word. (SO, 288) What the spectator contributes are his expectations: his conscious and unconscious experience built upon basic dispositions. For Gombrich, as I have said, any perception can be described in terms of hypothesis. The perceptive subject quickly comes up with an interpretation with only minimal indications, based on his sense of order and meaning which respond to certain arrangements. In this way, perception experiences a great economy. It only has to confirm by trial and error what has been come up with as the most likely hypothesis. And so, in a regular world of probabilities, in most cases there is no need to build the perception from scratch. In any case, given that Gombrich builds his theory of the arts on basic – psychological and biological – human dispositions, it is logical that he should address this aspect in a peculiar way. What Gombrich would call prior matching, advanced coincidence or the ‘prognostic’ nature of perception, occupies an important place in his writings, most particularly in the basic texts in which he seeks to explain that basis. Unsurprisingly, we find constant references to it in Art and Illusion,23 The Sense of Order24 and in the important revised version of the former that Gombrich entitled ‘Illusion and Art’ where he devoted an entire chapter, ‘The Emergence of Prediction’ (51, 208–13), to the subject, as well as elsewhere.25 The image proposed by Gombrich is that of the rider and his mount (cf. SO, 9–10, 123, 289). The rider tries to adapt to the horse’s rhythm, anticipating its movements to create a perfect synchronicity. In the same way, the beholder of the art work follows the (uncertain) path left to him by the artist. The spectator takes his expectations from the successive realms of convention that he shares with the creator of the work, from the artistic form and its genres, from the types and formulae, from his knowledge of the artist’s work and his formal background (cf. IE, 296). As the work develops in keeping or in contrast with his expectations, the spectator understands, to a greater or lesser extent, the choices the

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artist has preferred to make from among the possibilities offered by his tradition. It is here, as I have said on several occasions, that we find the capture of meaning. On the level of expectations, now in their exact sense, the determinations of the work prove significant; on the different keyboards of relations, nuance or scale, with their intelligible dimensions of greater/lesser, the artist’s options acquire their field value, tone, colour, taste and expressivity (cf. AI, 373). The spectator who tries to bring forward his hypothesis understands – rightly or wrongly – the direction in which the artist has worked, and the extent (insofar as it is impossible for him to follow him) to which he is a true master. I would like to accompany this statement with two short quotations. The first is a remark on the View of Delft by Jan Vermeer: We do not have to know the names and dates of other Dutch masters to enjoy the miraculous mastery of the View of Delft. What we need is a set of expectations, which can be modified and surpassed, a feel for what was common form and for what is unique – a feel which can no more be verbalized than can any other sensory discrimination, but which makes us sensitive to that fine calibration which underlies our experience of delight. (II, 202) The second quotation refers to a symphony. It was written much earlier, but it reflects exactly the same notion. ‘The symphony, it seems to me, takes shape precisely as we follow the anticipations of these chords and find them modified, confirmed and transformed by the subsequent development’ (MH, 55).

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13. Gradual Understanding I would like to begin this section with a long quotation that completes and summarises everything I have said on understanding: what it is that needs to be understood: form itself; how it is achieved: by creating expectations; what it is that is valued: the artist’s mastery; and what understanding is: a creativity generated in the spectator with the artist’s guidance. In my view that understanding of which I am speaking cannot be equated with a meeting of minds. What the actor, the musician or the humanist tries to understand is not what Shakespeare or Beethoven thought at the time of writing – that we cannot know and could certainly not verbalize; they want to understand the play or the sonata. But is not the same true of us listeners, albeit on a much lower level? When we merely hear notes or noises we rightly say that we do not understand the piece. What we mean, I think, is that we cannot form expectations, and thus experience neither surprises nor disappointments. To understand, say, the minuet and trio in a Haydn symphony, means that we are aware of the contrast between the two sections and of their mutual enhancement. We relish the expected change from the more robust minuet to the relaxed and dance-like tune of the trio, and are all the more enchanted the more we realize how the composer has once again invented a fresh and satisfying

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variant of this simple form, such as Haydn must have done perhaps three hundred times in his oeuvre. To understand here means at the same time to appreciate his wit and originality, or conversely to find that another composer who uses the same convention could not pull it off; Haydn’s pupil Beethoven was inspired to develop these contrasts in a new and personal way. This engendered creativity, of course, is the highest form of understanding [. . .]. (T, 23–4) It is a question of understanding a metaphor that is inseparable from the form itself and which only acquires meaning against the backdrop of tradition. However, insofar as art is founded on psychological and biological dispositions, it is accessible to anyone. If art uses devices that cause certain effects, that arouse a specific human response, those formulae will operate on anyone. Artistic traditions have been developed on basic effects; with them the artist has created a public that responds not only to those effects but also to other more sophisticated ones. And for this reason, not everyone can understand every work of art. But in fact, Gombrich has often defended a complementary thesis; championing it against those theories of art that would like us to see each work as being something entirely isolated and insular – as Croce puts it – or that the art of times past lies outside our possible understanding – as Malraux argues. Gombrich’s thesis has a clearly positive formulation. ‘It can never be emphasized enough that in art, as in life, “understanding” is always a matter of degree [. . .]’ (II, 159). One can understand, it is always possible to understand to some extent. It is an experience that is within the reach of anyone. But this experience is hidden when the terrible dichotomy is raised of absolute understanding or complete incomprehension (cf. II, 21).

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Gombrich’s answer to Malraux, who sought to elevate the works of the past to the status of myths, was eminently sensible. To the question whether we can understand the art or mentality of other periods or civilizations, or whether all is ‘myth’, the answer of commonsense is surely that we can understand some better, some worse, and some only after a lot of work. That we can improve our understanding by trying to restore the context, cultural, artistic, and psychological, in which any given work sprang to life, but that we must resign ourselves to a certain residue of ignorance. In art, as in life, on certain elemental levels men of different civilizations have understood each other even though they were ignorant of each other’s language. On others only an acute awareness of the context in which an action stands may prevent our misunderstanding. (MH, 84) Any other consideration is clearly superfluous. Understanding is a problem of sharing the context, or rather the multiple contexts to which the art work refers. The means of achieving that participation is almost obvious. 14. Familiarity and Empathy Having established this, we can see, without risk of distortion, that Gombrich, like Hirsch, considers that the first element must be genre: the bodies of conventions. We must know the immediate formal and artistic context in order to determine what about the work is common and the product of tradition, and what about it is distinctive.

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Style has this in common with language or other means of expression, that it determines the level of our expectations and thereby also our response to deviations from the norm. Without this framework of convention we cannot really assess the significant surprise. The style within which the artists works is therefore part of the situation which we instinctively try to reconstruct. How far we succeed will depend on our familiarity with the idiom. (II, 160) The first thing is to gain familiarity with the style, simply familiarity, ‘a thorough familiarity with the traditions and the problems within which the work took shape’ (II, 129). Becoming familiar with a tradition entails immersing oneself in it, acquiring a sensitivity on a par with that of the authors who created and amplified it. This can only be achieved by coming into contact with the works of the period to such an extent that one intuitively knows how to generalise, as the artist himself did with his style; in short Gombrich argues that ‘in human situations [. . .] we must rely on the instrument we have, which is our individual sensibility. You get the feel of a period by reading a lot’ (35, 882). This much is evident: only by knowing a great deal about the period can we recreate with any certainty the context in which the art work emerged. But that task need not necessarily be intellectual; a certain degree of response or regression is required, as the author did. ‘The genre, or more generally speaking, any tradition, demands what one might call imagin­ ative participation. We must, as it were, “get the hang of it” as we can with a game, before we can enter into its spirit’ (T, 24). This knack is not an intellectual one: it entails grasping what is a rule, what is a licence and what is a transgression. This knowledge, which allows us to generalise, is simply an awareness of the limits to freedom within the medium: far from being something intellectual, it is in some ways related to empathy.26

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17. Interpretation The secret to understanding a work of art is familiarity: familiarity with style, with genre, with tradition, and familiarity with the art work itself. The task of interpretation lies with historians and critics, whose mission is to present ancient and modern works of art in such a way that the public can understand them better. In general, we presume a historian or critic’s knowledge of art works to be different to that of the common or garden aficionado. This is probably a fair assessment; the historian can provide us with connections to the contemporary context, revealing a meaning behind many aspects that is not immediately evident to the untrained eye, and the critic does something similar. Nonetheless, Gombrich has often stated that there is a point of intersection between the two. As I have already mentioned, there are no short-cuts for understanding art; one needs familiarity. This also applies to critics and historians. No method of analysis, be it formal, iconological, structural, semantic, socio-economic or statistical, can replace that precise familiarity that is required for generalisation, for imaginative empathy.

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Critics and historians must be trained in this aspect, which requires an effort that is not necessarily intellectual. And so, in addition to the notion of the specialist equipped with sophisticated instruments of analysis and methods that seek to emulate the empirical sciences, Gombrich advocates cultivating the qualities of the good connoisseur. 1. The Connoisseurs For Gombrich, interpretation is a commonplace action to which we are all accustomed. In the theory of thought he champions, thinking and acting consist of proposing hypotheses that will later be verified by simple ‘trial and error’. ‘To look is to interpret’ (RH, 86); everything in life requires interpretation. The connoisseur’s interpretation of art history has the same hypothetical character as the specialist’s; it may be constructed in cruder terms, it may be less articulate and nuanced, it may be grounded on fewer and less reliable data, but ultimately the exercise required of the mind is the same. Any true artistic interpretation starts from the same roots; it consists of coming to the work and letting oneself be carried along by the artist’s various decisions and options. As he explained when discussing creation, it is similar to participating in the artist’s studio; the ‘engendered creativity’ that requires understanding is very close to the ‘vicarious creation’, the creation practised by the master through and with those working in his studio. It is clear that this skill is not the result of an intellectual effort, but of the development of a sensitivity that will respond to nuance. The roads to be followed to obtain it are not those of analysis, of empirical science. The purpose is to acquire what, in Gombrich’s words, might be called a ‘feel of a period’, either for a style or for a particular work. And the way to do this is by ‘reading a lot’ (cf. 35, 882) and by having an extensive and intense use of documents and monuments of the past; reading and seeing. This is why Gombrich says that ‘a well-stocked mind, is clearly the key to the practice of inter­pretation’ (39, 37). Interpreting art requires that intimate knowledge, that heightened sensitivity. And this capacity is irreplaceable. Anyone wishing to

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penetrate the art world must be prepared to adopt a ‘willing suspension of disbelief ’; not even the specialist scholar is free from this need because the subject he is studying requires an approximation. The key lies in the possibility of accessing the ‘engendered creativity’, that ease in mastering an artistic language to such an extent that one is capable of generalising. The aim is to understand a complex order; one therefore needs not so much a complicated instrument, but a sensitive imagination, capable of evaluating the complex. For this reason, Gombrich eschews computers and analytical methods, preferring instead the figure of the connoisseur. The connoisseur is capable of vibrating to minute variations in nuance; he has a know­ ledge which is largely intuitive, and displays a great love for his subject. He is the antithesis of the cold cerebral researcher who proceeds analytically, starting from objective data, to reach verifiable conclusions, propounded as precisely as possible. The connoisseur has the advantage in art, because only his imagination can confront the multiple aspects presented by the great works. ‘It is true’, said Gombrich, ‘that the human brain is often the most reliable computer, and that a gifted stylist and indeed a skilled parodist may be able to catch such characteristic accents of an author more successfully than a plodding statistician’ (NF, 127). The connoisseur behaves like a ‘sensitive instrument’ attuned to any nuance and its response, even if it cannot be put into words; he offers greater authenticity than any scientific explanation. Thus, referring to the capacity to assimilate a style, Gombrich argues that ‘the intuitive grasp of underlying Gestalten that makes the connoisseur is still far ahead of the morphological analysis of styles in terms of enumerable features’ (105, 360). Gombrich holds that the historian needs what Max Friedlander called the ‘trained eye’ (cf. AI, 366), which in the long run proves to be the best instrument and the definitive touchstone for evaluating any result, whatever discipline it may come from.

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2. Subjective Response and Objective Assessment Gombrich’s belief that the connoisseur, the trained and sensitive man, is the best instrument of appreciation is at odds with the prevalent trend in humanistic studies of shunning subjectivity as far as possible. The responsibility for interpretation is transferred to what is meant to be an objective method. Gombrich argues that in art – and in the humanities in general – this is simply not possible. Firstly, there is a fundamental difference between the results provided by empirical science and those provided by the humanities, for I think that the humanist really differs from the scientist in his relative valuation of knowledge and research. It is more relevant to know Shakespeare or Michelangelo than to ‘do research’ about them. Research may yield nothing fresh, but knowledge yields pleasure and enrichment. (II, 58) Secondly, the importance of Shakespeare or Michelangelo is the product of their achievements. As I have already said, there are values contained in their work that cannot be found elsewhere. They have become metaphors, and together they stand as a signpost at the crossroads of culture. Thus, for example, says Gombrich, when we study Raphael we are not simply learning something considered to be in good taste and which affords us a certain standing; we are not merely satisfying our curiosity, and not merely finding a means of genuine enjoyment. ‘To study him in the context of our culture is not only to study a historical figure but to examine our own relation to ideal beauty’ (II, 16). That is, at heart, the aim of art history: to provide an opportunity to gain access to that source of metaphor that is art, and in those metaphors to recognise human values. The study of art history cannot dispense with the notion of value. ‘Whatever the true origins of the term “the humanities” may be, it may

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serve us as a reminder that we are merely impoverishing ourselves when trying to discuss people as if they were insects or computers’ (II, 165). Thirdly, the study of art history must start from the basis that human values exist and that the aim is to understand them as best we can; and, nonetheless, it is still possible to make a rational study. From my student days I have always hoped to show that the study of art can be conducted in a rational way, and I have no wish to recant. For I am sure it is rational for human beings to acknowledge human values and to talk about them in human terms. (II, 165) We can speak of beauty, because beauty is something recognisable. And it is rational to think that beauty might be an objective for Raphael. For this reason the intrusion of these recognisable values cannot lessen the objectivity of an exhibition. It is one thing to recognise them and another to approve of them. Even if we do not share them, we recognise that they may be pursued by other men. And that recognition can certainly be placed alongside other objective facts. Fourthly, there must be a subjective response in order to evaluate the art work. Works of art have been made for the purpose of provoking a human response – pleasure, fear, admiration, veneration. That response is subjective, but it is a type of experience which we can access because we are human (cf. T, 16). Evaluation of the art work requires our personal response. The historian must also ‘authenticate’ the art work; he must verify that it provokes the effects that make it a masterpiece, and this process of verification requires a personal response. This personal response is subjective. But it is not entirely subjective; it may be shared. One must presume that another person with enough sensitivity will be capable of having the same response.

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3. The Controlled Imagination In an interview some years ago with Peter Burke, Gombrich employed an eloquent example to which I do not believe he has returned again since. ‘I always tell my students that history is like a Swiss cheese, full of holes. There are tremendous gaps in our knowledge, and the problem of how to fill these gaps will never be answered completely satisfac­ torily’ (35, 882). History is built on documents and monuments and indexes that describe only some of the facts of the past and its pro­ tagonists. They only describe some of the ways in which individuals and institutions worked, and ultimately the survival of certain documents and monuments is a question of chance. History is necessarily fragmentary: there is no definite record of what everyone everywhere did. In his article ‘A Historical Hypothesis’ (50) Gombrich says this is evidently the case and there is a principle of selection which he terms ‘interest’. Interest can be aroused by anything, but not everything has the same importance. To determine what is really interesting, one must let time pass. Art is a matter of values and it therefore needs history, since a work without the context in which it was born – a context comprised of other works – may be enjoyed, but never criticised. The article may be summarised as arguing that art appreciation requires history. But I have just said that history is like a Swiss cheese. The art historian’s task is therefore to try to fill the holes. We must accept that are many holes and they are very large; and there is not actually much cheese; and not all of it is certain. Moreover, art history is interested not only in facts, but also – most particularly – in values. Values are even more evasive than facts, and demand a certain personal response. One therefore understands the constant, pressing temptation to let one’s imagination go and fill the gaps. Gombrich insisted that there were certain rigid objective levels that must be respected (cf. II, 16) and that ignorance is preferable to myth or error. This is the traditional approach in Western civilisation (cf. 86, 132). In any case, the problem in the case of art history is different to that of general history. There are some things that are of greater interest

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than others. Although our interest may be directed towards any work, we are confident that there exists a canon: there are some works that are worth knowing better. Moreover, interpretation does not seek to reconstruct absolutely all the factors that influenced the artist in executing a work of art. The artist’s inner workings are not accessible to us; even if they were, they would only allow us to understand the artist, not his work (cf. RH, 87). The goal is to understand the work. And to understand the work, one needs above all to know the context from which it emerged. And here one needs all the help that history can provide (cf. MH, 67). It is therefore clearly important to have a knowledge of traditions in all spheres: they form the framework that allows us to understand the art work and interpret it correctly. This was Hirsch’s proposition: first come the traditions and genres. And that is the same order that Gombrich proposes (cf. MH, 67). Traditions and genres are also the first channel to which one must adapt: ‘There are the constraints of tra­ dition, of medium, of genre, and of culture that apply reins to the historian’s and the critic’s fancy’ (111, 164). It is within these confines that ‘creative imagination’ – which, as discussed above Gombrich believes to be a necessary quality of the art historian – must operate. That quality must be further complemented by an awareness of the precariousness of the propositions bring set forth. ‘All the professional should learn, and obviously never learns, is the possibility of being mistaken’ (39, 39). Therefore, the historian’s ‘creative imagination’ is also, in Gombrich’s words, a ‘controlled imagination’ (cf. T, 17). The controls to which the imagination paragon is subjected are born precisely out of an awareness of being wrong: they are what Popper calls ‘negative tests’.1 The sensitivity that the historian needs to develop is above all a negative one. In the interview with Burke quoted at the beginning of this section, Gombrich explained this question: ‘You don’t know everything that happened in the past, but you develop a sensitivity for what might not have happened, for what is impossible within that period’ (35, 882). Naturally, Gombrich added, this intuition sometimes fails. This is an accessible sensitivity. It is not a question of knowing everything that

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might have happened, the potentialities of the past, but of sensing what might not have happened, the absurdities or anachronisms. The art historian is always on the look-out for the false note. Thus, Gombrich sees his work as being similar to that of the translator’s. When trans­ lating a text, we notice that there are words that have an equivalence and others that do not. If we do not find the exact word, we have to endeavour to find the closest possible approximation to the original meaning. ‘What plagues but aids the translator is that he knows pretty well what a word does not mean, and that the true interpretation must be sought within the limits of these negations’ (T, 22). Logically, we have a certain room for manoeuvre within which to choose different options; such options must therefore necessarily satisfy the scientific requirements. Yet they may never be considered definitive. Nonetheless, Gombrich believes that in history and in art history there are cases in which interpretation attains the reality of the facts. ‘The work of scholars’, he says in the article ‘Focus on the Arts and Humanities’, ‘has often been compared with the solution of jigsaw puzzles, and in such puzzles of sufficient intricacy the demonstration of a fit can be so compelling that it cannot be evaded’ (T, 18). It is a surprising statement, in that I believe it marks a distancing from Popper’s doctrine. Gombrich goes so far as to say that in scholarship, with all its limitations, there is ‘the possibility of proofs, which are denied to the general propositions of science outside mathematics [. . .]’ (T, 17). He even provides a criterion for determining definitive proof: By proof I here mean the same as the conclusive evidence which would be accepted in a conscientious court of law, or, if you like, in detective fiction. There are many degrees of such proofs, some of which may stand in need of mutual support, but others which not even the greatest sceptic would reject. (T, 18)2

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4. Margin and Licence When a piece fits completely, a gap in the story is filled and the conclusion can be used to establish a base for supporting fresh hypotheses and, with luck, other conclusions. Gombrich gives the example of the deciphered hieroglyphic. A translation may be undisputed. However, such cases are rare; normally, there is some field of uncertainty available to the interpreter. And here it is helpful to refer to him as the interpreter, since one of Gombrich’s favourite models for interpretation in art history is that of the performer interpreting a piece of music, or, to a lesser degree, the actor interpreting a script.3 In both cases, it is the interpreter who gives life to the text, which would otherwise remain dead. The best illustration I can think of does not come from the humanist’s workshop but from that of the performing artist, be he an actor or a musician. If he is worth his salt he knows that his first duty is to respect the text, the written words or the notes; it is within these strict limits that he is set the task of so mobilizing his imagination that his performance illuminates every line or bar, through the right inflexion, the right gradation of emphasis, the right tempo and the right accent [. . .] I need not enlarge on my conviction that a great performance can be objective and subjective at the same time. Who can deny that there are supreme and less good performances, hopeless ones and inspired ones even within the limits of the prescribed text? It follows that there is latitude but not licence in understanding. There may be different performances of equal validity,

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but there are certainly many more demonstrably false ones. (T, 23) There is latitude but not licence. Any interpretation plays within that narrow latitude and within it comes to life. Those that transpose its framework, taking excessive licence, and betraying its meaning are not interpretations. On several occasions Gombrich speaks of musical interpretations, always alluding to this point. It is the latitude that allows sublime interpretations to exist. Likewise, it is perfectly possible to have several different great interpretations that are equally valid. By the same token, previous interpretations are often revised, either out of a desire for innovation or because of the discovery of new information. One of the art historian’s ongoing tasks is precisely to breathe new life into interpretations that have become toned down. Gombrich referred to this in the foreword to his book New Light on Old Masters: The old masters in this volume [. . .] are Giotto, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Giulio Romano and Michelangelo. None of them can be said ever to have lapsed into obscurity or to have lacked the attention of art lovers and art historians. But art-historical research would cease to make sense if it could not also throw new light on familiar subjects. That light, of course, must come from a fresh interpretation of the evidence, often from a new reading of texts and documents which had been previously neglected or misunderstood. (NL, 7) In undertaking this task, the historian will do his best to satisfy the requirements of the ‘controlled imagination’ and his goal will be always be to perform a service to culture (cf. II, 58), rather than to win fame

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only through the novelty of his interpretations (cf. II, 117–18). The historian’s goal is to make the great masterpieces, the elements pertaining to the canon, more accessible. Gombrich said in the article quoted above – ‘Focus on the Arts and Humanities’ – that if the historian ‘is lucky he may find that in thus tightening the net he has led his readers to a better understanding of his subject, be it a religious or philosophical text, a poem, an image or a piece of music’ (T, 23). It is important to realise that the goal is both to understand and to make understand, to guide readers towards a more profound know­ ledge. And it is important to realise this because it means that interpretation does not consist of explaining the scholar’s personal response so that the ignorant reader can understand what his own response should be. Interpretation does not consist of a phrase or text setting out everything the scholar knows and feels about the art work; this would not be possible to do (or read). Comprehension is not the same as clarification (cf. T, 23). Indeed, responses to an art work cannot be satisfactorily verbalised; they cannot be expressed in words: ‘one can never put into words what a work of art “says” ’ (T, 107).4 Art works – especially great works – are complex orders. One can discuss them, but to try to expand on them, to describe their potentialities one by one, is to kill their wonder. It is partly a matter of taste and tact how far we want to go in articulating these levels of meaning, for they, like all others, can only be singled out at the risk of tearing that miraculous gossamer web of ordered relationships which distinguishes the work of art from the dream. (NF, 79–80) The interpretation can therefore never be complete. That is not its aim; it does not seek to reduce the work to meet the needs of the aspirant, but rather to lead the spectator to the art work; and in that purpose, verbiage ultimately drowns out the personal response. ‘Our attitude to

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the peaks of art can best be conveyed through the way we speak about them, perhaps through our very reluctance to spoil the experience by too much talk’ (II, 163). In that attempt, Gombrich once said how envious he was of caricaturists, who are capable of intimating with two brush strokes the features of a style or a specific individual (cf. 59, 7). To support my argument, I cannot use any specific text in which Gombrich takes the next step: interpretation must be like an impressionist painting – a few free paint strokes that excite the spectator’s attention and require him to complete the vision on his own. In any case, any interpretation must make use of metaphors, something that we must necessarily accept and make the most of (cf. SO, 120 and 288–9). Gombrich even reveals the need for a special branch of psychology – ‘metaphorics’ – which comes to our aid when seeking metaphors capable of evoking certain effects (cf. T, 112; 106, 698–9). Nonetheless the goal, as I have said, is to lead spectators to the work rather than the other way round. One must allow them to discover the wonders of art for themselves. This is how Gombrich operates in his Story of Art. It is full of appealing, suggestive brush strokes that do not seek to exhaust the subject, and which therefore do not overwhelm us with deep considerations. One always needs to take the spectator into account. And sometimes the public knows very little about art. In an interview for a Canadian art education journal, Gombrich discussed this question entertainingly but conclusively and I shall use his words to conclude this section. He was asked how he thought educators should lead the public’s attention. The first thing is that people should not be brain-washed; that is to say they should – I am particularly speaking of children – they should be allowed to enjoy what they like and not be discouraged, by saying ‘But that isn’t art’ if a child enjoys the way Terborg paints velvet [. . .] You should not say ‘Ah, yes, but you should look at the balance of the shapes or

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something.’ No, you should find a point of entry from which you gradually spread out, and the point of entry for most people is human interest. I said that in the introduction to my book, The Story of Art, and I still believe it to be true. It must be a human interest, even the facial expression of a kindly person in a Rembrandt [. . .]. (57, 23) 5. Over-interpretation Gombrich takes the musician as his model of interpretation. It is a clearly effective analogy, and for Gombrich it is especially appealing, because he himself is a passionate music lover. In his work, he often makes reference to great performers and conductors: Toscanini, who never let cheap praise lead him to exaggerate his interpretation; Richter, who can give a dazzling performance; and Rudolf Serkin – a personal friend of Gombrich – who is capable of a prodigious nuancing. Gombrich once said that we are living in the ‘golden age’ of interpretation. At a time when the art world has been unsettled by a lack of clear objectives, musical interpretation demonstrates the perennial vitality of art (cf. T, 208–9). The model of the interpreter is an excellent one, since it magnificently illustrates the need for the artist to have an extraordinarily good understanding of the text and its context, to ‘understand’ the work well – the work and not the artist – and to bring it to life within the narrow latitude provided by the score or script. Interpretation, including interpretation of works of art, is an art in itself. And both scholarly interpretation and musical interpretation require a developed sensitivity and a public that knows how to appreciate the finer points. And in both cases, bad interpretations abound. Gombrich distinguishes interpretation from ‘over-interpretation’; the former respects where the latter distorts (cf. RH, 86). The risk of over-interpreting is great, since the imagination readily fills all the

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gaps; in art there is always a physiognomic temptation to project onto the art work the suggestions it arouses without subjecting them to ­critical examination. At the same time, the interpreter feels the need, within his capabilities, to provide a finished interpretation. As already mentioned, Gombrich feels that it is an exercise of humility to learn how the historiographical keys still in use (for example, stylistic categories) triumphed. Art history does not readily allow chapters to be left unfinished. It is true that in Popper’s vision, the issue would not have been too important if, over time, cheerfully formulated hypotheses were exposed to the severe critique of a constant contrast with the facts. In case of doubt, Gombrich believes that ‘under-interpretation’ is preferable, and he gives powerful reasons for this stance: a bad interpretation can transform a work of art for ever, since the appreciation of the art lies to a large extent in references to other works and in the levels of prestige, and it is not easy to restore the original gaze (cf. RH, 86). Naturally, each defective interpretation again changes the appreci­ ation of the art work. And in reality, it is not only bad interpretations that alter the work; a thousand other circumstances – its owner, the place where it is housed, etc. – become in some way associated with the art work itself, affecting the way it is evaluated. A work of art carries with it the barnacles of its voyage through the centuries. It is a frightening thought, and yet, I believe, true, that anything we say or write about a painting may change it in some subtle way. It reorganizes our perceptions, and no one can unscramble them or wipe away the accents which description and interpretation superimpose upon the picture. (NF, 66) The art work itself invites over-interpretation. However there are also intellectual fashions which frequently impose systems of thought or

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study methods that can turn the panorama of art history on its head. I have already mentioned some of these: movements in historicism, expressionism, and methods of formal analysis and iconology. However one values each of them, one is surprised by the ease with which they come to assert themselves and their scope. Analysing this situation, Gombrich places the blame on what he calls the ‘academic industry’: he agrees with Popper in considering the application of an existing and readymade paradigm, as a threat to the health of our search and research. This health, as we all know, has anyhow become precarious through the rise of what one can only call the ‘academic industry’. It is an industry that demands ‘research’, not from a craving for truth, but quite openly as a qualification for degrees and promotions. Who can blame the victims of such pressure if they look for the nearest paradigm and apply it to whatever oeuvre or work comes to hand? (II, 187)5 The academic industry also creates its own processes of competence which contribute to the surprising speed at which fashions in general theories and methods of analysis spread. Its motto appears to be, says Gombrich, ‘publish-or-perish’ (II, 120). It is scarcely surprising, then, that interpretations tend to multiply, in many cases prizing novelty (which guarantees publication) over respect for the demands of interpretation. Unfortunately, such is the fabric of the academic industry that even an absurd reading will be accorded immortality in the footnotes. Anyone who can get a reputable journal to publish a learned

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paper purporting to prove that the Mona Lisa represents Cesare Borgia in disguise would at least be discussed in all subsequent treatments of the theme. Those who doubt it should remember that Marcel Duchamp’s schoolboy prank of painting a moustache on a reproduction of that portrait still figures in survey courses – and in this paper. (II, 117) The mention of Marcel Duchamp brings us to another situation arising out of bad interpretations of art: at heart, when Duchamp painted his moustache he thought he was doing something artistic. And it was reasonable for him to think so because art history does indeed have a direct bearing on art (cf. MH, 109; SA, 484–5). Theoretical positions end up influencing the practice of art itself. For Gombrich, as I have said elsewhere, theoretical approaches often come before artistic realities, the rule often precedes the form. It is therefore the fault of the interpreter, particularly the bad interpreter, that artists hold erroneous opinions on their work and the criteria for evaluating their works (cf. T, 99f.). Therefore it is also up to the art historian and critic to try to cast light on the theoretical panorama by highlighting the defects of general approaches and individual interpretations. To a great extent, this has been Gombrich’s purpose in his brave fight against what he called the ‘five giants’ of historicism, against expressionist and iconographic excesses. His work contains abundant references to over-interpretation.6 He himself once felt the need to polish up works of art in order to restore to them their neat and healthy appearance. In Topos and Topicality in Renaissance Art, he brandishes Occam’s razor to trim the hirsute beards grown by art works over the course of the centuries. But when he comes to Panofsky, he feels obliged to replace his razor with a giant pruning knife (cf. 107, 9ff.).

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6. Faith and Tradition The academic industry ends up disfiguring the panorama of art, when in its desire to investigate it forgets that art has expressed human values, and it is only reasonable to recognise them. The first attitude Gombrich demands of both the expert and the connoisseur wanting to approach the great figures of tradition, is faith, simply faith. Half seriously, half in jest, throughout Gombrich’s work he compares art to religion, demanding the same respect for both.7 One must have faith that there have been great works and great masters. Believing in great masters is a prerequisite for appreciating them; only those who are prepared to accept that Michelangelo is exceptional will be able to enjoy his work. Initially, one must approach him basing oneself only ‘on the grounds of faith and hope’ (II, 171). Like so many monsters and geniuses from our cultural universe, Michelangelo achieved a stature that was in a way unattainable for the common mortal. And for this reason, he also occupies a privileged place, ‘on the Olympus of our culture, dwelling there in our thoughts side by side with the pagan gods and perhaps with the saints’ (NL, 125). His elevation to the empyrean is unrelated to the perhaps wretched circumstances of his life. After all, the pagan gods, still living on Mount Olympus, are above reproach (they simply cannot be judged); and the same is true of artists, however much their mortal lives may leave to be desired (cf. II, 128). Their destiny on Mount Olympus places them beyond good and evil, unaffected even by whether their believers concern themselves with them or render sincere worship to them. Those characters, ‘they are culture heroes, Gods of our secular Pantheon, beneficent or baleful, serene or capricious, but like Gods they must be approached with respect and humility [. . .]’ (II, 16). Such people may arouse our attraction, disgust or indifference, but we can never ignore them. They form a part of history which needs to be told. They are a reference point: ‘reminders of the miraculous powers of man’ (T, 27). Their standing saves them from our paltriness. Their works stand above whether we can understand them or not. The masterpieces these artists produced

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are elevated to the category of miracles: ‘the miracles wrought by the masters are still among us’ (T, 27). They are in the museums and galleries of the world and also in the churches and the palaces. And, as Gombrich has sometimes added, they are right in front of our noses, even if we often fail to pay them the attention they deserve (cf. T, 89). The works of the masters should be treated as prodigies; we should approach them with a sense of love and prostrate ourselves before their grandeur (cf. II, 84). But such love is not comradeship; we must keep our distances, with a true feeling of respect. ‘Such respect seems to me inseparable from the thrill of genuine admiration which belongs to our enjoyment of art’ (II, 201). Our distance is justified, and we must not force our approach; our understanding will need time and can never be complete; that would be far beyond our capabilities. The respect that works of art inspire in us has a component which contributes to the sense of grandeur: the intuition that we shall never be capable of fully appreciating them. But our approach will have been worth our while: ‘in freely submitting to a great work of art and exploring its infinite richness we can discover the reality of self-transcending values’ (II, 130). It is not difficult to see that behind playful expressions such as ‘the Olympus of our culture’, there is a true sentiment. I have just mentioned the word ‘self-transcending’. In 1975, Gombrich was awarded the Erasmus Prize. In his speech of acceptance, he had to explain the values he pursued; here he speaks not jovially, but with a deep-held conviction: it has become tradition that the recipient of this great prize should respond with something like a profession of faith. It is a daunting task because [. . .] we scholars are more used to speaking in public about our doubts than about our faith. It is part of our function to question accepted opinion and to probe arguments, in other words to exercise our rational faculty. But though I am a rationalist, I am not a sceptic, least of all a cynic. I have faith in

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the power of great art, great poetry and great music to embody human values which make life worth living. Only, I find the experience we can derive from these miracles of human creativity intensely personal and private. (II, 205) As Gombrich said in that same speech, the faith in those self-­ transcending values is not arbitrary, it is a shared faith (cf. II, 207). Many people share this faith. One need only mention the curious example of a forest ranger who Gombrich encountered on one of his visits to the States, beside the Grand Canyon. A man whose response to nature and to art struck a familiar chord [. . .] Living with his wife in a caravan filled with art books and records of classical music, he was, I found, as different from the popular stereotype of an aesthete as anyone could be. (T, 90–1) Gombrich was amazed that even there, there were people who responded in that way to art and music. The ranger told Gombrich that his interest had been born in Alaska, where he was stationed during the War; there he had roomed with a refugee, a Viennese violinist, who liked to play Beethoven. Gombrich exclaimed that ‘the scattered seed of a submerged tradition had been blown across half the world by the storms of the age and had taken root in a receptive mind. It is this kind of miracle which vindicates the faith in civilization’ (T, 91). Beethoven is one of the great artists in the Tradition of General Knowledge; he belongs to the canon of established artists. And any initiate in culture must start by paying homage to him. The idea of the canon harks back to the religions based on sacred scriptures, where there is a corpus of beliefs, and to the texts containing them, which worshippers must accept as a matter of faith. And one needs to have

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faith in Beethoven. If we are not capable of seeing his greatness, we should be cautious; the error may be our own. And this is what faith demands of us. We have sided with tradition against our own reactions. In fact we may feel that as far as the peaks of art are concerned, it is not so much we who test the masterpiece, but the masterpiece which tests us. (II, 164) And coincidentally, it is Erasmus who, Gombrich believes, exemplifies this position. His Erasmus Prize acceptance speech ends as follows: Erasmus had little confidence in the logical subtleties that marked the theology of the schoolmen, precisely because, I believe, he regarded faith as a personal matter. Personal, but not entirely subjective. When it came to the crunch he sided with that tradition he had so frequently criticized. (II, 207) And that is also Gombrich’s own personal position. The Western trad­ ition had many limitations (cf. T, 83–4), but it was capable of expressing them. This is the reason why these matters are accompanied by a certain dogmatism. As Gombrich reminds us, ‘what is nowadays called the “Art World” has always shared some characteristics with established religion, including its intolerance’ (RH, 99). Gombrich himself takes the same view. A significant example is his attitude to twelve-tone music or serialism. In the case of music, Gombrich feels particularly involved. Theoretically I must grant the possibility that, despite the historicist nonsense talked by Schoenberg’s champions, there are fascinations in the serialist game

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which long effort and familiarity would reveal. And I must concede it to my opponents that I do not make the effort because I am dogmatically convinced that Mozart will be more worthwhile every time. (II, 90–1) 7. The Guardians of Memories More than once Gombrich has presented scholars as craftsmen called on to restore the respectability of works of art, in much the same way as the people employed in museums to make the necessary repairs to works that have suffered minor damage (cf. 104, 32). Their sometimes lowly task is to clean away ‘the road signs erected at important crossroads’. But this work also contains an undoubted greatness. Gombrich uses sonorous names to refer to this task, and he is inspired by what Plato called the ‘guardians of tradition’ (cf. 27, 27). Because that is precisely what humanists are and, among them, art historians: they are the ‘guardians of memory’ (cf. T, 8) and they are the ‘guardians of memories’ (cf. MH, 107), who struggle to recover, preserve and interpret the cultural tradition (cf. II, 115). And their work has become urgent and essential: when memories fade, the human values they represented also become blurred. Gombrich insists that it is necessary ‘restore to the humanities the sense of wonder, of admiration and also of horror, in other words, a sense of value’ (T, 25). However, there are many adverse circumstances. ‘Our own past is moving away from us at frightening speed [. . .]’ (II, 56), said Gombrich at the end of his article on ‘In Search of Cultural History’; ‘our common heritage [. . .] seems to be receding from our grasp as so many bridges to the past become impassable’ (II, 17), he remarked in his magnificent article on ‘The Tradition of General Knowledge’. And it is true: there are areas which individuals of a certain social condition commonly frequented up to a few years ago, but no longer do so. Humanistic studies have declined for many reasons, but, particularly, because they are considered to be of no use; they have no immediate application in a society

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whose criterion is effectiveness, and the measure of effectiveness is the money it provides. With the loss of cultural values, society will be inundated by irrationalism. I think that the decline of concern for the need of the mind is indeed a ‘problem of the day affecting the welfare of society’. If we no longer believe in our own civilization the forces of vulgarity and barbarism will surely triumph. (T, 89) Gombrich, who has experienced from close up the power of ideas to awaken myths such as national socialism (cf. II, 93ss.), likes to argue – somewhat emphatically – that one of the goals of the humanities is to erect barriers against myths. I hope we may tell the young that in trying to preserve and recover the memories of past events, to use Ranke’s famous words, ‘as they actually happened’, we maintain and extend the dykes of reason in an area which is particularly vulnerable to the springtides of myth. (MH, 108)8 The humanities are, above all, the means of articulating the mind through a host of indications on the existence and order of human values. Culture cannot be seen as an accessory, something to show off, something to endow a certain social sheen. Culture and art are necessities of the mind, without which it can scarcely express itself. The task of the tradition of general knowledge, of that tradition that is trans­ mitted orally and aurally, was to provide the map showing the summits – the great milestones – the passable roads and the muddy ones, the swamps, the rivers and the bridges; those things that were worth knowing and those that should be avoided at all costs.

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But that tradition has dissolved. Now it is the schools and the universities which fulfil that mission (cf. II, 58); which fulfil that mission badly; one of the texts in which Gombrich deals with this subject carries the uncompromising title ‘The Failure of our Schools’ (T, 89ff.): in the universities and schools knowledge is divided into sealed and examin­ able compartments.9 The tradition of general knowledge provided precisely the opposite: general knowledge, although it was not knowledge as such, nor did it ever become general; only a ‘cloud of rumours’, enough for an initial orientation. In an increasingly complex and fragmentary culture, there is a peremptory need for general guidelines. And Gombrich remarks: Indeed, having written such a rough survey myself, I have also experienced the surprise to find that the need for it must have been very widely felt. I am humbled by the thought of the multitude of readers who have chosen my Story of Art as a guide; humbled, because if I had had the slightest inkling of their numbers I would have weighed every word so carefully that I could never have written the book. What gave me the courage or, if you like, the cheek to write it off the top of my head was, of course, that background in a vanished tradition to which I have alluded. (T, 90) We need overviews and it is imperative that they should indicate the summits, convey the ‘canon’ of great authors, poets, composers and artists (cf. II, 171). For this reason, Gombrich argues that successors are needed for the great interpreters of the cultural tradition (cf. T, 9). It falls on them to preserve and transmit the canonical texts, where the sources of metaphor are to be found. For this reason a humanist must above all be a man who can read those canonical texts.

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In comparison with the humanists of the Renaissance, ‘the range of texts and monuments which concern the humanist today has enormously widened, but his basic motivation is the same. His concern is still with languages – taking the term in its wider sense [. . .]’ (II, 112).10 Gombrich’s concern with language is manifested here: the humanist must read the texts in their original language; this should be taken in a figurative sense when referring to language, in the broad terms that he invokes in the last quotation. But it should also be taken in the literal sense: the humanist must know the classical languages. ‘The reason why people in our civilization should always have the possibility of studying the classics is, quite simply, that people in our past cultivated the classics. For in the classical heritage we have an area of metaphor [. . .]’ (II, 14). And therefore Gombrich will conclude that ‘the demise of Latin will lead to a grave loss of cultural memory’ (T, 21). A mastery of languages will allow the humanist to be open to all knowledge that can help him to cast some light – however much or little – on an interpretation: there are no barriers, there are no disciplines. I know that I am neither the first, nor will I be the last, to bemoan the evils of specialization, but I may have explained the reason why I take an even more serious view of this state of affairs than do some of my colleagues. I do not claim to know how this situation affects economics or science; but the humanities certainly draw their strength, their nourishment and their raison d’être from the traditions and general concerns of the culture. To cut them off from these traditions is to kill them. (II, 18) The figure of the humanist I have described with impressionistic features, with quotations from Gombrich, is none other than Gombrich himself. His entire academic life has been taken up with indicating the

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need for the tradition in art, the primordial position of the great masters and the great works; the constant value of those works; the real possibility of achieving them and of understanding them, not so much in an intellectual effort as through an intimate familiarity. At the end of his autobiography, Gombrich discusses the purpose of his work: you see that my ambition – and it is rather much of an ambition – was, and continued to be, a kind of commentator of the history of art. I wanted to write a commentary on what actually happened in the development of art. I sometimes see it as representation in the center with symbolism on the one hand and decoration on the other. One can reflect about all these things and say something in more general terms. It was my ambition to do precisely this. (103, 133) And on receiving the Balzan Prize for Western Art History in 1985, Gombrich gave a short speech which suitably summarised his work: In every culture, the canonical writings of the past have created a need for commentary [. . .] When I look back on my works, and think of the others I still want to write, I would like them to be seen as a commentary that will facilitate my readers’ access to the creations of the past. (102, in fine)* *  Editors’ note: ‘In jeder Kultur haben die kanonischen Schriften der Vergangenheit zu dem Bedürfnis nach Kommentaren geführt [. . .] Wenn ich auf meine Arbeiten zurückblicke, und an andere denke, die ich noch zustandebringen will, so möchte ich sie gerne als einen solchen Kommentar verstanden wissen, der meinen Lesern den Zugang zu den Schöpfungen der Vergangenheit erleichtert.’

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Postscript: Joaquín Lorda: A Few Afterthoughts Partha Mitter

The elegantly translated magnum opus of the Spanish scholar, Joaquín Lorda, Gombrich: A Theory of Art, offers for the first time ‘a holistic and systematic analysis of E. H. Gombrich as a theorist’. A work of admirable industry reflecting Lorda’s lifelong devotion to Gombrich and his con­tribution to art history, the translation introduces a far-reaching and comprehensive critique of the great art historian to the English-speaking world. This important text was virtually unknown among Anglophone scholars. We are all, therefore, in the translator’s and the publisher’s debt for placing before the public this hitherto unknown text of considerable richness and insight. Throughout the years, Lorda had studied closely and critically Gombrich’s intellectual sources. During the long gestation of his work, he kept constantly in

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touch with the art historian. Lorda’s meticulous scholarship and pain­ staking documentation of Gombrich’s major art historical theories, and their intellectual and cultural sources, were thus enriched by his regular conversations with him. This achievement of a lifetime provides a valuable addition to scholarship on the Austrian art historian, inter alia throwing much new light on his methods and concerns. Joaquín Lorda’s approach is also in accord with the objectives of the Warburg Institute, a major centre of classical learning, where Gombrich spent most of his professional life, and indeed contributed much to its intellectual preoccupations. To be sure, Ernst Gombrich was as immersed in classical scholarship as in art history, the evidence for which lies scattered in his rich corpus of writings, as demonstrated, for instance, in his exploration of The Heritage of Apelles.1 Importantly, as the Spanish scholar confirms, if confirmation were needed, Gombrich was a lot more than simply a classical scholar. His contributions to art criticism and theory made him one of the great minds of the twentieth century; his reflections on the psychology of perception that married art and science were much admired by scientists. Lorda meticulously untangles the intricate relationship between the philosopher Karl Popper and Gombrich, who was the acknowledged inspiration for his art historical method that stressed the importance of raising ever-fresh questions. I have some minor quibbles with Lorda regarding his evaluation of Popper’s concept of World Three in Gombrich’s work, but in general his analysis is insightful and judicious, and is in sum thoroughly convincing. Lorda is surely correct to stress the importance of the Austrian philosopher in Gombrich’s formulation of ‘schema’ and ‘correction’, so central to his classic work, Art and Illusion. Secondly, only Lorda’s intimate knowledge of classical rhetoric could have provided him with his insight into the function of rhetoric in many of Gombrich’s seminal art historical essays. Quite judiciously and with fairness, Lorda foregrounds the two influences on the art historian that are complicated since Gombrich himself expressed ambivalence towards them: Freud and Hegel. Gombrich revised his views several times in his career regarding the two foundational thinkers who shaped our

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perceptions of modernity. Less known but nonetheless an inspiration to Gombrich was the Dutch medievalist Johan Huizinga. Lorda describes this relationship critically but with understanding. Above all, Lorda treats with balance and objectivity other scholars with whom Gombrich interacted throughout his life. As a study of the foremost classicist, art historian and authority on Renaissance art, Gombrich: A Theory of Art may lay claim to being the most meticulous intellectual biography of the Austrian scholar so far. My own misgivings regarding Lorda’s thoughtful exegesis of Gombrich’s art historical method have a very different origin.2 If I were discussing, for instance, other great art historians, such as Erwin Panofsky and his iconological method, or Heinrich Wölfflin’s binary categories, I would have little to comment on, since they were primarily addressing students of Renaissance art, although their insights had indirect lessons for art outside the European orbit. Interestingly, à propos Buddhist art, the Swiss art historian had expressed his desire to visit India to see the works in situ.3 Nor would I be unduly concerned with the purported universalism of Kenneth Clark’s classic study of The Nude, in which, with remarkable honesty, he laid his cards on the table. Clark’s few stray remarks on non-classical art, notably Hindu aesthetics, expressed frank distaste, eliciting his confession that he could not relate to it. Clark’s admission arguably revealed tensions between his complex colonial relationship with India and his classical taste.4 What singled out Ernst Gombrich among the leading historians of European art rested on the fact that while he was widely accused of being Eurocentric, he often expressed regret that he was unable to enter into other traditions. I do not wish to labour the point that The Story of Art is almost entirely devoted to the rise of art in the West, except for a few apologetic attempts to include the art of China and the Islamic world. Even if he could engage with these traditions, the art of Hindu and Buddhist India, for instance, lay beyond his comprehension. At this point I must declare an interest and be allowed to devote a paragraph or so to explain the background to his misgivings. I was a doctoral student of Ernst Gombrich between 1965–70. My own background was Indian history, and yet under his supervision I wrote the very first

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postcolonial critique of European art history (Much Maligned Monsters: History of European Reactions to Indian Art, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1977). That was because my doctoral work with him was the product of an unusual symbiosis. He knew very little about Indian art, he confessed to me, and expected me to answer the question why he found the Hindu temple design and its florid sculptures so difficult to come to terms with. He was also a friend and admirer of Otto Kurz, who is now seen as a pioneer in bridging the scholarly gap between East and West. He asked me to consult Kurz before I submitted my dissertation but for various reasons this was not to be.5 It may seem strange that Ernst Gombrich, primarily a historian of European art, with virtually no appreciation of Indian art, would invite me to work with him and continue to display a sustained interest in my research. The point here is that it was not his knowledge of Indian art but his radical method that inspired me. To repeat, if it were simply another great historian of European art, Lorda’s appraisal would pose few problems. But we should remind ourselves that Gombrich was a lot more than that. He was more ambitious and indeed revolutionary. Of course, Gombrich made no secret of his Eurocentric taste. But even as he asserted that Raphael’s perfection was universally self-evident, he was also uncomfortable about making such a universalist assertion.6 And indeed no one did more than him to undermine the notion of the absolute and universal value of artistic taste. Many years ago, as far back as 1960, long before the advent of postcolonial thought, Gombrich in his classic text, Art and Illusion, challenged the implicit claims of art history that the conquest of representation and classical taste stood for universal values. There was his memorable phrase: ‘There is no such thing as Art. There are only artists.’7 In Art and Illusion, he was to flesh out his radical theory that art did not follow universal natural principles, but was culturally constructed, based upon inherited preconceptions. Indeed, he was once acknowledged by the adherents of postmodern critical theory as a pioneer.8 Joaquín Lorda’s considerable achievement will endure for shedding valuable light on Gombrich: his role as an authority on European art and culture. But why is this not sufficient? Our thinking about the

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world has changed in this era of globalisation. In the last four decades, decolonisation has thrown into sharp focus the limitations of art history as a ‘colonial’ discipline that seriously misrepresents non-Western art. Art history coincided with the era of European expansion. In India, for instance, the East India Company officials, who were often well versed in the discipline of archaeology, provided the framework for a history of Indian art and architecture, claiming to offer objective criteria for assessing different artistic traditions in India based on the latest insights gleaned from scientific discoveries. But when James Fergusson, acknowledged creator of the art and architectural history of India, asserted that the late South Indian temple gateways were decadent and in irredeemable bad taste, he had in mind the late eighteenth-century archaeologist and Hellenist, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, whose History of Ancient Art (Geschichte des Alterthums) is considered the foundational document of art history. Winckelmann was inspired by the Italian historian Giorgio Vasari’s strictures on artistic perfection but he reformulated Vasarian rules of taste by extrapolating them onto ancient Greek art, coining the memorable phrase, ‘noble simplicity and quiet grandeur’.9 It was Ernst Gombrich who argued with exceptional clarity in his landmark essay: classificatory terms, such as Baroque, Rococo or Gothic, far from being objective descriptions, were stylistic categories based upon classical criticisms of non-classical art. The creator of classical taste, Vasari presented the Vitruvian categories, regola, ordine, misura, disegno e maniera, as universally valid rules of perfection for evaluating works of art, the rules that were later perpetuated in art history through Johann Joachim Winckelmann. Its implications were far-reaching in colonial art history. Ernst Gombrich demolished their universality by describing how ‘the origins of the stylistic category of the Gothic do not lie in any morphological observation of buildings, but entirely in the prefabricated catalogue of sins which Vasari took over from his classical authority (Vitruvius)’.10 With a multi-faceted and restlessly enquiring mind such as that of Gombrich, one needs to recognise the various paradoxical layers in his scholarly makeup that co-exist uneasily and ambiguously in his

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entire corpus. He was a controversialist and his relationship with post-­ structuralists, deconstructionists, postmodernists and postcolonial scholars was complicated, to say the least. Frequently praised or dis­ paraged as a ‘diehard’ empiricist, is there much evidence for it? Again, the evidence is contradictory. At various stages in his life Gombrich engaged with Gestalt linguistics and structuralism. I do not have the space here to elaborate my arguments regarding his complex relationship with semiotics and cultural coding and would direct the readers to my recent essay on the art historian. To put it baldly, flatly rejecting the claim that he was an ‘illusionist’, Gombrich reminded his interlocutor of the early influence of Karl Bühler’s Sprachtheorie on his work, and that he applied the Gestalt notion of ‘constancy’ in search for meanings in a world of flux. Above all, the linguist Roman Jakobson’s concept of synaesthetic ‘equivalence’ in generating meaning in a language had a lasting influence on him.11 The implications of Gombrich’s valuable lesson for universal art histories have in general been ignored by art historians. It is a matter of regret that the younger generations of art historians no longer read him because he is mistakenly identified as representing colonial mentality. This is plain wrong, and Gombrich was a lot more than that. Baldly put, he refused to resolve the paradox between his own Eurocentric taste and his radical methodology, which I take to be an index of his restless, ever-questioning mind. But was he that far removed from the particular approaches and concerns of the radical, postmodern and postcolonial art historians? As Didier Eribon wrote a few years before the art historian’s death, Gombrich was admired as a radical thinker within modern philosophy in France, comparable with critical theorists like Jacques Derrida.12 This was indeed a rare compliment. It is entirely to Joaquín Lorda’s credit that his homage to Ernst Gombrich will be appreciated by future generations as a thoughtful assessment of a doyen of art history and Renaissance Studies, but as I have suggested, this will only be a partial, though significant, portrait.

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Notes

Introduction 1. I have given over one entire section to Gombrich’s analysis of this author. 2. See: T, 253 n. 82 and n. 88. 3. For example, SO, 298; 38, 30; 87, 419. 4. The books by Langer that Gombrich cites are here best-known attempt to create a theory of art. The first is Philosophy in a New Key, Cambridge (MA) 1969, of which Gombrich mentions the first edition, which deals primarily with literature and – by extension – music (the subtitle is A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite and Art), and the second, Feeling and Form, New York 1953, which seeks to cover all the arts more generally. In both, the author adopts positions that appear close to Gombrich’s, for example, when discussing states of conscience, music and metaphor. However she examines the issues from another perspective, and thus does not reach the core of the artistic themes as such. Gombrich also rejects some more classical approaches, such as that of Collingwood: MH, 165 n. 34.

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5. See: MH, 56–7 and 168 n. 2; NF, 148 n. 15; RH, 244; 42, 18. 6. Signs, Language and Behavior is ambitious but also difficult. The author’s excessive preoccupation with the semiotic model makes its application seem forced. As an interesting aside, in his review of this book Gombrich attributes the expression ‘iconic signs’ to Morris, who said it reminded him of Lessing. Later, in AI, 98 n., he refers back to this review, explaining that the expression originated with C. Peirce, a fact which Morris takes for granted in his book. This clarification demonstrates Gombrich’s unfamiliarity with Peirce’s work. 7. Cf. IE, 309 n. 1 and n. 11. 8. See: ‘The History of Ideas. A Personal Tribute to George Boas (1891–1980)’: T, 165–83. 9. Oxford 1939. See: MH, 165 n. 34; II, 215 n. 15; RH, 87; with always admiring quotations. 10. Principally The Mirror and the Lamp, which Gombrich considers to be one of the best books on criticism; his article ‘Mirror and Map’ in IE clearly refers to this book, albeit the subject matter is unrelated. See: T, 94, 256 n. 1; 42, 16. 11. To be fair, his references to Eliot are sporadic and marginal, apart from some minor entries in AI, and some isolated references. 12. Edmund Burke had a strong influence on Gombrich’s work, although I cannot pay much attention to him here. Clearly Gombrich approves of his general standpoint. See SO, 23; T, 94; 47, 18–20 and 59, 9. 13. Here one cannot ignore James Jerome Gibson, one of the leading perceptual psychologists America has produced. In his now classic work, he tries to create an independent science of the visual based on the idea that visual perception is a powerful aid for survival. Gibson emphasises the precision and depth of the information we receive via this medium, as opposed to theories that lay greater stress on the role of memory or imagination. He is credited with creating what he termed ‘ecological vision’, the importance of the fact that the act of seeing is prolonged, continuous and in motion. In their time, these were genuinely revelatory ideas. Gombrich often refers back to Gibson, sometimes devoting entire articles or essays to discussing some particular notion or consequence. Gombrich, more tied than Gibson is to the need for hypothesis in perception, disagrees with the latter on some

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points. Taken in the round, Gombrich’s work owes a great deal to this author: ‘there is no student of perception from whom I have learned more’, 74, 195; his was a ‘Copernican Revolution’: 119, 137 (elsewhere, however, he adds that ‘Copernicus was not quite right and neither, I think, is Professor Gibson’; 74, 195). Gibson’s theses are set out in three essential books representing different workings of the same theory: The Perception of the Visual World, Boston 1950; The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, Boston 1966; and The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, Hillsdale 1979, published post­ humously. Other relevant articles by this author include ‘The Information Available in Pictures’, Leonardo, vol. 4 (1), 1971, 27–35 and vol. 4 (2), 1971, 197–9; and ‘The Ecological Approach to the Visual Perception of Pictures’, Leonardo, vol. 11 (3), 1978, 227–35; all of which were contested by Gombrich. By the latter, see: MH, 151ff.; in AI, SO and IE, see index of names, and ‘The Sky is the Limit’, in IE, 162ff.; also: 39, 51, 74, 75, 84, 99, 115, 118, and 119. Gombrich naturally discusses other authors, whom I small mention below. 14. See ‘information theory’ in index of names, AI; idem., the author to whom Gombrich alludes further on: Colin Cherry. By this author, see On Human Communication, 2nd edition, London 1966, and Cherry (ed.), Information Theory, London 1956. 15. Cf. IE, 303 n. 21; NL, 93; 39, 62 n. 32. 16. Cf. 57, 17. 17. ARNHEIM, R., Review of Art and Illusion. The Art Bulletin, vol. 44 (1), March 1962, 79. The review is particularly negative. I only cite it here because Gombrich makes a humorous allusion to the piece, saying that it is what distinguishes Arnheim and him: 57, 17. 18. Thanks to Professor Gombrich, I received a copy of Klaus Lepsky’s book Ernst H. Gombrich: Theorie und Methode, Cologne 1991 when this study had already gone to press. Lepsky’s book studies in detail the genesis of Art and Illusion (AI) and The Sense of Order (SO). The two final chapters – particularly the last – discuss some general theoretical ideas. His approach is very different to my own; nonetheless, his brief commentary on the classic balance, ‘Die Klassische Lösung: Raffaels Madonna della Sedia’ (223–9), confirms my own thesis that the notion of ‘complex order’ is one of the keys to Gombrich’s theory and it occupies a central place here.

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19. I cannot list all the relevant works in this regard. Texts referring specifically to the author in themselves are innumerable; I have noted those I consider to be most illustrative. There are a number of articles on the subject in Spanish by Carlos Montes which are referenced in the general bibliography. I should also add ‘E. H. Gombrich: un itinerario intelectual’, Anales de Arquitectura, 2, 1990. A short panorama of the author’s early academic context can be found in Metken, G., ‘La naissance de la théorie de l’art’, in AA.VV., Vienne 1880–1938: L’apocalypse joyeuse, Paris 1986. On the Warburg Institute, see the long, weighty study by Carlo Ginzburg, ‘Da A. Warburg a E. H. Gombrich’, Studi Medievali, vol. 7 (2), 1966, 1015–65. On Gombrich’s work at the head of the Institute, see the editorial in The Burlington Magazine, ‘Ernst Gombrich and the Warburg Institute, 1936–1976’, vol. 118 (880), 1976, 463. There are numerous testaments to his prestige. Here, I shall only mention Ritter, H., ‘Der Charme des Einfachen’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung für Deutschland, vol. 74 (30 March 1989), 27. His general ideas on culture are discussed in glowing terms by Adam Gopnik in his review of Tributes (T), ‘The Erasmus of Art History’, Art in America, December 1984, 27–31; analysed by Alan Colquhoun in his review of ‘In Search of Cultural History’ (II, 24–59): ‘Gombrich and Cultural History’, Architectural Design, vol. 51 (6–7), 1981, 35–39; and criticised (particularly the idea of the ‘canon’), by Bornstein, M., in Art Journal, vol. 38 (3), 1979, 220–2; and by Burke, P., in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 124 (947), 1982, 107–8. His attitudes to aesthetics are criticised by Bauer, H. and others, in answer to Gombrich’s review of one of his works: The Art Bulletin, vol. 47, June 1965, 308–9. These criticisms met with a firm response from Gombrich (87). There is also a short and very interesting review by George Boas on this aspect: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 19 (2), 1960, 229. A number of authors have commented on Gombrich’s application of Popper’s ideas and his stance on Kuhn: Gablik, S., in ‘On the Logic of Artistic Discovery’, Studio International, vol. 186, 1973, 65–8, finds it inappropriate, particularly for contemporary art; whereas Stezaker, J., ‘Toward Nihilism’, ibidem, 169–70 defends it. R. S. Root-­Bernstein, in his ‘On Paradigms and Revolutions in Science and Art’ (Art Journal, vol. 44 (2), 1984, 109–18) seeks to reconsider the problem from a somewhat critical perspective. A brief appraisal of his focus on his Renaissance studies: Fehl, P., ‘Enlightenment’, The Burlington Magazine, vol. 121 (912), 1979, 178–81.

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His work on the psychology of representation and ornament is the subject of some controversy. There are interesting reviews of his principal books by Wirth, J., ‘A Propos de Pygmalion’, Critique, vol. 29 (312), 1973, 454–74; and Michaud, Y., ‘L’art auquel on ne fait pas attention (à propos de Gombrich)’, Critique, (416), 1982, 22–41. From the field of experimental psychology, it is worth recalling J. J. Gibson’s reservations, referred to above; one could add also another expert in representation, John M. Kennedy in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 38 (4), 1980, 453–7. There is the long and famous discussion with another two theorists of representation, Richard Wollheim and Rudolf Arnheim. By the former, see in particular ‘Art and Illusion’, The British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 3 (1), 1963, 15–37; ‘Reflections on Art and Illusion’, On Art and the Mind, London 1974, 261–89; reviews in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 121 (914), 1979, 322–3; and ‘Gombrich as Paragon’, Art Monthly, vol. 6–7 (78), 1984, 25–6. By Arnheim, perhaps in particular ‘Art History and the Partial God’ in Toward a Psychology of Art, Berkeley 1972, 151–61, but there are extensive references in all his books. One can find a somewhat debatable attempt at balance in Topper, D., ‘Gombrich on What a Picture Is Not’, Canadian Review of Art Education Research, vol. 6–7, 1980–1, 62–67. The innumerable discussions exploring the semiotic and analytical mainly start with Nelson Goodman’s reservations in Languages of Art, Indianapolis 1968; and thus, Mothersill, M., ‘Is Art a Language?’, The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 62 (20), 1965, 559–72, quite critical, with Aldrich, V., and Tomas, V., weighing in ibidem, 572–4. Again, we have Aldrich, V., in ‘Mothersill and Gombrich on “The language of art” ’, The British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 8 (4), 1968, 359–64. There is also J. Margolis with ‘Art as Language’, The Monist, vol. 58 (2), 1974, 175–86; and in the same issue of the journal Kjørup, S., ‘George Inness and the Battle at Hasting, or Doing Things with Pictures’, and Carrier, D., ‘A Reading of Goodman on Representation’, ibidem, 216–35 and 269–84. New criticism by N. Bryson can be found in Vision and Painting: The Logic of Gaze, New Haven, 1983; and M. Kemp takes up his criticism and extends it to other fields in ‘Seeing and Signs: E. H. Gombrich in Retrospect’, Art History, vol. 7 (2), 1984, 228–43, denouncing a supposed disregard of the social context. The rebuke takes on especially disagreeable tones in M. Krieger who says he is disappointed by the publi­ cation of supposedly backward-looking ideas in The Image and the Eye (IE)

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and accuses Gombrich of simplifying the problem in ‘The Ambiguities of Representation and Illusion: An E. H. Gombrich Retrospective’, Critical Inquiry, vol. 11 (2), 1984, 181–94. It earned him a forceful response from Gombrich (101). Richard Woodfield offers a weighed assessment in ‘Words and Pictures’, British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 26 (4), 1986, 357–70. The controversy extends to isolated issues; for example, on ambiguity, Lycan, W. G., ‘Gombrich, Wittgenstein, and the Duck-Rabbit’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 30 (2), 1971, 229–37; on the role of conventions, Novitz, D., ‘Conventions and the Growth of Pictorial Style’, The British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 16 (4), 1976, 324–37; the proper representation of space, Hansen, R., ‘This Curving World: Hyperbolic Linear Perspective’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 32 (2), 1973, 147–61. Applications of the theory also abound, for example to caricature, in Ross, S., ‘Caricature’, The Monist, vol. 58 (2), 1974, 285–93, and to music, in Carrier, D., ‘Inter­ pre­ting Musical Performances’, The Monist, vol. 66 (2), 1983, 202–12. And one could mention many others.

1. Science 1. Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography, Glasgow 1976. Henceforth cited as: Unended Quest. 2. The Logic of Scientific Discovery, London 1959. Henceforth cited as: The Logic of Scientific Discovery. 3. See Economica, May and August 1944 and May 1955. Mind chose not to publish it in 1943. The Poverty of Historicism, London 1957. Henceforth cited as: The Poverty of Historicism. 4. See Popper: Unended Quest, 108; and Gombrich: II, 60. 5. Cf. Unended Quest, 110. 6. The Open Society and Its Enemies, Princeton 1971. Henceforth cited as: The Open Society and Its Enemies. 7. The book was finally published by George Routledge and Sons Ltd, London 1945. The American publishers had refused to print the book because of Popper’s irreverence towards Aristotle. 8. See Unended Quest, 119–20. 9. Ibid., 127.

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10. As Gombrich often says. 11. This was the Philip Maurice Deneke Lecture, delivered on 19 November 1967 and published by Oxford University Press in 1969. It was included in Ideals and Idols. 12. See, for example, the references to Popper in the footnotes to Ideals and Idols. Note that in the 207-page edition, the first twenty-three pages contain no quotations (although there are two mentions of Popper). See II, 28 n. 19, 54 n. 71, 57 n. 73, 60 n. 1, 61 n. 6 and n. 7, 62 n. 11, 67 n. 20, 73 n. 32, 77 n. 37, 79 n. 40, 83 n. 45, 85 n. 47, 92 n. 51, 103 n. 22, 112 n. 1, 116 n. 5, 125 n. 9, 126 n. 11, 135 n. 2, 143 n. 8, 184 n. 2. Popper is mentioned a further twenty-four times in the text. This list does not match the index of names given in the book, which does not include quotations. 13. See: POPPER, K., The Logic of Scientific Discovery, op. cit. 14. Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, Oxford 1972, cited henceforth as Objective Knowledge; and Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, reprinted edition, London 1981, cited henceforth as Conjectures and Refutations. 15. For example, ‘Creative Self-Criticism in Science and in Art’, Encounter LIII, 1979, 10–14. Cited in Gombrich’s Darwin Lecture in November of that year (cf. T, 205). 16. See, for example: HA, 49 n. 50, where Popper tells Gombrich of a paragraph from Plato’s Timaeus, or SI, 233 n. 102, where he cautions him against the theses of Whorf. 17. See for example ‘horizon of expectation’: AI, 60 and n.; also ‘original sin in the way of truth’, AI, 326 and n. 18. See particularly ‘The Open Society, a Comment’: 76; a caustic response in The British Journal of Sociology in December 1952 to a review of the second edition of The Open Society and Its Enemies by J. Plamenatz. Plamenatz had said in his review in the previous issue that the book consisted of a collection of errors, in particular in its interpretation of Plato’s words (an accusation frequently levelled against Popper). Gombrich refutes Plamenatz, point by point. Also ‘A Plea for Pluralism’ written in response to the book by Thomas Kuhn, Popper’s famous adversary, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago 1962. 19. See, for example: AI, 20 and n.; IE, 241 and n. 27; II, 28, 57 and n. 73, 60 and n. 1, 83 and n. 45, 89.

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20. Cf. The Poverty of Historicism, 44ff. 21. Ibid. 33. Popper has often been accused of failing to distinguish sufficiently between Aristotelian ‘abstractions’ and Plato’s pure ideas. Likewise, he seems to equate Aristotelian ‘abstraction’ with Francis Bacon’s ‘induction’. 22. Ibid., 31. 23. This claim is not as categorical in Popper’s writings as one might imagine. For a general view see: ARTIGAS, M., Karl Popper: Búsqueda sin término, Madrid 1979. 24. Unended Quest, 27. 25. Ibid., 24. 26. Ibid., 17. 27. The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. II, 221–2. 28. See in particular the articles on ‘Norm and form’: NF, 81–98; and ‘Style’: 105. Also: NF, 73; MH, 114 and n. 24. 29. See, for example: MH, 1; SI, 283 and n. 131. 30. See in particular his remarks in Art and Illusion, for example: AI, 28, 320–1. 31. See, for example: T, 22, 73, 179. 32. See in particular in SI: ‘Icones Symbolicae: Philosophies of Symbolism and their Bearing on Art’, sects. II, ‘The Didactic Tradition’ and III, ‘Neo-Platonism’. 33. See for example, AI, 100 and n., where he speaks of the ‘idea of mountaineity’. 34. Although the error is obvious, Gombrich habitually draws a distinction between the theories of the two greatest Greek thinkers. 35. See SO, x and n., where he denounces the pointlessness of certain attempts at definition and refers back to The Open Society and Its Enemies. 36. ‘Non aspettatevi, per favore, che io cominci con una mia definizione [. . .]’. 37. See, for example, a biographical anecdote in MH, xi; and another in T, 188. 38. Here too, he refers to The Open Society and Its Enemies. 39. BOAS: T, 181; KURZ: T, 249. 40. A good explanation of Popper’s theories can be found in MAGEE, B., Popper, London 1973. For a general overview see: PEREZ LABORDA, A., ¿Salvar lo real?, Madrid 1983. 41. See, for example: equivalence between inert and living beings: RH, 206. Equivalence between an organism’s sensorial perception and scientific investigation: IE, 179 and n. 12.

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42. See, for example: equivalence between human perception and scientific investigation: IE, 195; SO, 114 and n.; II, 54 and n. 71. Equivalence between scientific research and artistic tradition: IE, 216; MH, 126 and n. 26; AI, 320–1 and n.; I shall point out some important differences in this last equivalence below. 43. Cf. The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. II, 260. 44. For their mention of the ‘programmatic’ places in Gombrich’s work, see: Section VI of the Introduction to Art and Illusion: AI, 25ff. and notes; the section on ‘The emergence of prediction’ in ‘Illusion and Art’ 51, 208ff. and notes; Section I, ‘Order and Orientation’ of The Sense of Order: SO, 1ff. and notes. 45. The psychology of perception is, unquestionably, one of the fields in which Gombrich is most at home. As I have said, its relevance to this work is entirely marginal. I have already quoted James Jerome Gibson; it would be wrong not to cite these authors here. Gombrich collaborated with Gregory in Illusion in Nature and Art, London 1973, on an article entitled ‘Illusion and Art’ (51) from which I have quoted a number of times. Gregory and Gombrich exchanged taken ideas from their own fields. As well as Eye and Brain, New York 1966, see by the same author; The Intelligent Eye, London 1970. Julian Hochberg is another author with whom Gombrich exchanges ideas. See the index of names in SO. With him he wrote Art, Perception, and Reality, Baltimore 1980. It includes a chapter by Gombrich entitled ‘The Mask and the Face’, later published in IE. Finally, Neisser is one of the authors most frequently quoted by Gombrich in The Sense of Order. To the psychology of projection of the other authors, Neisser brings some elements of profound psychology. I shall therefore mention him again when discussing creation. His book Cognitive Psychology, New York 1967, is important. 46. See, for example: on the need for prior hypotheses in perception and know­ ledge: MH, 50 and n.; AI, 29 and n.; SO, 4 and n. On the need for general theories and hypotheses in humanities: MH, 110 and n. 17; II, 60–1. 47. Popper’s formula is ‘trial and error-elimination’, but it is the testing that prevails: testing means endeavouring to prove the error; discovery and acceptance of error enables advance. 48. See, for example: need for criticism or testing in knowledge and science: AI, 272 and n.; SO, 3 and n.; II, 84–5. Need for criticism in the humanities: AI, 388–9 and n.; II, 77 and n. 37, 79–80 and n. 40, 92 and n. 51; T, 15, 62 and

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n. 25. Need for criticism in art: IE, 216; T, 205; NF, 4 and n. 9; HA, 111 and n. 3; RH, 195. 49. Cf. POPPER, K., ‘The Logic of Social Sciences’, in ADORNO, T. W., Positivist Dispute in German Sociology, London 1976, 104. Cited henceforth as ‘The Logic of Social Sciences’. 50. Unended Quest, 149. See also: ‘the view proposed here hopefully adheres to the possibility of the growth of knowledge, and therefore of knowledge’: Objective Knowledge, 99. The underlining in both quotations is Popper’s. 51. See for example, AI, 87–8 and n.; 272f. and n. 52. Cf. ‘On the Theory of the Objective Mind’, in Objective Knowledge; particularly Sections 7 and 11. See also The Poverty of Historicism. 53. Cf. ‘The Logic of Social Sciences’, 90; Objective Knowledge, 162–3. 54. Cf. Objective Knowledge, 185. 55. Unended Quest, 60. 56. The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 38. 57. Unended Quest, 87. Although his stance has shifted somewhat over time, Popper does not accept metaphysics as a science. Therefore – for him – it is not rational to follow its propositions. And since only the rational may be true, in that sense it can never achieve something testable. As already mentioned, Popper does not distinguish between different types of know­ ledge: he seeks to reduce all knowledge to trial and error, so that it is subjected to testing. This goal contradicts our common experience of different types of knowledge. 58. ‘The Logic of Social Sciences’, 99. 59. Objective Knowledge, 37. 60. Unended Quest, 145. 61. Ibid., 86. 62. Ibid., 85–6. 63. ‘The Logic of Social Sciences’, 88. 64. The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. II, 225. 65. Cf. The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. II, 222. 66. Popper explicitly states that the human mind is an ‘organ for interacting’ between World 3 and the real world; it takes objects from World 3 and makes them impact the real world: cf. Objective Knowledge, 156. 67. Ibid., 300.

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68. Ibid., 160–1. 69. Ibid., 159–60. 70. POPPER, K., ‘Replies to my Critics’, in SCHILPP, P. A. (ed.), The Philosophy of Karl Popper, La Salle (IL) 1974. Henceforth cited as: SCHILPP. 71. Objective Knowledge, 161. 72. Unended Quest, 187. 73. Objective Knowledge, 121. 74. Unended Quest, 196. 75. Objective Knowledge, 161. 76. SCHILPP, 1175–6. 77. Unended Quest, 196. 78. SCHILPP, 1179. 79. Ibid., 1178–9. 80. Ibid., 1178. 81. Apart from the references in the text, probably the most important development of this idea is in ‘Illusion and Art’ (51), a clear complement to Art and Illusion. Gombrich argues that Trigger Theory explains the presence of the illusion in nature. Art takes advantage of this phenomenon. 82. See, for example: MH, 5ff.; –102ff.; 39, 56; 51, 200, 206, 208, 217; T, 194–6; IE, 286–9; SO, 114 n. 83. See, for example, the indexes of names in MH, AI, SO and IE. See above all by this author: On Aggression, London 1976 and Behind the Mirror, New York 1978. Gombrich also turned to another well-known disciple of Lorenz, Otto Koenig with his book Urmotiv Auge: Neuentdeckte Grundzüge menschlichen Verhaltens, Munich 1975. In this book, Koenig discusses Gombrich’s favourite signal: the eyes. Gombrich also quotes another well-known author, Nikko Tinbergen, with whom he appears to be more on the same wavelength (cf. 51, 222; also: 39, 48). By the same author, see: Social Behaviour in Animals, London 1953. 84. See, for example: 29, 226; T, 195. In IE, 286 he mentions a similar case; and he also speaks less directly about it in his Story of Art: SA, 24. Elsewhere – 51, 204 – he remarks that, at the time of writing his history, he had been unaware of the importance, strength and immediacy of this type of response.

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2. The Joke 1. See, for example: MH, 45ff., 120ff., 127ff.; AI, 290–358; IE, 105–36; SO, 290; HA, 57–75; 14; 28; 56; 83; 84; 89; 90; 121; and many other scattered references. 2. Gombrich once mentioned that his mother was related to the paediatrician Kasowitz, who frequented Sigmund Freud’s circle. However he does not appear to have met him personally: cf. 46, 8. 3. Vienna, 1924. 4. La Letteratura Artistica, 3ª edn (traduzione di Filipo Rossi; aggiornata da Otto Kurz), Firenze 1964, xi. 5. ROAZEN, P., Freud and his Followers, New York 1975, 447. 6. ROAZEN, P., op. cit., 447. 7. ‘Die Charakterköpfe des Franz Xaver Messerschmidt: Versuch einer historischen und psychologischen Deutung’ in Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammhungen in Wien, n.s., 6, 1932, 169–228. 8. Die Legende von Künstler, Vienna 1934; published in English as: Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist, London 1979. 9. See KRIS, E., Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art, New York 1962, 15. 10. See ‘Book Three: The Last Phase’ in JONES, E., The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, Harmondsworth 1964. 11. To this day, psychoanalysis follows the same trend. Recently, Dr Theodore Shapiro, editor of the Psychoanalytic Quarterly, complained that for the humanities departments, psychoanalysis continued to be a ‘one-man science’: just Freud. See: GELMAND, D., ‘The Legacy of Freud’ in Newsweek, 4 July 1988, 36. 12. WAELDER, R., ‘Psychoanalytic Avenues to Art’ in HOGG, J., Psychology and the Visual Arts, Harmondsworth 1970, 94. The short testimony by Waelder is significant in that he was one of the authors who tried to present Freud as being alert to the needs of the spirit. Waelder called this the ‘id approach’. 13. ‘Eine Kindheitserinnerung des Leonardo da Vinci’ (1910) and ‘Dostoievski un die Vatertötung’ (1928). 14. Cf. WAELDER, R., op. cit., 95–6. 15. For this opinion, see SPECTOR, J. J., The Aesthetics of Freud, New York 1973, 117. I refer to this work with its extensive bibliography.

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16. Cf. KRIS, E., Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art, New York 1962, 16–23. 17. KRIS, E., op. cit., 20. 18. Ibid., 21. 19. Ibid., 27. 20. Ibid., 31. 21. Ibid., 300–1. 22. Ibid., 139 and n. 18. 23. Ibid., 300. 24. Vienna, 1905. 25. Vienna, 1929. A reprint has since been published: Vienna, 1979. 26. According to one author, this exposition is ‘an achievement in itself ’: cf. EHRENZWEIG, A., ‘A New Psychoanalytical Approach to Aesthetics’, in HOGG, J., op. cit., 111. 27. ‘Der Humor’, Almanach für das Jahr, Vienna, 1928, 9–16. 28. Cf. ROAZEN, P., op. cit., 183–4. 29. For all matters related to Kris, and the mutual influence with Hartmann, see: ROSA, M. R. de, Ernst Kris: Psicoanalisi e teoria dell’arte, Roma 1987, 12ff. 30. See for example, FROMM, E., The Crisis of Psychoanalysis, London 1971, 33ff. 31. Cf. FREUD, S., The Ego and the Id, also ‘The Unconscious’. The complete works of Freud have been published in Spain with differing fortune. An overall assessment, excellently written and still relevant, can be found in the book by Juan J. López Ibor, La agonía del psicoanálisis, 5th edition, Madrid 1973. I have also drawn on POL AINO-LOR ENTE, A., La metapsicología freudiana, Piura 1984, and, by the same author: Acotaciones a la antropología de Freud, Madrid 1981. 32. KRIS, E., op. cit., 15–16. 33. Ibid., 16. 34. SPECTOR, J., op. cit., 109. 35. EHRENZWEIG, A., op. cit., 128. 36. Ibid. 37. For a broader assessment, see: ROSA, M.R. de, op. cit., 64–77 and 101–10. My short summary does not match that of this author in some points. To my way of thinking, she views Gombrich through an overly psychoanalytical prism. Along these lines one could quote TR IM A RCO, A., L’inconscio

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dell’opera: sociologia e psiconalisi dell’arte, Roma 1974; idem, Itinerari Freudiani, Roma 1979. For the expression ‘guide and mentor’, see for example: MH, 53; AI, 30. 38. Gombrich often refers to these works; see: T, 14, 223; 103, 127. It was his first publication: 114. 39. KRIS, E. and KURZ, O., Legend, Myth and Magic in the Image of the Artist, London 1979. 40. The complete title is: Ausdruckstheorie: Das System an der Geschichte aufgezeigt, Jena 1933. 41. Jena 1934. English translation: Theory of Language, Amsterdam 1990. 42. KRIS, E., op. cit., chapter 8. See: T, 230. 43. KRIS, E., op. cit., chapter 7. See: 54, 2. 44. Harmondsworth 1940. On all these matters, see: 54, 2. 45. See also: KRIS, E., op. cit., 21. Other references in 38, 37. 46. See: KRIS, E., op. cit., chapter 10. 47. He has said so in many contexts. See for example: MH, 36–7 and n. 14; IE, 304 n. 12; 38, 37f.; 82, 348; 6, 163. Freud, apparently, thought he had set out some interesting points. On this matter, see SPECTOR, J., op. cit., 112–13. He is somewhat critical of Gombrich, but Gombrich’s claim is corroborated by WAELDER, R., op. cit., 102, and many others. At the same time, Gombrich knew Kris very well. 48. See: KRIS, E., op. cit., 296–7. 49. See, for example: KRIS, E., op. cit., 39–47. Also: MH, 55 and n. 18. 50. Cf. KRIS, E., op. cit., 20. 51. Ibid., 21. 52. Ibid., 47. 53. See, for example: MH, 7, 13, 137. 54. See, for example: 82, 243; 47, 34. 55. The Interpretation of Dreams, Harmondsworth 1976 and Civilization and its Discontents, London 1973. 56. Even in his bibliography: it is surprising to see that in AI, 357 n., when he speaks of the ‘unconscious’, a key concept in Freud, he refers to a book by E. Glover, Freud or Jung?, New York 1950, as ‘concise summary of the Freudian view’. Although AI is full of notes, many from specialist literature, there are no bibliographical references to any books by Freud.

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57. See, for example: MH, 36–7 and 130; IE, 154–5 and n. 12; SO, 272; NF, 77; 42, 18; 6, 163. 58. The same observation in: MH, 13; SI, 189. 59. In an article written in 1954, ‘Leonardo: The Grotesque Heads’: HA, 57–75, in note 28, he also refers to this subject, arguing that if Freud ‘had been even a mediocre historian instead of a great psychologist’ he would not have confused a vulture with a kite. 60. The English edition was published between 1953 and 1974. 61. Briefe 1873–1939, Frankfurt 1960. English version: Letters of Sigmund Freud 1873–1939, London 1961. 62. The letter was written to the painter Hermann Struck, on 7 November 1914; See: Letters of Sigmund Freud, op. cit., 311–13. However, the same selection contains another letter written on 1 October 1911 to the philosopher Else Voigtländer, in which Freud recommended his Da Vinci as an example of the influence of childhood experiences on all our subsequent lives: ibid., 292–4. On this occasion, Freud appears to have no reservations.

3. Play 1. While one could cite many other examples, see for instance: AI, 120ff.; IE, 206ff.; II, 80ff., 152ff., 205ff.; 82, 244; as well as the references mentioned herein. 2. HUIZINGA, J., Homo Ludens, Boston 1955. 3. Gombrich must also have been familiar with the theory of art as play from other sources. His education would undoubtedly have brought him into contact with Schiller’s ideas on the theme. Schiller’s theories were echoed by Konrad Lange, who clearly saw the response to art in terms of a children’s game. Karl Bühler, too, addressed the subject skilfully, albeit briefly, in his Die geistige Entwicklung des Kindes, Jena 1930, which is essential reading on the matter. In it, he devoted his attention to the ‘Funktionslust’. See BÜHLER, K., op. cit., 459ff. Freud, too, touches on the subject in his discussion of psychopathic characters on stage, and through him it can also be found in Ernst Kris’s work. For the latter, see Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art, op. cit., 42, where Kris says that ‘here lie the roots of aesthetic illusion’. However, it is to Huizinga that Gombrich refers when discussing play.

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4. Cf. HUIZINGA, J., Homo ludens, op. cit., ix and 5. 5. Ibid., x. 6. Ibid., 5. 7. Ibid., ix and 4. 8. Ibid., 7. 9. Ibid., 48. 10. Ibid., 119. 11. Ibid., 122. 12. Ibid., 129. 13. Ibid., 132–4. 14. Ibid., 142. 15. Ibid., 168. 16. Ibid., 172. 17. Ibid., 212. 18. HUIZINGA, J., The Waning of the Middle Ages, New York 1954. 19. Huizinga refers to ‘pretending’ in several places in his work. Perhaps the most compelling example can be found in chapter 15 of The Waning, ‘Symbolism in Its Decline’, 200–14. 20. There are differences between the English translation, by Huizinga himself, and the Dutch original. 21. Huizinga used this English word in his original Dutch. 22. See, for example: HUIZINGA, J., Homo ludens, 8, 22, 119–35. 23. See by Gombrich: II, 62f., and by HUIZINGA, J., op. cit., 58ff. 184–6. 24. Cf. HUIZINGA, J., op. cit., 11. 25. Ibid. 11.

4. Rhetoric 1. Bern 1948. English edition: CURTIUS, E. R., European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, New York 1953. 2. See, for example: 19, 173; 40, 266; 105, 354. 3. See the wonderful praise of continuity in the epilogue: 391–7. The author uses the example of Spanish literature. 4. Ibid., chapters IV and V; for the exact quotation: 128. 5. Ibid., 82ff., 101f. and 105.

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6. See also: NL, 133ff. 7. See, inter alia: SI, 129; IE, 104. 8. See, inter alia: NF, 123ff.; 82, 244. 9. See also: 40, 267.

5. Vasari and the Classical Theory 1. Original quote in: VASARI, G., The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, London 1946, vol. I, 203.

6. Beauty as the Objective 1. NEWTON, E., Harmondsworth 1962. 2. BURKE, E., A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, London 1757. 3. PANOFSKY, E., Idea: A Concept in Art Theory, New York 1968.

7. Art and Progress 1. IV INS, W. M., Prints and Visual Communication, London 1953. 2. See M ÂLE, E., L’art religieux du XII siècle en France: Etude sur les origines de l’iconographie du Moyen Age, Paris 1966.

9. Primitivism 1. LOVEJOY, A. O. and BOAS, G., Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity, volume one of the series A Documentary History of Primitivism and Related Ideas, New York 1965. 2. See, for example: 120, 58. 3. Goethe is one of the favourite authors of Gombrich: a man with the necessary sensitivity to appreciate existing values in very different arts. See: 48, 109, 112. 4. Gombrich’s insistence on ‘curtain material’ is interesting. This same idea can also be found in: SO, 62. 5. See also: SA, 416–17; 29, 227; 65, 21.

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6. See also: SA, 436; 57, 21; 85, 795. 7. See also: IE, 13–14; RH, 12 and 17.

10. Art and Metaphor 1. As I have said elsewhere, Gombrich bases himself on authors who view perception as a hypothesis. In this regard, I think it is important to make reference to Richard Gregory: see the section on ‘Seeing’ in Eye and Brain, New York 1966, 7–12. With regard to Gombrich’s own writings, see the section ‘The Emergence of Prediction’ in ‘Illusion and Art’: 51, 208–14. 2. Cf. POPPER, K., ‘The Propensity Interpretation of Probability’ in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 10 (37), May 1959, 29ff. 3. Cf. POPPER, K., Unended Quest, 21. 4. Cf. PEREZ LABORDA, A., ¿Salvar lo real?, Madrid 1983, 328–32. 5. Cf. POPPER, K., Unended Quest, op. cit., 19. 6. I cannot develop this point here. I refer the reader to The Sense of Order: SO, 1ff. and 95ff. The relationships between sense of order and sense of meaning are discussed in: SO, 6, 102, 140, 141, 146, 151–2, 158, 208. I shall discuss this matter at greater length in the chapter on understanding: the search for meaning. 7. See: SO, 1–2; AI, 28, 63 and n.; II, 28, 86. 8. The expression ‘cognitive map’ derives from animal experimentation and it was coined by E. C. Tolman. See: ‘Cognitive Maps in Rats and Men’ in Psychological Review, vol. 55 (4), July 1948, 189–208. See also Gombrich’s suggestion in AI, 28 n. 9. BRUNER, J.S., ‘On Perceptual Readiness’ in Psychological Review, vol. 64 (2), March 1957, 123–52. 10. The example is suggested in CHER RY, C., On Human Communication, London 1966, 88. Gombrich refers to it on several occasions. See: MH, 60, 98, 111; AI, 39 n., 88 n., 205 n., 275 n. 11. In any case, the notion of language as organon can be traced back to Plato. Gombrich is probably referring to BÜHLER: in his Theory of Language, Amsterdam 1990, 30–9, he tried to recoup this notion. 12. See WHORF: Language, Thought and Reality, New York 1956. Whorf develops what is called the hypothesis of linguistic relativity with some very striking

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examples. Both linguists and psychologists, even while recognising its appeal, have noted its extrapolation. 13. See: POPPER, K., ‘The Myth of the Framework’ in The Abdication of Philosophy and the Public Good, edited by E. Freeman, La Salle (IL) 1976, 23–48. 14. See, for example: MH, 14ff., 48ff.; SI, 139–45, 165–8, 190–1. 15. Pay special attention to: AI, 366–71, and bibliographical references: 437; and the article ‘Visual Metaphors of Value in Art’: MH, 12–29. 16. See the indexes of AI and MH; also: 28, 193; 57, 19; 70, 181; 111, 161–2. 17. OSGOOD, Ch. E., SUCI, G. J. and TANNENBAUM, P. H., The Measurement of Meaning, London 1967. 18. Ibid., 9. 19. Ibid., 30. 20. Ibid., 331. 21. Ibid., 72–3. 22. See ‘Towards a Rational Theory of Tradition’ in Conjectures and Refutations, reprinted edition, London 1981.

11. Mastery 1. In his brief autobiographic account, Gombrich mentions that he is in the habit of listening to music by second-rate composers from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This enables him more fully to appreciate the genius of Mozart or Haydn; see: 103, 137.

12. Style 1. KUBLER, G., The Shape of Time, London 1962. Gombrich has cited him on other occasions too: SO, 210–12. 2. ACKERMAN, J. and CARPENTER, R., Art and Archaeology, Englewood Cliffs 1963. Another book that Gombrich quotes more frequently; see: 105 and in II, various articles. 3. MALRAUX, A., Le musée imaginaire de la sculpture mondiale, Paris 1952–4, among several others. For his assessment of Malraux’s work, see the generally very harsh review, MH, 78ff. For The Metamorphosis of the Gods, there

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is another review in RH, 218ff.; and an overview of his work in ‘Malraux’s Philosophy of Art in Historial Perspective’, 70. 4. CURTIUS, E. R., European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, New York 1953. 5. RIEGL, A., Problems of Style, Princeton 1992. In his student days, Gombrich enthused about this book, which helped him to see acanthus leaves in every building and object. He has always held Riegl in high esteem, even if he disagrees with his thesis on the ‘will-to-form’. As Gombrich himself recognises, his emphasis on the continuity of the formula undoubtedly owes much to this extraordinary book. See: 103, passim; and 68, 656ff. 6. POPPER, K., The Poverty of Historicism, London 1957. The book is filled with these kind of notes of warnings. 7. ‘Panofsky’s first problem’ is simply to find the relationship between thought and art. And its solution leads to his book: Gothic Architecture and Schol­ asticism, London 1976, ‘another attempt’, says Gombrich, ‘to justify the Hegelian tradition of governing spirits’ (SO, 199). 8. PRAZ, M., Mnemosyne: The Parallel between Literature and the Visual Arts, London 1970. Mario Praz is known for his studies of literature. Gombrich, in his review, says that he can imagine no greater pleasure than to play with Professor Praz at finding analogies between different arts; yet it is a game that is as entertaining as it is simple. 9. Formgefühl is actually an expression that can be found in VISCHER, R., Das optische Formengefühl, 1872. 10. Here see Gombrich’s article on ‘Bonaventura Berlinghieri’s Palmettes’ (12). Using an altarpiece by the artist as his starting point, Gombrich goes on to discuss the stability of that motif in the Byzantine tradition, with reference to Riegl and Panofsky. 11. I shall enlarge on this idea later, with what I call ‘reference’, developing on one of Gombrich’s notions. 12. That is Gombrich’s interpretation. And that is the justification for Vitruvius’s ascription of orders to gods with different characters. However, the correspondence between gods (or goddesses) of a licentious nature and light orders does not require any theoretical justification. It seems natural. It is a question of decorum; see: AI, 373–5. 13. Petrarca, F., Rerum Familiarium, XXIII, 19, 12–3.

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14. The term ‘generalisation’ is commonplace in learning psychology. Here, as elsewhere, Gombrich uses more or less behaviourist terms, but he applies them more ambitiously and less rigorously.

13. Evolution 1. See also ‘The Renaissance: Period or Movement?’ (100), ‘Criteria of Periodization in the History of European Art’ (23, 124–5), and SO, 213–16 and ME. 2. This approach opens up an infinite field of ideas for Spanish art. One frequently sees relations between specific movements and forms in Spain; one need only recall the people of Córdoba’s animosity to the Almohans’ garb; the Christian aversion to the ‘Arabisation’ of the nobility’s attire; the Castilians objection to Flemish form of dress; and finally the distaste for French fashion. 3. These agents are discussed in the section entitled ‘Technology and Fashion’. 4. POT TER, S., The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship; or, The Art of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating, London 1947. 5. See, for example: HA, 94 and 100; 101, 199; 103, 135. 6. Gombrich uses this same example to describe movements in style in The Sense of Order, as applied to the Austrian Baroque; see: 59. 7. The second section of ‘The Logic of Vanity Fair’ is entitled ‘Competition and Inflation’: II, 62ff. 8. GÖLLER, A., Zur Aesthetick der Architektur: Vorträge und Studien, Stuttgart 1887; and Die Entstehung der architectonischen Stilformen, Stuttgart 1888. Both texts are very difficult to get hold of. There is a short and unfavourable commentary in WÖL F F LIN, H., Renaissance and Baroque, New York 1984, 74ff. 9. This is a very important notion for Gombrich and forms one of the central ideas of ‘The Logic of Vanity Fair’. It can be used to identify different stages; however, seen in this context, I believe it is not helpful to place too much emphasis on this aspect for fear of losing the thread of the argument. I consider the idea of ‘field of force’ – which I shall explain below – to be more important.

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14. Creation 1. The phrase is taken from the foreword of the seventh German edition of Principles of Art History. 2. See also 38, 37. 3. See Topos and Topicality in Renaissance Art (107), which addresses the theme of excess in the interpretation of the commonplace. 4. See, for example: II, 126 or AI, 168. 5. See 40, 267; NF, 98. 6. Cf. NEISSER, U., ‘sequential and multiple processing’ in ‘The Multiplicity of Thought’, British Journal of Psychology, vol. 54 (1), 1963, 1–14. See also his Cognitive Psychology, 296ff. 7. I use the expression ‘unconscious’ here in that somewhat vague sense employed in psychology to describe a certain abandonment of present consciousness. Clearly someone who was actually unconscious would be incapable of acting. Freud’s psychology allows Gombrich to address this theme; if Freud was wrong in describing the topic of the unconscious and its motivations, he was right in highlighting the importance of this world, removed from present consciousness; this is why he was so successful. 8. The idea that children learn language by playing and experiencing functional pleasure did not originate with Freud. Nonetheless, he used it and it was from him that Gombrich took it. See BÜHLER, K., Die geistige Entwicklung des Kindes, Jena 1930, 460–1. 9. See NL, 139–41; RH, 137–9; T, 202 and 205; more generally in: RH, 91–6. 10. See 59, 7–10, where Gombrich discusses the traditions of the Austrian arts from this perspective. ‘The Beauty of Old Towns’ is devoted entirely to this theme (RH, 195–204), particularly architecture. Also ‘Why Preserve Historic Buildings?’ (81, 115–38). 11. Showing a love of reasonable traditionalism, in reference to Edmund Burke, the Irish political theorist known for his pro-Whig stance. 12. See: POPPER, K. R., The Open Society and Its Enemies, Princeton 1971. 13. Gombrich’s attitude also extends to painting. Ensure that the restoration is correct, he advises: if there is a danger that it may not be, it is best to leave things as they are. See: 11; 21; 72; etc. 14. See, for example: MH, 10; AI, 221–2; NF, 60; HA, 41–3, 63.

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15. I am not referring to an entirely conscious will, but to the attention required by the creation I have described. The artist cannot plan all the details, even of a line: cf. AI, 357; but there are details that are potentially worthy of attention and others that are not. On this subject and others discussed below, see Art and Illusion, Chapter II, entitled ‘Truth and the Stereotype’ (AI, 63–90); also: AI, 93ff.; SO, 208 may refer to architecture.

15. Expression 1. See, for example: MH, 25 where Gombrich uses the following meanings almost indistinctly. 2. See, for example: MH, 73. 3. See also: MH, 5–7; SO, 388; II, 20. 4. CHERRY, C., On Human Communication, London 1966. See 65–7 on this example, and information as a choice between alternatives. For his consideration of the scale, see 169ff., and for recognition in general, 258ff. 5. For example, as a postscript to this article ‘Action and Expression in Western Art’, originally published in 1970, he added an epilogue for its inclusion in The Image and Eye, published in 1982. In this short ‘update’, he briefly summarised the content of the Japan Foundation lecture: IE, 104 and n. 42. 6. See, for example: SI, 235 n. 131 where Gombrich discusses Richards’s opinion of abstraction in glowing terms. 7. See BÜHLER, K., Theory of Language, Amsterdam 1990, 34ff. 8. It is difficult to ascertain the reason for this omission. See the chapter on ‘The Joke’, discussing the relationship between Gombrich and Karl Bühler. 9. MH, 12 n. 4; 14 n. 11. 10. See, for example: ‘They are symbols, not symptoms [. . .]’, MH, 44. 11. For Richards, for example, as Gombrich notes. See: RH, 246. 12. Bühler, although he understood the breadth of this matter, was not entirely satisfied by the James-Lange theory. 13. Gombrich develops this idea in a splendid article entitled ‘Action and Expression in Western Art’: IE, 78–104. See, for example, Section 7, ‘The Chorus Effect’: IE, 89ff. 14. The first idea can perhaps be attributed to Danish scholar C. G. Lange. But it was elaborated by the famous American psychologist William James. The

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key book on the subject is LANGE, C. G., The Emotions, Baltimore 1922 (the original edition is from 1885); and JAMES, W. ‘What is an Emotion?’, Mind, vol. 9, 1884, 188–205, which had a great impact. Recent research broadly corroborates this theory. 15. The most important of these examples comes from the article ‘Four Theories . . .’ (42), which introduces Gombrich’s fourth theory. It is, therefore, a necessary step in this explanation. In IE, 74 he applies this principle to figuration. In T, 196, Gombrich, who mentions in passing Warburg’s interest in this theory, uses it in his argument without explicitly mentioning it. 16. This is one of Gombrich’s favourite examples. He heard it from no less a figure than M. H. Pirenne. 17. Gombrich says he took this example from a classical philologist. 18. AUERBACH, E., Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, Princeton 1953. 19. CURTIUS, E. R., European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, New York 1953, chapters 5 and 6. 20. ‘Some Psychoanalytic Comments on “Culture and Personality” ’, in Psychoanalysis and Culture, ed. George Wilbur and Wener Muensterberger, New York 1951, 3–31. He refers back to this article when discussing the ‘biological unity of mankind’: AI, 22 and n. This is a key article in Kris’s career, in which he seeks to link patterns of social behaviour with biological propensities, while rejecting the elementary evolutionism defended by Freud. 21. In a text as important as SO, 18. 22. Here he is referring to Panofsky’s capital study, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St. Denis and its Art Treasures, Princeton 1946. The quotation is complimentary but expressed with a certain distance that reveals Gombrich’s cautious position: he seems to be saying that while the analysis of the philosophical background is correct, at heart, Suger is referring to a commonplace. 23. Gombrich often cites this example. He used it in 1935 in his review of the thesis by his friend Bodony on the gilded backgrounds to paintings; see: 88, 74; and in other important works; see: HA, 1–35, on the treatment of light and gold in painting. 24. Cistercians and Cluniacs: St. Bernard’s Apologia to Abbot William, Kalamazoo 1970, 33–69.

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25. See also 70, 177, where Gombrich applies it to the fear of the petty-bourgeois; and SO, 34, on the art of the nineteenth century. The educated rejection of the mannered leads to primitivism. I deal with this subject at length in the second part of this work. 26. Ad Pisones, 102–3.

16. Understanding 1. New Haven 1967; Gombrich also cites, by the same author, The Aims of Interpretation, Chicago 1978. See, for example: RH, 86 and 110. 2. See HIRSCH, E. D., Validity in Interpretation, New Haven 1967, 104. 3. Cf. HIRSCH, E. D., op. cit., 104. 4. See also: SI, 173; SO, 257, 273. 5. See BÜHLER, K., Theory of Language, Amsterdam 1990, 50ff. 6. See, for example, Gombrich’s remark on an attempted symbolic interpre­ tation of the Arabesque as a refusal to accept the autonomy of decorative design: SO, 224–5 and n. 7. See: ‘Botticelli’s Mythologies’: SI, 31–81; and more recently: ‘A note on Giorgone’s “Three philosophers” ’: 73, 488. 8. There is now an Italian translation in Quaderni di Palazzo Té, n. 1, Mantua, July–December 1984. 9. See, for example: AI, 5, 238 and 395; IE, 35–6; and SO, 144–5, 158 and 300. In SO, 300, Gombrich refers to music. The enharmonic notes that enable changes in tonality could be compared to this illustration. 10. WITTGENSTEIN, L., Philosophical Investigations, Oxford 1963, 196–7; also AI, 5 and n.; this is one of the few occasions when Gombrich cites this author. 11. On this issue, see, inter alia, the article: ‘The Mask and the Face’: IE, 105–36. 12. See: KRIS, E., Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art, New York 1962. 13. See, for example: AI, 8, 126, 127, 139; IE, 171; SO, 256; even architecture shares that category: NL, 170. 14. KRIS, E., Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art, New York 1962, 47. 15. See, for example: MH, 116, 124; AI, 103, 280; 99, 198; 51, 221, 223. 16. Gombrich quotes Bruner in glowing terms, and in particular (as I have already mentioned), one essential article: ‘On Perceptual Readiness’. It is from here that he takes this concept that Bruner has used on other

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occasions. See also: MH, 48 n. 5; AI, 28–9 and n., 60 n., 88 n., 226 n., 228 n., 272 n.; IE, 204; 51, 208; and T, 258 n. 31. 17. See, for example: SO, 107; IE, 78, 87–8, 90, 95, 99, 100, 116, 145, 159, 171, 180, 181, 220, 266, 272; RH, 86; 39, 40, 72; 84, 227. 18. Quoted by Gombrich in IE, 171. The poem can be found in KEATS, J., Selected Poems, London 1959, 258: Ode on a Grecian Urn. 19. Although strictly speaking, Gombrich is referring here to symbols, he appears to be saying that it can be applied to the entire spectrum of art. See in particular his heated response to Bauer when the latter tried to use some of the arguments of Sedlmayr. Gombrich replied that he has ‘tried to say something about the approach to the “ineffable” through images [and that] even the experience of “profundity” can be discussed rationally and not [. . .] irreverently’: 87, 309. 20. See also: SI, 36. 21. The expression appears in BARTLETT, F. C., Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology, Cambridge 1961. By Gombrich, see SO, 102, 264; IE, 51, 60, 61, 179, 206, 289; 39, 66; 119, 147; 51, 203, 210; ME, 21, etc. In AI, 74 n. and 77 he cited this work without employing Bartlett’s expression. 22. See in particular the article: ‘Visual Discovery through Art’, 29, 215–38. 23. See: AI, 14–15, 89, 172, 186, 204, 223, 225–6, 296, 301–3. 24. See: SO, 2–3, 9–10, 12 and particularly the section ‘Expectation and Extrapolation’: 105–8; idem, 131, 137, 288, 298, 304. 25. See, for example: IE, 45, 49, 52, 170. 26. Empathy has a bad name in art. It is the property by which the spectator projects life into inert forms. In the classical order, the column is interpreted as straining to hold up the architrave. Gombrich seems to accept that empathy exists in some cases (cf. SO, 176), but refuses to accept that we are entitled to project a specific character (cf. SO, 199 and 214–15). He appears to interpret it in exactly the opposite way: the capacity to respond to a tone that exists within a context. Thus he speaks of ‘imaginative empathy’ (IE, 100) and ‘historical empathy’ (II, 182), and in some other cases, ‘imaginative sympathy’ (T, 24). In ‘The Mask and the Face’ it is used several times to describe our interpretation of others’ faces through a certain similar reaction we feel in ourselves (cf. IE, 128–33). In The Sense of Order, he uses the notion proposed by Ulric Neisser: SO, 201. See also: IE, 273 n. 31. His definition does not seem clear.

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17. Interpretation 1. See: AI, 388–9 on the possibility of mistaken reactions and the role of a rational approach in scholarship. 2. The example Gombrich uses is that of the hieroglyph. Many years before, in 1949, he used this same example in his review of Charles Morris’s book Signs, Language and Behavior. He also referred to the remarkable case in which Millard Meiss predicted that an altarpiece was missing a painting of St Augustin, which was unexpectedly turned up a short time afterwards by Kenneth Clark (RH, 243). 3. He uses this example in: 39, 73 and 75; and also in: II, 117. 4. See also: RH, 244. 5. On the ‘academic industry’, see: Idola academica in: II, 118ff., and ‘Academic Attitudes’ in: II, 56–9. 6. See for example: SI, 203 n. 17 and n. 20, 205 n. 27, 211 n. 94, 213 n. 113, 214 n. 121, 219 n. 179; SO, 85–7 n., 224 n., 244 n., to mention just two of his books. 7. In his lecture on ‘The Tradition of General Knowledge’ he even proposed a cultural ‘creed’: cf. II, 21ff. 8. See also: MH, 106–7. 9. See also: T, 7–9. 10. See also: T, 21 and ff.

Postscript 1. Gombrich, E. H., The Heritage of Apelles: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance (Phaidon, London 1976). 2. See my lecture on Gombrich delivered on 16 May 2012, at the Institut für Kunstgeschichte, University of Vienna, where he was a student of Julius von Schlosser; ‘History of Art Criticism’, Journal of Art Historiography, no. 7 (December 2012), 2–13. 3. Mitter, P., ‘Ludwig Bachhofer’s Early Indian art and Wölfflin’s Principles of Art History’, in Matteo Burioni and Burcu Dogramaci, Ulrich Pfesterer, eds, Kunstgeschichten 1915: 100 Jahre Heinrich Wölfflin: Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe (Dietmar Klinger Verlag 2015).

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4. Clark, K., The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (Bollingen Foundation, Pantheon, New York 1956). 5. Recently there has been a reappraisal of Otto Kurz. See Keating, J., ‘Otto Kurz’s Global Vision’, in Daniel Savoy, ed., The Globalization of Renaissance Art (Brill, Leiden/Boston 2022), 45–66. 6. The comment in 1955 at a lecture given by him at the University of Durham on Rafael’s Madonna della Sedia, later published as ‘Raphael’s Madonna della Sedia’, in Gombrich, Norm and Form: Studies in the art of the Renaissance (Phaidon Press, London 1966), 64. 7. Gombrich, E. H., The Story of Art (Phaidon, London 1967; revised and enlarged edition), 5, on the quotation. 8. Gombrich, E. H., Art and Illusion (Phaidon, London 1960). An early disappointment: Krieger, M., ‘The Ambiguities of Representation and Illusion: An E. H. Gombrich Retrospective’, Critical Inquiry, vol. 11, no. 2 (December 1984), 181–94. There is also Gombrich’s response. Kreiger’s essay is angry and intemperate but he acknowledges the art historian’s impact on a whole generation of thinking about art and literature. 9. Leppmann, W., Winckelmann (Alfred Knopf, New York 1970), especially 261–300. On James Fergusson, see Mitter, P., ‘Western Bias in the Study of South Indian Aesthetics’, South Asian Review, vol. 6, no. 2 (January 1973), 125–36. 10. Gombrich, E. H., ‘Norm and Form: The Stylistic Categories of Art History and their Origins in Renaissance Ideals’, Norm and Form: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance (Phaidon, London 1966), 83. 11. See Mitter, P., ‘The Paradox of Ernst H. Gombrich’, in Sybille Moser-Ernst, ed., Art and the Mind: Mit dem Steckenferd unterwegs (V & R Unipress, GmbH and Universität Innsbruck 2018), 315–29. Here I offer an assessment of Gombrich as one of the radical thinkers of the twentieth century. I am indebted to Richard Woodfield’s explanation of the role of Gestalt in Gombrich, and Viennese sematological analysis that explored the linguistics of an image. Woodfield, ‘Iconology and the Linguistic of the Image’, Journal of Art Historiography, no. 5 (December 2011), 1–25. 12. Eribon, D., A Lifelong Interest (Thames & Hudson, London 1993) who did an extensive interview with him before his passing. In this insightful essay, Eribon provides clues as to the radical reputation of Gombrich in France, as a pathbreaker in postmodernist thought.

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E. H. Gombrich: Specific Bibliography and Abbreviations

Books AI Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation, New York 1960. AW Aby Warburg: An Intellectual Biography, 2nd edition, Oxford 1986. H A The Heritage of Apelles: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance, Oxford 1976. IE The Image and the Eye: Further Studies in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation, Oxford 1982. II Ideals and Idols: Essays on Values in History and in Art, Oxford 1979. K W Eine kurze Weltgeschichte für junge Leser, Cologne 1985. Re-edition of Weltgeschichte von der Urzeit bis zur Gegenwart, Vienna 1935. ME Means and Ends: Reflections on the History of Fresco Painting, London 1976. MH Meditations on a Hobby Horse and Other Essays on the Theory of Art, London 1963.

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NF Norm and Form: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance, 2nd edition, London 1971. NL New Light on Old Masters: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance IV, Oxford 1986. R H Reflections on the History of Art: Views and Reviews, edited by Richard Woodfield, Oxford 1987. SA The Story of Art, 15th edition, Oxford 1989. SI Symbolic Images: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance, reprinted edition, London 1975. SO The Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art, 2nd edition, Oxford 1984. T Tributes: Interpreters of our Cultural Tradition, Oxford 1984.

Articles and Other Texts 1 ‘Aby Warburg, 1866–1929’ in Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 11 December 1966. 2 ‘The Achievement of Sir Karl Popper’ in The Listener, 24 August 1972, 225–9. 3 ‘Die Ambraser Kunstsammlung und die Dichterin Lilly Sauter’ in Das Fenster: Tiroler Kulturzeitschrift, vol. 15, 1974–5, 1538–44. 4 ‘Art and Propaganda’ in The Listener, 7 December 1939, 1118–20. 5 ‘Art and Education: VIII, Some Trends and Experiments Abroad’ in The Listener, 21 September 1939, 564–5. 6 ‘Art History and Psychology in Vienna Fifty Years Ago’ in Art Journal, vol. 44 (2), 1984, 162–4. 7 The Ideas of Progress and their Impact on Art, New York 1971 (edition privately circulated). Includes two conferences: ‘From Classicism to Primitivism’, 2–41; and ‘From Romanticism to Modernism’, 42–89. 8 ‘The Artist and the Art of War’ in The Listener, 29 August 1940, 311–12. 9 ‘Back from Oblivion’, review of Francis Haskell, Past and Present in Art and Taste: Selected Essays, in New York Review of Books, 25 June 1987, 25–7. 10 ‘Beroaldus on Francia’ (written with Michael Baxandall) in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 25, 1962, 113–15. 11 ‘Blurred Images and the Unvarnished Truth’ in The British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 2, 1962, 170–9. 12 ‘Bonaventura Berlinghieri’s Palmettes’ in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 39, 1976, 234–6.

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13 ‘From Careggi to Montmartre: A Footnote to Erwin Panofsky’s Idea’ in ‘Il se rendit in Italie’: Etudes offertes à André Chastel, Paris–Roma 1987, 667–77. 14 ‘Cartoons and Progress’ in The Public’s Progress, edited by A. G. Weidenfeld, London 1947, 74–83. 15 ‘Celebrations in Venice of the Holy League and of the Victory of Lepanto’ in Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Art Presented to Anthony Blunt, London 1967, 62–8. 16 ‘Cities, Courts and Artists’ in Past and Present, vol. 19, 1961, 19–25. Sum­ marised conference and colloquium. 17 ‘A Classical Quotation in Michael Angelo’s “Sacrifice of Noah” ’ in Journal of the Warburg Institute, vol. 1, 1937, 69. 18 ‘A Classical “Rake’s Progress” ’ in Journal of the Warburg Institute, vol. 15, 1952, 255–64. 19 ‘A Classical Topos in the Introduction to Alberti’s Della Pittura’ in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 20, 1957, 173. 20 ‘Commencement Address’ in The Curtis Institute of Music, 12 May 1973, 1–5 (edition privately circulated). 21 ‘Controversial Methods and Methods of Controversy’ in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 105, 1963, 90–3. 22 ‘ “Così Fan Tutte”, Procris Included’ in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 17, 1954, 372–3. 23 ‘Criteria of Periodization in the History of European Art. III: A Comment on H. W. Janson’s Article’ in New Literary History, vol. 1, 1970, 123–5. 24 ‘Ein chinesisches Gedicht – und was ihm bei Seiner Übertragung ins Deutche alles passieren könnte’ in Literarische Monatshefte, vol. 5, 1930, 12–13. 25 ‘Dark Varnishes: Variations on a Theme from Pliny’ in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 104, 1962, 51–5. 26 ‘Das Wesen der Karikatur’ in Veröffentlichungen der Evangelischen Akademie Tutzing: Jahrbuch, vol. 11, 1961, 287–96. 27 ‘The Debate on Primitivism in Ancient Rhetoric’ in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 29, 1966, 24–38. 28 ‘The Dream of Reason: Symbolism of the French Revolution’ in British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 2, 1979, 187–205. 29 ‘Visual Discovery through Art’ in Psychology and the Visual Arts, edited by James Hogg, Harmondsworth 1970, 215–38.

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30 ‘An Early Seventeenth-Century Canon of Artistic Excellence: Pierleone Casella’s Elogia illustrium artificum of 1606’ in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 50, 1987, 224–32. 31 ‘Elizabeth Gilmore Holt, 5 July 1905–26 January 1987’, obituary in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 129, 1987, 396. 32 ‘The Emptying of Museums’ in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 96, 1954, 58–61. 33 ‘English Masters of Black and White’, review of Daria Hambourg, Richard Doyle; Ruari McLean, George Cruickshank; and Francis Sarzano, Sir John Tenniel, in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 90, 1948, 153. 34 ‘Erica Tietze-Conrat (1883–1958)’, obituary in College Art Journal, vol. 18, 1959, 248. 35 ‘Ernst Gombrich Discusses the Concept of Cultural History with Peter Burke’ in The Listener, 27 December 1973, 881–3. 36 ‘Ernst Kris: Obituary’ in The Times, 23 March 1957. 37 ‘Erwin Panofsky’, obituary in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 110, 1968, 356–60. 38 ‘Freud’s Aesthetics’ in Encounter, vol. 26 (1), 1966, 30–40. 39 ‘The Evidence of Images’ in Interpretation: Theory and Practice, edited by C. S. Singleton, Baltimore 1969. Includes: ‘The Variability of Vision’, 35–68; and ‘The Priority of Context over Expression’, 68–103. 40 ‘Evolution in the Arts’, review of Thomas Munro, Evolution in the Arts and other Theories of Culture History, in British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 4 (3), 1964, 263–70. 41 ‘Exhibitionship’ in The Atlantic, vol. 213, 1964, 77–8. 42 ‘Four Theories of Artistic Expression’ in Architectural Association Quarterly, vol. 12 (4), 1980, 14–19. 43 ‘Franz Schubert and the Vienna of his Time’ in Yale Literary Magazine, vol. 149 (4), 1981, 15–36. 44 ‘Fritz Grossmann’, obituary in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 127, 1985, 385. 45 ‘Gedenkworte für Oskar Kokoschka’ in Orden Pour le mérite für Wissenschaft und Künste: Reden und Gedenkworte, vol. 16, 1980, 59–63. 46 ‘Gespräch mit Ernst H. Gombrich’ in Franz Kreuzer, Auge macht Bild, Ohr macht Klang, Hirn macht Welt, Vienna 1983, 7–37. 47 Il Gusto dei Primitivi: Le radici della ribellione, Naples 1985.

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48 ‘Goethe’s “Zueighung” and Benivieni’s “Amore” ’ in Journal of the Warburg Institute, vol. 1 (4), 1938, 331–9. 49 ‘Hans Tietze’, obituary in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 96, 1954, 289–90.

50 ‘A Historical Hypothesis’, 39–42, and ‘History as a Critical Tool: A Dialogue’, 51–61, in History as a Tool in Critical Interpretation, edited by Thomas F. Rugh and Erin R. Silva, Utah 1978.



51 ‘Illusion and Art’ in Richard Gregory and Ernst Gombrich, Illusion in Nature and Art, London 1973, 193–243.



52 Introduction to Gertrude Bing: 1892–1964, The Warburg Institute, London 1965, 1–3.

53–6 ‘Impulse and Acceptance’. Series of three conferences delivered at Yale in 1979 in honour of Ernst Kris: Yale I, 1–26 (54); Yale II, 1–28 (55); Yale III, 1–22 (56). Original typescript document – with handwritten annotations, corrections and comments – used in the conferences; sent to me by the author.

57 ‘An Interview with Ernst H. Gombrich’, interview with Elizabeth J. Sacca in Canadian Review of Art Education: Research and Issues, vols 6–7, 1980–1, 16–26.



58 Introduction to Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz, Legend, Myth, and Magic, in the Image of the Artist, London 1979 (based on the edition of Vienna 1934).

59 Introduction to Stefan Kruckenhauser, Heritage of Beauty: Architecture and Sculpture in Austria, London 1965, 7–14. 60 Foreword to Heinrich Schäfer, Principles of Egyptian Art, Oxford 1974, ix–x.

61 Introduction to Homage to Kokoschka: Prints and Drawings lent by Reinhold, Count Bethusy-Huc, Victoria and Albert Museum, London 1976, 5–9.

62 Foreword to Sarah Walden, The Ravished Image or, How To Ruin Masterpieces by Restoration, London 1985.

63 ‘Italian Caricature and its English Transformation’ in Rivista: Journal of the British-Italian Society, January–February 1984, 1–4.

64 ‘Julius von Schlosser’, obituary in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 74, 1939, 98–9. 65 Kokoschka in his Time, London 1986. 66 ‘Kokoschka: Prints and Drawings’ in Kokoschka: Exhibition of Prints and Drawings lent by Reinhold, Count of Bethusy-Huc, Victoria and Albert Museum (Bethnal Green Museum), London 1971, 6–9.

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67 ‘Die Kunsthistorische Stellung des Wiener Altars und der Holzreliefs des Esztergomer Museums’ in Magyar Müvészet, vol. 11 (7–8), 1935. 68 ‘Kunstwissenschaft’ in Das Atlantisbuch der Kunst, edited by Martin Hürlimann, Zurich 1952, 653–64. 69 ‘Lorenzo Ghiberti’, review of Richard Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, in Apollo, vol. 65, 1957, 306–7. 70 ‘Malraux’s Philosophy of Art in Historical Perspective’ in Malraux: Life and Work, edited by Martine de Gourcel, London 1976, 169–83. 71 ‘Methodenfragen der Symbolforschung’ in Das Münster, vol. 21, 1968, 57. 72 ‘The National Gallery Cleaning Controversy’ in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 105 (724), 1962, 327, and vol. 105 (726), 1963, 410 and 413. 73 ‘A Note on Giorgione’s “Three philosophers” ’ in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 128, 1986, 488. 74 ‘On Information Available in Pictures’ in Leonardo, vol. 4 (2), 1971, 195–7. And his response to the comments of James Gibson and Rudolf Arnheim in Leonardo, vol. 4 (3), 1971, 308. 75 ‘On J. J. Gibson’s Approach to the Visual Perception of Pictures’ in Leonardo, vol. 12, 1976, 174–5. 76 ‘The Open Society: A Comment’ in The British Journal of Sociology, vol. 3 (4), 1952, 358–60. 77 ‘Oskar Kokoschka’ in Kokoschka: a Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, Lithographs, Stage Designs and Books, Arts Council of Great Britain, London 1962, 10–15. 78 ‘Otto Kurz’, obituary in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 118, 1976, 29–30. 79 ‘The Pallazo del Tè’ review of Egon Verheyen, The Pallazo del Tè in Mantua, in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 122, 1980, 70–1. 80 ‘Personification’ in Classical Influences on European Culture A. D. 500–1500, edited by Robert Bolgar, London 1971, 247–57. 81 ‘¿Por qué conservar los edificios históricos?/Why Preserve Historic Buildings?’ in Composición Arquitectónica, (2), February 1989, 115–38. Translation of ‘Warum Denkmalpflege?’ in Historic Buildings their Significance and their Role in Today’s Cultural Setting: First International Congress on Architectural Conservation, Basle 1983, 21–6. 82 ‘The Primitive and its Value in Art’. Series of four radio talks. Includes: ‘The Dread of Corruption’ in The Listener, 15 February 1979, 242–5; ‘The Turn of

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the Tide’ in The Listener, 22 February 1979, 279–81; ‘The Priority of Pattern’ in The Listener, 1 March 1979, 311–14; and ‘The Tree of Knowledge’ in The Listener, 8 March 1979, 347–50. 83 ‘The Principles of Caricature’ (with Ernst Kris). In Ernst Kris, Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art, 2nd printing, New York 1962. Re-edition of ‘The Principles of Caricature’ in The British Journal of Medical Psychology, vol. 17 (3–4), 1938, 319–42. 84 ‘Psychological Aspects of the Visual Arts’. Dialogue with Jonathan Miller. In Jonathan Miller, States of Mind: Conversations with Psychological Investigators, New York 1983, 212–31. 85 Review of James Ackerman, ‘On Judging Art without Absolutes’ in Critical Inquiry, vol. 5 (4), 1979, 794–5. 86 Review of Frederick B. Artz, From the Renaissance to Romanticism: Trends in Style, in Art, Literature and Music, 1300–1830 in History, vol. 49 (165), 1964, 130–2. 87 Review of Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttheorie im 19. Jahrhundert, edited by Hermann Bauer, in The Art Bulletin, vol. 46, 1964, 418–20. And letter to the reply of Hermann Bauer in The Art Bulletin, vol. 47, 1965, 308–9. 88 Review of Josef Bodonyi, ‘Entstehung und Bedeutung des Goldgrundes in der Spätantiken Bildkomposition’, in Kritische Berichte zur Kunstgeschichtlichen Literatur, 5, 1932 (published in 1935), 65–76. 89 Review of Mary Dorothy George, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, vol. IX and vol. X in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 96, 1954, 27; and review of the vol. XI in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 99, 1954, 320. 90 Review of Draper Hill, Mr. Gillray the Caricaturist, and John Physick, The Duke of Wellington in Caricature, in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 108, 1966, 206–7. 91 Review of William M. Ivins, Prints and Visual Communication in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 5 (18), 1954, 168–9. 92 Review of Dora and Erwin Panofsky, Pandora’s Box: The Changing Aspects of a Mythical Symbol, in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 99, 1957, 280. 93 Review of John Pope-Hennessy, Italian Renaissance Sculpture, in Apollo, vol. 68, 1958, 228–9. 94 Review of Mario Praz, Mnemosyne: The Parallel between Literature and the Visual Arts in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 114 (830), 1972, 345–6.

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95 Review (under the title ‘Bosch of Hertogenbosch’) of Charles de Tolnay, Hieronimus Bosch, in New York Review of Books, 23 February 1967, 3–4. 96 Review of Cornelius Vermeule, European Art and the Classical Past, in The Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 56, 1966, 259–60. 97 Review of Wilhelm Waldtmann, Honoré Daumier: 240 Lithographs, in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 89, 1947, 231–2. 98 Review of Aby Warburg, Gesammelte Schriften, in A Bibliography of the Survival of the Classics, Warburg Institute, vol. 2, London 1938, 3–5. 99 Review of John White, The Birth and Rebirth of Pictorial Space in Apollo, vol. 66, 1957, 198. 100 ‘The Renaissance: Period or Movement?’ in Background to the English Renaissance, edited by A. G. Dickens et al., London 1974, 9–30. 101 ‘Representation and Misrepresentation’ in Critical Inquiry, vol. 11 (2), 1984, 195–201. 102 ‘Sir Ernst H. J. Gombrich: Premio Balzan 1985 per la Storia dell’Arte Occidentale’ in Ceremonia per la proclamazione dei Premi Balzan 1985, Milano 1986, 21–4. 103 ‘Sir Ernst Gombrich: An Autobiographical Sketch and Discussion’ in The Rutgers Art Review, vol. 8, 1987, 123–41. 104 ‘Some Words from the Wise’ in University Pennsylvania Gazette, vol. 76, 1977, 31–3. 105 ‘Style’ in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, edited by D. Sills, vol. 15, New York 1968, 352–61. 106 ‘ “They Were All Human Beings – So Much Is Plain”: Reflections on Cultural Relativism in the Humanities’ in Critical Inquiry, vol. 13 (4), 1987, 686–99. 107 Topos and Topicality in Renaissance Art, Annual Lecture of the Society for Renaissance Studies, London, 10 January 1975. Edition privately circulated. 108 ‘Tradition and the New Art: Interviews with Harold Rosenberg and Ernst Gombrich’, interview with Frank Kermode, in Partisan Review, vol. 31 (2), 1964, 241–52. 1 09 ‘Understanding Goethe’, review of John Gage, Goethe on Art; and W. D. Robson-Scott, The Younger Goethe and the Visual Arts, in Art History, vol. 5, 1982, 237–42. 110 ‘Unser Weg zur Kunst’, in Tag der Jugend, Der Wiener Tag, 30 December 1935, 5.

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111 ‘The Use of Art for the Study of Symbols’ in Psychology and the Visual Arts, edited by James Hogg, Harmondsworth 1970, 149–70. Re-edition of ‘The Use of Art for the Study of Symbols’ in American Psychologist, vol. 20, 1965, 34–50. 112 ‘The Values of the Byzantine Tradition: A Documentary History of Goethe’s Response to the Boisserée Collection’, in The Documented Image: Visions in Art History, edited by Gabriel P. Weissberg and Laurinda Dixon, Syracuse 1987, 291–308. 113 ‘Vasari’s Lives and Cicero’s Brutus’ in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 23, 1960, 309–11. 114 ‘Eine verkannte karolingische Pyxis im Wiener Kunsthistorischen Museum’ in Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, vol. 7, 1933, 1–14. 115 ‘Voir la nature, voir les peintures’ in Les Cahiers du Musée National de l’Art Moderne, vol. 24, 1988, 21–43. 116 The Warburg Institute and H. M. Ministry of Works: In Memory of Frederick Raby, Cambridge 1984. 117 ‘Zum Werke Giulio Romanos 1: Der Palazzo del Tè’ in Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, vol. 8, 1934, 79–104; and ‘Zum Werke Giulio Romanos 2: Versuch einer Deutung’ in Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, vol. 9, 1935, 121–50. 118 ‘Western Art and the Perception of Space’ in Storia dell’Arte, vol. 62, 1988, 5–12. 119 ‘The “What” and the “How”: Perspective Representation and the Phenomenal World’ in Logic and Art: Essays in Honor of Nelson Goodman, edited by Richard Rudner and Israel Scheffler, Indianapolis 1972, 129–49. 1 20 ‘The Wild Man’, review of Timothy Husband, The Wild Man: Medieval Myth and Symbolism, in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 123, 1981, 57–8. 121 ‘The Wit of Saul Steinberg’ in Art Journal, vol. 43 (4), 1983, 377–80.

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General Bibliography ABRAMS, M. H., The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition, London 1971. ACKERMAN, J. and CARPENTER, R., Art and Archaeology, Englewood Cliffs 1963. ALPERS, S. L., ‘Ekphrasis and Aesthetic Attitudes in Vasari’s Lives’ in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 23 (3–4), 1960, 190–215. ARNHEIM, R., ‘Review of Art and Illusion’ in The Art Bulletin, vol. 44 (1), March 1962, 79. ARTIGAS, M., Karl Popper: Búsqueda sin término, Madrid 1979. AUERBACH, E., Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, Princeton 1953. BARTLETT, F. C., Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology, Cambridge 1961. BRUNER, J. S., ‘On Perceptual Readiness’ in Psychological Review, vol. 64 (2), 1957, 123–52. BÜHLER, K., Ausdruckstheorie: Das System an der Geschichte aufgezeigt, Jena 1933.

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BÜHLER, K., Die geistige Entwicklung des Kindes, Jena 1930. BÜHLER, K., Theory of Language, Amsterdam 1990. BURKE, E., A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, London 1757. CHERRY, C. (ed.), Information Theory, London 1956. CHERRY, C., On Human Communication, 2nd edition, London 1966. COLIE, R. L., ‘Still Life: Paradoxes of Being’ in Paradoxia Epidemica: The Renaissance Tradition of Paradox, Princeton 1986, 273–99. COLIE, R. L., The Resources of Kind: Genre-theory in the Renaissance, Berkeley 1973. CURTIUS, E. R., European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, New York 1953. EHRENZWEIG, A., ‘A New Psychoanalytical Approach to Aesthetics’ in Psychology and the Visual Arts, edited by James Hogg, Harmondsworth 1970. FOCILLON, H., The Life of Forms in Art, New York 1989. FREUD, S., Civilization and its Discontents, London 1973. FREUD, S., Der Witz und seine Beziehungen zum Umbewussten, Vienna 1905. FREUD, S., ‘Dostojevski un die Vatertötung’, 1928. FREUD, S., ‘Eine Kindheitserinnerung des Leonardo da Vinci’, Vienna 1910. FREUD, S., Letters of Sigmund Freud 1873–1939, London 1961. FREUD, S., The Interpretation of Dreams, Harmondsworth 1976. FROMM, E., The Crisis of Psychoanalysis, London 1971. GELMAN, D., ‘The Legacy of Freud’ in Newsweek, 4 July 1988, 32–6. GIBSON, J. J., ‘The Ecological Approach to the Visual Perception of Pictures’ in Leonardo, vol. 11 (3), 1978, 227–35. GIBSON, J. J., The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, Hillsdale 1979. GIBSON, J. J., ‘The Information Available in Pictures’ in Leonardo, vol. 4 (1), 1971, 27–35, and Leonardo, vol. 4 (2), 1971, 197–9. GIBSON, J. J., The Perception of the Visual World, Boston 1950. GIBSON, J. J., The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, Boston 1966. GÖLLER, A., Die Entstehung der architektonischen Stilformen, Stuttgart 1888. GÖLLER, A., Zur Aesthetik der Architektur: Vorträge und Studien, Stuttgart 1887. GOODMAN, N., Languages of Art, Indianapolis 1968. GREGORY, R. L., Eye and Brain, New York 1966. GREGORY, R. L., The Intelligent Eye, London 1970.

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HARTMANN, H., KRIS, E. and LOEWENSTEIN, R. M., ‘Some Psychoanalytic Comments on “Culture and Personality” ’ in Psychoanalisis and Culture, edited by George B. Wilbur and Werner Muensterberger, New York 1951, 3–31. HIRSCH, E. D., The Aims of Interpretation, Chicago 1978. HIRSCH, E. D., Validity in Interpretation, New Haven 1967. HOGG, J., Psychology and the Visual Arts, Harmondsworth 1970. HUIZINGA, J., Homo ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture, Boston 1955. HUIZINGA, J., The Waning of the Middle Ages: A Study of the Forms of Life, Thought and Art in France and the Netherlands in the XIVth and XVth Centuries, New York 1954. IVINS, W. M., Prints and Visual Communication, London 1953. JAMES, W., ‘What is an Emotion?’, Mind, vol. 9, 1884, 188–205. JONES, E., The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, Harmondsworth 1964. KEATS, J., Selected Poems, London 1959. KIMBALL, F., The Creation of the Rococo Decorative Style, New York 1980. KOEIG, O., Urmotiv Auge: Neuentdeckte Grundzüge menschlichen Verhaltens, Munich 1975. KRIS, E., Meister und Meisterwerke der Steinschneidekunst in der italienischen Renaissance, Vienna 1929. KRIS, E., Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art, New York 1962. KRIS, E. and KURZ, O., Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist, London 1979. KUBLER, G., The Shape of Time, London 1962. KUHN, T., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago 1962. LANGE, C. G., The Emotions, Baltimore 1922. LANGER, S., Feeling and Form, New York 1953. LANGER, S., Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite and Art, Cambridge (MA) 1969. LESSING, G., Laocoön: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry, Baltimore 1984. LOPEZ IBOR, J., La agonía del psicoanálisis, 5th edition, Madrid 1973. LORDA, J. and MONTES, C., E. H. Gombrich: Marco conceptual y Bibliografía, Pamplona 1985.

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LORENZ, K., Behind the Mirror, New York 1978. LORENZ, K., On Aggression, London 1976. LOVEJOY, A. O. and BOAS, G., Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity, volume one of the series A Documentary History of Primitivism and Related Ideas, New York 1965. MAGEE, B., Popper, London 1973. MÂLE, E., L’art religieux du XII siècle en France: Etude sur les origines de l’iconographie du Moyen Age, Paris 1966. MALRAUX, A., Le musée imaginaire de la sculpture mondiale, Paris 1952–4. MALRAUX, A., The Voices of Silence, London 1953. MONTES, C., Creatividad y estilo: El concepto de estilo en E. H. Gombrich, Pamplona 1989. MONTES, C., ‘Estilo e Iconología en E. H. Gombrich: Una revisión crítica al pensamiento de Erwin Panofsky’ in Cuadernos de Iconografía, vol. 2 (4), Madrid 1989, 370–6. MONTES, C., ‘Panofsky, Gombrich y la miseria del Historicismo’ in Boletín Académico, (6), La Coruña 1987, 52–7. MONTES, C., Teoría, crítica e historiografía de la arquitectura, Pamplona 1985. MORRIS, Ch., Signs, Language and Behaviour, New York 1955. NEISSER, U., Cognitive Psychology, New York 1967. NEISSER, U., ‘The Multiplicity of Thought’ in British Journal of Psychology, vol. 54 (1), 1963, 1–14. NEWTON, E., The Meaning of Beauty, Harmondsworth 1962. OSGOOD, Ch. E., SUCI, G. J. and TANNENBAUM, P. H., The Measurement of Meaning, London 1967. PANOFSKY, E., Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St. Denis and its Art Treasures, Princeton 1946. PANOFSKY, E., Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism, London 1976. PANOFSKY, E., Idea: A Concept in Art Theory, New York 1968. PANOFSKY, E., Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, New York 1960. PEREZ LABORDA, A., ¿Salvar lo real?, Madrid 1983. POLAINO-LORENTE, A., Acotaciones a la antropología de Freud, Madrid 1981. POLAINO-LORENTE, A., La metapsicología freudiana, Piura 1984. POPPER, K. R., Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, reprinted edition, London 1981.

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POPPER, K. R., Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, Oxford 1972. POPPER, K. R., ‘Replies to my Critics’ in The Philosophy of Karl Popper, volume II, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp, La Salle (IL) 1974, 961–1197. POPPER, K. R., The Logic of Scientific Discovery, London 1959. POPPER, K. R., ‘The Logic of the Social Sciences’ in T. W. Adorno, Positivist Dispute in German Sociology, London 1976, 87–104. POPPER, K. R., ‘The Myth of the Framework’ in The Abdication of Philosophy and the Public Good, edited by E. Freeman, La Salle (IL) 1976, 23–48. POPPER, K. R., The Open Society and Its Enemies, Princeton 1971. POPPER, K. R., The Poverty of Historicism, London 1957. POPPER, K. R., ‘The Propensity Interpretation of Probability’ in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 10 (37), 1959, 25–42. POPPER, K. R., Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography, Glasgow 1976. POT TER, S., The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship; Or, The Art of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating, London 1947. PRAZ, M., Mnemosyne: The Parallel between Literature and the Visual Arts, London 1970. RIEGL, A., Problems of Style, Princeton 1992. ROAZEN, P., Freud and his Followers, New York 1975. ROSA, M. R. de, Ernst Kris: Psicoanalisi e teoria dell’arte, Roma 1987. SCHLOSSER, J., La letteratura artistica, Florence 1964. SPECTOR, J. J., The Aesthetics of Freud, New York 1973. TINBERGEN, N., Social Behaviour in Animals, London 1953. TRIMARCO, A., Itinerari Freudiani, Roma 1979. TRIMARCO, A., L’inconscio dell’opera: sociologia e psicoanalisi dell’arte, Roma 1974. VASARI, G., The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, London 1946. VISCHER, R., Das optische Formengefühl, 1872. WAELDER, R., ‘Psychoanalytic Avenues to Art’ in Psychology and the Visual Arts, edited by James Hogg, Harmondsworth 1970, 91–108. WHORF, B. L., Language, Thought and Reality, New York 1956. WITTGENSTEIN, L., Philosophical Investigations, 2nd edition, Oxford 1963. WÖLFFLIN, H., Fedanken zur Kunstgeschichte: Gedrucktes und Ungedrucktes, Darmstadt 1957.

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WÖLFFLIN, H., Principles of Art History: The Problem of the Development of Style in Later Art, London 1932. WÖLFFLIN, H., Renaissance and Baroque, New York 1984. WOLLHEIM, R., Art and its Objects: An Introduction to Aesthetics, Harmondsworth 1975. YATES, F., The Art of Memory, London 1966.

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Bibliography of the Works of Joaquín Lorda

Authored Books E. H. Gombrich. Marco conceptual y bibliografía, Pamplona 1985 (written in collaboration with Carlos Montes). Gombrich: Una teoría del arte, Barcelona 1991 (with a foreword by E. H. Gombrich). La Catedral de Durango, Guadalajara 2000 (2nd edition, 2013) (written in collaboration with María Angélica Martínez, lead author).

Edited Books El arte como oficio: VIII Seminario Artes Plásticas Nestlé (in collaboration with Inmaculada Jiménez), Pamplona 1992. Academic Articles ‘La arquitectura del Helenismo’ in RE. Revista de Edificación, no. 8, December 1990, 95–7.

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‘Notas sobre el clasicismo arquitectónico. Pórtico para una introducción’ in RE. Revista de Edificación, no. 8, December 1990, 77–85. ‘La Cornisa del Recoleto y otros motivos madrileños en Puebla’ in Boletín de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, no. 83, 1996, 143–65. ‘Las raíces de la arquitectura y el diseño tradicionales’ in Situación: revista de coyuntura económica, no. 2, 1996, 63–95. ‘Herrera y las grúas de la Basílica de El Escorial’ in Revista de Obras Públicas, no. 3367, 1997, 81–104. ‘Norma y acento en la arquitectura clásica’ in Revista de Arquitectura, no. 2, 1998, 33–9. ‘Arquitectura clásica: una arquitectura de la urbanidad’ in Revista de Arquitectura, no. 3, 1999, 33–44. ‘Del dintel monolítico al arco’ in Proyectar Navarra, no. 68, 2001, 122–5 (written in collaboration with Javier Martínez). ‘La lógica de las catedrales góticas’ in Nuestro Tiempo, no. 635, 2007, 64–73.

Chapters of Books ‘Fórmulas en ornamentación. Una introducción al ornamento’ in Inmaculada Jiménez and Joaquín Lorda (eds), El arte como oficio: VIII Seminario Artes Plásticas Nestlé, Pamplona 1992, 31–45. ‘Historia de los recursos de dignificación en las construcciones’ in Historia social de las obras públicas, Santander 1992–3, 1–19. Introduction to Aizkorbe, Oviedo 1993, 7–9. ‘Figuras quiméricas de un Renacimiento bastardo. La reja del coro de la Catedral de Pamplona’ in Lecturas de Historia del Arte IV. Actas del II Congreso del Instituto de Estudios Iconográficos Ephialte, Vitoria 1994, 333–41 (written in collaboration with Mercedes Jover). ‘La catedral gótica: Arquitectura’ in La catedral de Pamplona, vol. 1, Pamplona 1994, 164–273 (written in collaboration with Clara Fernández-Ladreda). ‘Arquitectura Pinacular. Una manía en el diseño europeo’ in La representación de la ciudad III: Ciudad, dibujo y proyecto, Actas del VI Congreso Internacional de Expresión Gráfica Arquitectónica, Pamplona 1996, 305–11. Foreword to María Angélica Martínez, El momento del Durango Barroco: Arquitectura y sociedad en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII, Monterrey (México) 1996 (2nd edition, 2013).

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‘Orders with Sense: Sense of Order and Classic Architecture’ in Richard Woodfield (ed.), Gombrich on Art and Psychology, Manchester and New York 1996, 216–33. ‘La higiene como contribución a la dignidad y el Progreso Humano’ in Progreso Humano. Derechos Humanos. Ponencias y Comunicaciones XXI Congreso Universitario Internacional UNIV´98, 175–194 (Joaquín Lorda (coord.), Santiago Ponce, Alberto Gea, Alejandro Berenguel, Juan Ivars). ‘Deformación y activación en fachadas y retablos’ in Ante el nuevo milenio: raíces culturales, proyección y actualidad del arte español, Actas del XIII Congreso Nacional de Historia del Arte, Granada 2000, 847–60. Foreword to Víctor Echarri Iribarren, Las murallas y la Ciudadela de Pamplona, Pamplona 2000, 15–19. ‘La arquitectura en tiempos de Carlos V’ in El Emperador Carlos V y su tiempo, Madrid 2000, 109–54. ‘Las grúas de Juan de Herrera’ in Actas del Tercer Congreso Nacional de Historia de la Construcción, vol. 2, Seville 2000, 623–28 (written in collaboration with María Angélica Martínez). ‘La calle europea como obra de arte’ in Enrique Banús (ed.), ¿Qué es Europa?, Studia Europea Navarrensis, vol. 4, Pamplona 2001, 47–54. ‘Problems of Style: Riegl’s Problematic Foundations’ in Richard Woodfield (ed.), Framing Formalism: Riegl’s Work, Amsterdam 2001, 107–33. ‘Puebla y Madrid: Ciprés o baldaquino’ in Ricardo Fernández Gracia (ed.), Palafox: Iglesia, Cultura y Estado en el siglo XVII, Congreso Internacional IV Centenario del Nacimiento de Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza en la Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona 2001, 429–39. ‘Alonso Cano, el friso volado y su influencia’ in Symposium Internacional Alonso Cano y su época, Granada 2002, 625–37. ‘El ciprés de Puebla de Tolsá (y la originalidad de Manuel Toussaint)’ in Montserrat Galí (ed.), El Mundo de las Catedrales Novohispanas, Puebla (México) 2002, 133–65. ‘Lo mejor de Gombrich: la conquista del matiz en el arte y la arquitectura’ in Paula Lizarraga (ed.), E. H. Gombrich: In emoriam, Actas del I Congreso Internacional ‘E. H. Gombrich (Viena 1909–Londres 2001): Teoría e Historia del Arte’, Pamplona 2003, 121–66. ‘Una corona de doce estrellas. Objetos fascinantes’ in Una Corona para Santa María la Real de la Catedral de Pamplona, Pamplona 2003, 3–15.

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‘The Spanish “Quota” in the History of Architecture. A Footnote to Gombrich’s “Art History and the Social Sciences” ’ in Ignacio Olábarri and Francisco J. Capistegui (eds), The Strength of History at the Doors of the New Millenium: History and the Other Social and Human Sciences along XXth Century (1899–2002), VII International History Colloquium en la Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona 2005, 337–412 (written in collaboration with Javier Martínez). ‘El Medievo’ in María Antonia Labrada (ed.), La belleza que salva: comentarios a la ‘Carta a los artistas’ de Juan Pablo II, Madrid 2006, 107–18. ‘Fachada de la Catedral de Pamplona: sus temas compositivos’ in Ricardo Fernández Gracia and María Concepción García Gainza (coords), Cuadernos de la Cátedra de Patrimonio y Arte Navarro, Estudios sobre la catedral de Pamplona in memoriam Jesús Mª Omeñaca, no. 1, 2006, 93–107. ‘La transposición de la arquitectura clásica a España y Latinoamérica (sobre ideas de Gombrich)’ in Marcela Drien, Fernando Guzmán and Juan Manuel Martínez (eds), América. Territorio de transferencias. Cuartas Jornadas de Historia del Arte, Santiago de Chile 2008, 11–46. ‘El primer proyecto de Hernán Ruiz para la Catedral de Córdoba’ in Actas del Séptimo Congreso Nacional de Historia de la Construcción: Santiago de Compostela 26–29 de octubre de 2011, Madrid 2011, 791–8 (written in collaboration with María Angélica Martínez). ‘Aprendiendo con San Diego, 1915’ in Salvador Bernabéu, Carmen Mena and Emilio José Luque (eds), Conocer el Pacífico: exploraciones, imágenes y formación de sociedades oceánicas, Seville 2015, 393–421 (written in collaboration with María Angélica Martínez). ‘Diseño y construcción de la Catedral de Durango en México’ in Santiago Huerta and Paula Fuentes (eds), Actas del Noveno Congreso Nacional y Primer Congreso Internacional Hispanoamericano de Historia de la Construcción: Segovia 13–17 de octubre de 2015, vol. 2, Madrid 2015, 1031–40 (written in collaboration with María Angélica Martínez). ‘Images of Fortified Cities and its Interest to XX Century Architects’ in José Vicente Valdenebro and Esther Elizalde (eds), Proceedings of the International Conference on Fortified Heritage, Management and Sustainable Development: Pamplona 15–17 October 2014, Pamplona 2015, 941–56 (written in collaboration with Inmaculada Jiménez).

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‘La simbólica fundamental en el arte religioso’ in Fermín Labarga (ed.), Arte y Teología, Actas del XXXIV Simposio Internacional de Teología, Pamplona 2017, 15–37 (posthumous publication by Juan Luis Lorda). ‘La perfección esquiva. Problemas de la arquitectura centralizada: Granada y Cádiz’ in Pedro A. Galera and Sabine Frommel (eds), El patio circular en la arquitectura del Renacimiento: De la casa de Mantegna al Palacio de Carlos V: Actas del Simposium, Seville 2018, 267–96 (posthumous publication by María Angélica Martínez).

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Index Abrams, M. H., 10 abstract, abstraction, xii, 1, 10, 12, 14, 24–7, 44, 87, 99, 211–13, 222, 245, 275, 416, 483 ‘abstractive relevance’, 457 Ackerman, James A., 8, 298 Aeschylus, 166 ‘aesthetic attitude’, 80, 473 ‘aesthetic(s) of effects’, 21, 52, 53, 108, 110, 157, 159, 415 allegory, 89, 259, 456–7, 462 Alpers, Svetlana, 121, 128 ambiguity, 64, 94, 142, 394, 457, 465–6, 468–71, 476, 479 amor infiniti, 436 Angelico, Fra, 123, 201 Apelles, 118, 165, 338, 418

Aquinas, Saint Thomas, 143 architecture, 2–4, 100, 147, 162–3, 187, 194, 209, 260, 285, 306, 316, 318–19, 324, 338, 340, 347, 353, 356, 364, 369, 392, 434, 438–40, 443, 445, 459, 462–3 Aristotle, Aristotelian, 8, 24, 26–7, 105–7, 117, 150, 161–2, 164–5, 179, 202, 233, 238, 418 Arnheim, Rudolf, 13 Arts and Crafts movement, 211 assimilation, 249, 323, 327, 343, 349, 387, 413, 439 ‘authentication’, 414–15, 446–7

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Bach, Johann Sebastian, 261, 365–7, 371–2, 374, 378, 383, 393, 399 Baroque, 3, 58, 114, 178, 201, 270, 289, 291, 312, 317, 323, 325, 337, 346, 348–9, 422 Bartlett, F. C., 479 Baumgarten, A. G., 9 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 261, 263, 279, 433, 449, 489–90, 511–2 beholder, 139, 266, 447, 451, 461, 471–5, 477, 479–80, 482–3, 485, 487 ‘beholder’s share’, 28, 473 Bellori, Giovanni Pietro, 113, 168 Berlioz, Louis Hector, 261 Bernini, Gian Lorenzo, 178, 260, 369 Boas, George, 7, 10, 28, 76, 192–3, 217, 238 Boase, Tom, 6 Borromini, Francesco, 178, 260 Bruner, Jerome S., 231, 472 ‘bucket and searchlight theory’, 30 Bühler, Karl, 4, 70, 93, 417, 457 Burke, Edmund, Burkeian, 10, 134, 176, 390 Burke, Peter, 310, 498–9 canon, canonical, 104, 138, 168, 176, 300, 351, 356–7, 360, 400, 433, 499, 503, 511, 515, 517

caricature, 4, 11, 56, 58, 70–3, 79, 132, 325, 349, 481 ‘cat’s cradle’, 28, 365–6, 402 Cassirer, Ernst Alfred, 9 catharsis, 107 ‘centrifugal theory’, 85, 414, 421 ‘centripetal theory’, 81, 85, 414–15, 421, 426 Cézanne, Paul, 204 Chateaubriand, François-René de, 197 Cherry, Colin, 411 China, Chinese, xx, 69, 202, 278–80, 291, 427, 437–8, 520 chocolate-box, 188–9, 191, 217–18 Chomsky, Noam, 10 Christie, A. H., 402 Cicero, Ciceronian, 98, 105, 109–12, 118, 120–1, 162, 281, 327, 356, 371, 419 Clark, Kenneth, 8, 520 classicism, 129, 160, 167, 203, 337, 455 ‘closed society’, 151, 154 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 74, 471–2 colour, 50, 146, 201, 213, 216, 241, 317, 428, 431–2, 434, 436, 448, 488 column, 306, 310, 318, 320–3, 349, 356 compensation, 353–5 competence, 124, 338, 507 competition, 88, 90, 92, 95, 337–8, 340–2, 347–8, 350,

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353, 357, 362, 375, 379, 403, 435 ‘complex order’, 377–80, 382, 384, 386, 396, 398–400, 403, 413, 444, 446, 455–6, 462, 468, 475–7, 495, 503, 527 Comte, Auguste, 203 condensation, 15, 64, 76, 83–4, 381, 386, 471 connoisseur(s), connoisseurship, 111, 157, 159, 183, 277–80, 282, 302–3, 315, 440, 494–6, 509 Constable, John, 8 contemplation, 16, 86, 146, 174, 176, 293, 471–2 Courbet, Gustave, 205 Crane, Walter, 211 criticism,7, 9, 15, 23, 25, 31–2, 36, 39, 41, 78, 91, 94, 111, 124, 127, 129, 149–53, 157–60, 170–1, 173–4, 181–3, 195, 203, 205–7, 212, 217, 222, 227–9, 241, 254, 315, 337, 389, 394, 405, 421, 454, 476, 519 Croce, Benedetto, 100, 281, 297, 490 Curtius, Ernst Robert, 98–9, 428 Da Vinci, Leonardo, 8, 60, 78–81, 124, 140, 379, 395–6, 419, 466–8, 474, 502 Dali, Salvador, 192, 269 Darwinian evolution(ism), 41, 286 David, Jacques- Louis, 196 decadence, 164, 435

decorum, 102, 104, 110, 311, 313, 375, 379 Demetrius, 112, 333 Descartes, René, 40 Dilthey, Wilhem, 9 ‘directed experimentation’, 158 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 60 dramatic evocation, 121, 129–31, 162, 164, 170, 177 drawing, 60, 124, 177, 200–1, 282, 340, 395, 466–7 dream(s), 63–5, 75, 82–3, 140, 373, 381–2, 397, 462, 470–2, 475, 484, 503 Dubuffet, Jean, 218 Duchamp, Marcel, 190–1, 508 Duris of Samos, 107 Dvorák, Max, 3 Eco, Umberto, 9 ‘ego’, 64–7, 72, 74, 80, 83, 85, 96, 99, 146, 380–3, 397, 427, 442–3, 472, 480 Ehrenzweig, A., 67 Eliot, T. S., 10 Erasmus, 510, 512 ethology, ethologists, 29, 51, 92–3, 312–13 Euripides, 107 expectation(s), 167, 274–5, 280–4, 290, 308–9, 311–13, 315–18, 320, 322, 325, 345–47, 355, 357, 368, 377, 421, 436, 438–9, 442, 485, 487–9, 492 Expressionism, 3, 78, 415, 507

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Eyck, Jan Van, 131, 335, 337 fashion (s), 110, 125, 176, 193, 199, 208, 210, 235, 249, 272, 289, 291, 313, 316–18, 337, 342–4, 348–9, 367, 375, 391, 393, 405, 410, 417, 460, 506–7 fatigue (‘aesthetic fatigue’, formal), 193, 347 feedback, 41, 48, 153, 328, 384 ‘feedback creation’, 28, 384, 387–9, 395, 413 ‘field of force’, 349, 355–6, 358 Flaxman, John, 199–201 Focillon, H., 113, 315 Freud, Anna, 57, 65, 80 Freud, Sigmund, Freudian, 4, 7, 11, 15, 56–61, 63–7, 71–85, 93, 96, 99, 134, 193, 272, 285, 377, 380–2, 384, 386, 400, 403, 414–15, 429, 445–6, 468, 480, 519 Friedlander, Max J., 495 Gadamer, H. G., 9 Gauguin, Paul, 216–17 ‘genera’, 102, 110 genre (s), 182, 220, 263, 271, 275–6, 280–5, 300, 315–16, 330, 340, 343, 346, 375, 377, 379, 428, 439, 453–4, 487, 491–3, 499 Géricault, Théodore, 214 Gestalt, 523 Ghiberti, Lorenzo, 118, 387–8

Gibson, James Jerome, 229 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 8, 195–6, 209, 355–6 Göller, Adolf, 347 Gothic, 25, 114, 201, 209, 270, 291–2, 296, 306, 309, 318–19, 337, 353, 375, 393, 427, 434, 456, 458, 478, 522 graphological theory, 409 Gregory, Richard, 30 grotesque, grottesche, 62–3, 87, 469 Grünewald, Matthias 266–7 Guas, Juan, 458, 463 habit (s), 7, 123, 245, 296, 303–4, 307–8, 310, 312–13, 315, 319, 321, 323, 330, 371–2, 422, 443 Hartmann, Hans, 65, 429 Hegel, G. W. F., 7, 9, 16, 134, 173, 180–5, 197, 203–4, 293–6, 335, 519 Hegelian, Hegelianism, 5, 23, 94, 114, 180–3, 293–5, 335, 403 Heidegger, Martin, 9 Heine, Heinrich, 203 Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 180, 182, 197 Hirsch, E. Donald, 452–4, 459, 491, 499 historicism, 9, 24–5, 205, 342, 507–8 Hochberg, Julian, 30 Hogarth, William, 8 Homer, 154, 165, 199–200

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homo faber, 87, 94, 362, 384 homo ludens, 54, 86–8, 91–5, 97, 344, 362–3, 384, 462 Horace, 258, 447 horror vacui, 436 Huizinga, Johan, 7, 15, 54, 86–96, 99, 348, 354, 359, 381, 472, 520 Husserl, Edmund, 9 iconography, 27, 461 iconology, iconological, 5–6, 11, 460–1, 493, 507, 520 ‘id’, 64–6, 427, 442 imitation, 120–1, 131, 136, 199, 306, 323, 327, 330, 387, 413 Impressionism, Impressionist, 205–6, 213, 473, 504 ‘imprinting’, 10, 311–13 induction, 24, 26, 30, 246 inflation, inflationary process, 101, 193, 208, 338, 346–9, 355, 417, 435 ‘Information theory’, 10, 410–11 ‘intended meaning’, 452–8, 461 James-Lange Theory, 418, 425–6 Japan, Japanese, xxi, 211, 216, 318, 413 joke, 15, 54, 56, 61, 63–8, 70, 75–6, 81–4, 92, 94, 98–9, 101, 127, 190–1, 380–2, 384, 414–15, 444–5, 466, 468, 480–1 Jones, Owen, 211

Jung, Carl Gustav, 59, 66, 84, 99 Kant, Immanuel, 230 kitsch, 189, 210, 436–7 Klee, Paul, 219 Kris, Ernst, 4, 7, 57–9, 61–3, 65–77, 79–80, 267, 329, 380, 429, 468, 472–3, 480–1 Kubler, George, 8, 298 Kunstwollen, 363 Kurz, Otto, 7, 28, 58, 69–70, 76, 521 landscape, 142–4, 156, 201, 220, 259–60, 280, 282–3, 390, 428–9, 445, 456 Langer, Susanne K., 9 Lessing, J. G., 7, 486 Lewis, C. S., 10 literature, 10, 61, 76, 80, 98–9, 256, 258, 271, 275, 298, 315, 318, 423, 428, 443, 455 Loewenstein, Rudolf, 65, 429 Longinus, 112, 114, 196, 333 Lorenz, Konrad, 51, 244, 303, 442 Lovejoy, Arthur O., 10, 192–3, 217 Lukács, György, 9 Mâle, Émile, 170 Malraux, André, 215, 298, 490–1 mannerism, 128, 167, 169–71, 173, 337

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Marxist (idea, dialectic), 23, 344 mastery (artistic), 12, 16, 81, 83–6, 95, 102, 108, 110, 120, 130, 146, 169, 177, 190, 219, 221, 250, 262–7, 269–71, 273, 277, 284, 289, 293, 300, 315, 328, 331, 344, 346, 354–5, 357, 363–5, 371–2, 379, 382–4, 391, 396, 403, 412, 415, 419–20, 446, 455, 458–9, 488–9, 516 memories, 70, 135, 250, 261, 513–14 memory, xx, 9, 80, 215, 233, 246, 261, 371, 486, 513, 516 Mengs, Anton Raphael, 134 mentality (ies), 184, 310–11, 342, 491 Merezhkovsky, D. S., 60 Messerschmidt, Franz Xavier, 58, 69 metaphor (s), 3, 12, 30, 38, 40, 107–8, 145–7, 167, 175, 191, 202, 215, 225, 235–242, 244–50, 252–3, 256–61, 287, 289, 305–6, 333, 359–61, 379, 403, 408, 417, 430–33, 435, 438, 443, 446, 448, 457–9, 462–3, 468, 470–2, 482–4, 490, 496, 504, 515–16 metaphorics, 98, 415, 504 Metaphysics, metaphysical, 27, 34, 37, 91, 94, 136–7, 164, 175, 182, 184–5, 294

Michelangelo, 119, 127–9, 138, 166, 169, 196, 200, 257–8, 269, 354, 374, 401, 482, 496, 502, 509 Milizia, Francesco, 113 Millet, Jean-François, 259 Milner, Marion, 67 mimesis, 120, 428 ‘multiple processing’, 380–1, 386 music, musical, 9–11, 22, 49, 81, 89, 100–1, 108, 132, 143, 147, 162, 165, 167, 204, 213, 256, 261, 264, 275–6, 281, 283–4, 287, 289, 309, 315–16, 365–7, 371, 378, 383–4, 393, 402, 406, 418–19, 430, 432–4, 438–9, 443, 445, 449–50, 456, 458–9, 470, 475, 481–2, 484, 501, 503, 505, 511–12 musician, 123, 279, 366, 371–2, 383, 396, 421, 433, 447, 458, 482, 489, 501, 505 Myron, 111, 118, 338 myth, 32, 89, 158, 245–6, 295, 473, 491, 498, 514 mythical (concepts, events), 62, 129 mythology, 60–1, 87, 200, 249, 259 naturalism, 158, 164, 203 Nazarene Movement, 197 ‘negative feedback’, 153, 157–8, 226, 229

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Neisser, Ulric, 30, 380, 468, 476 neo-classicism, 179, 196 Newton, Eric, 139 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 379 nominalism, 24, 26 ‘norm and form’, 6–7, 28, 104, 149, 151, 161 ‘one-upmanship’, 343, 348, 350 ‘open society’, 151, 154, 337 oratory, 102, 105, 109–10, 112, 150, 165 ‘organic metaphor’, 107, 191, 202 ornamentation, 7, 63, 144, 210, 213, 312, 375, 443, 463, 475, 478 Osgood, Charles, S., 240, 242, 259, 281, 315–16, 409–10 Ossian, 199–200 ‘over-determination’, 373 ‘over-interpretation’, 461, 505–6, 508 ‘over-ornate’, 270 Panofsky, Erwin, 5, 135, 315, 460, 508, 520 pathetic, ‘pathetic fallacy’, 241, 244 pathos, 113, 162, 201 pattern (s), 46, 105, 135, 139, 164, 166, 180, 200, 202, 209, 211, 216, 257, 266, 320–2, 367, 371–2, 375, 395, 402, 429, 443, 445, 460, 477–8 ‘pecking order’, 93, 344

perception, 7, 10, 16, 26–7, 29–30, 39, 50–1, 79, 112, 227–9, 235–6, 244, 372, 417, 443, 473, 479, 486–7, 506, 519, 520 Perugino, 124, 201, 341 Petrarch, 327, 331 photography, 156, 212–15 physiognomics, physiognomic, 58, 69, 139, 193, 241, 244, 294, 315, 327, 407–9, 506 ‘physiognomic fallacy’, 112, 179, 244, 294–5 Picasso, 217, 219, 359, 374, 407 picturesque, 220, 283, 391 ‘piecemeal engineering’, 389, 394, 413 plastic arts, 89, 93, 101, 357, 454, 470 Plato, 107–9, 133, 177, 186, 418, 452–3, 471, 513 Platonic, Platonism, 8, 26, 49, 133–7, 176 player (s), 10, 90, 92, 272–4, 276–7, 279, 283, 285–6, 301–2, 357, 359–60, 366, 388, 434, 455, 474 Pliny the Younger, 422 Pliny the Elder, 105, 118–19, 282, 333, 445 poetry, xix, xx, 13, 74, 88–9, 93, 99, 108, 141, 165, 197–200, 218, 252, 258, 400, 414, 428, 430, 438, 471–2, 511 poiesis, 89

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‘polarisation’, polarising (issues), 186, 203, 348–50, 355 Pollaiuolo, Antonio, 265 Popper, Sir Karl, Popperian, 5, 10, 15, 21–50, 54–5, 76, 82, 96, 99, 105, 151, 153, 157–8, 161–2, 185, 205, 226–8, 235, 244, 254, 285, 293, 295–6, 308, 314, 337, 342–3, 348, 354, 378, 384, 389, 392, 400, 402, 447, 499, 500, 506–7, 519 ‘Popperian asymmetry’, 226, 228–9, 232 Praz, Mario, 315 Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, 197 prestige, 104, 110–12, 151, 157, 172, 205, 303, 316, 338, 342–46, 348, 357, 396, 462, 506 ‘pretending’, 92–5 primitifs, 196, 201, 209 primitivism, 16, 106–8, 110–11, 114, 146, 178, 180, 186–7, 191–4, 198, 200, 217, 405, 420 ‘principle (s) of exclusion’, 28, 192, 350–1, 353, 355 ‘principle (s) of sacrifice’, 28, 350–1, 353–5, 364, 375 progress (artistic), 16, 129, 337 psychoanalysis, 5, 10, 36, 54, 57–8, 61–2, 64, 66–8, 70–1, 73, 79, 146, 217, 272, 373, 378, 380, 401, 409, 436, 466, 468, 472, 475, 483

psychology, 4, 6–7, 10, 56, 59, 61–2, 65–6, 68, 73, 78, 88, 92–3, 112, 134–6, 206, 227–9, 241, 253, 260, 272, 315, 363, 415, 417, 425–7, 443, 473, 504, 519 Pugin, A. W. N., 210–11 Quay, Maurice, 196, 201 Quintilian, 111–13, 193, 327, 333, 355–6 Rank, Otto, 58–9, 66 Raphael, 128–9, 132–3, 135–7, 165–6, 170, 177–8, 196, 216, 258, 269, 271, 289, 365, 370–1, 374, 377, 386–7, 451, 460, 496–7, 502, 521 refinement, 147, 243, 276–8, 280, 282, 302, 313, 322, 378 regression, 66–7, 74, 96, 146, 216–9, 244–5, 380–2, 472, 492 religion, 88, 146, 206, 215, 249, 269, 348, 509, 511–12 renunciation, 146–7, 170, 270, 434–5, 438 representation (figurative), 2, 26–7, 126, 235, 260, 331, 466, 473 ‘resonance’ (theory), 407, 410 Reynolds, Joshua, 8 rhetoric, rhetorical, 15, 54–5, 75, 88, 99–104, 106–9, 113–14, 117, 119–20, 125, 130, 134, 136,

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186, 193–4, 196, 198, 250, 281, 298, 332–3, 418–20, 422–23, 465, 519 rhythm, xix, 89, 284, 366, 371, 430, 486–7 Richards, I. A., 7, 414 Riegl, Alois, 4, 8, 306, 315, 363 ritualisation, 10, 93, 301, 303 rocaille, 318, 323, 345–6, 351 Rococo, 90, 178, 195–6, 209, 289, 318, 323, 337, 346, 351, 393, 522 Romano, Giulio, 4, 100, 328, 387, 502 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 178 Rubens, Peter Paul, 162, 257, 482 Ruskin, John, 174, 213–14, 315 Sachs, Hans, 58 sacrifice (principle), 28, 350–1, 353–5, 364, 375 Saint Bernard, 435 Saxl, Fritz, 71 Scheler, Max, 9 Schelling, Friedrich, 8, 182 Schlosser, Julius von, 4, 8, 57–8, 68, 125, 264 Schopenhauer, 9 sculpture, sculpting, 57, 105, 118, 153, 156, 158, 165, 169, 208, 211, 215, 260, 281, 333, 406, 418, 455, 482 ‘search for meaning(s)’, 28, 478–9, 483, 523

‘second nature’, 234, 370–1, 429, 444 self-transcendence, 34, 38, 43–4, 48, 400 Semper, Gottfried, 211 ‘sense of meaning’, 230, 260, 478–9 ‘sense of order’, 230, 260, 275, 304, 308, 315, 478–9, 482, 484, 487 ‘sequential processing’, 380 sfumato, 467–8 ‘shared type’, 453–4 Shelling, 182 sign, 50, 145, 259, 303, 326, 457, 460, 465 signal, 416–18, 411, 427, 487 ‘social compact’, 94, 97, 276–7, 286, 301–3, 366 ‘social test’, 299–300, 303, 313, 437 Sophocles, 107, 165–6 Spector, J. J., 67 ‘spirit of the age (epoch, times)’, 25, 183–4, 203, 207, 314, 407, 458 spoilsport, 95–7, 311, 354, 472 Staël, Madame de, 203 Stradanus, Jan, 202 sublime, sublimity, 90, 112–13, 134, 136, 142–3, 171, 175, 179, 182, 194–6, 197–200, 276, 371, 502 Suger, Abbot, 430, 435 Summerson, John, 8

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surrealism, 78 symbol, 7, 131, 144, 202, 219, 240, 261, 350, 378, 416–18, 425, 430–1, 435, 461–3, 466, 470, 477 symbolism, 77, 456, 461, 517 symptom, 184, 335, 416–18, 420, 425–6 synaesthesia, 241, 243, 432 Tacitus, 103, 111–13, 333, 356 Taine, Hippolyte, 204 taste, 3, 42, 81–2, 103, 105, 108, 110–11, 138, 198–9, 203, 210–11, 218, 263, 289, 311–13, 331, 336, 342–3, 347, 371, 443, 451, 458, 488, 496, 503, 520–3 technique, 81, 83, 120, 126, 150, 177, 243, 289, 338, 341–2, 354, 401, 458 ‘theory of feedback’, 426 Thespis, 107 Tietze, Hans, 4 topos, topoi, 99, 298, 367–8, 422, 428, 508 tradition (artistic), 30–1, 43, 47, 124, 154, 168, 280, 285, 287, 299, 315, 318, 338, 341, 343, 355, 427, 429, 435, 437, 444, 446, 448, 459, 479, 490, 522 tragedy, 105, 107, 162, 165, 179, 406 ‘trial and error’, 28–9, 31, 124, 129, 136, 156, 159, 226, 228,

232, 254, 285, 312, 328, 330, 341, 385–6, 395, 397–8, 402, 455, 487, 494 ‘trigger theory’, 21, 49–50, 52, 442, 473 Thucydides, 109 Turner, J. M. W., 213 universals, 24, 26–7, 236–7, 245, 455 Van Gogh, Vincent, 45, 257, 482 Vasari, Giorgio, 8, 16, 113, 117–30, 150, 168, 173–4, 177, 180, 191, 201–2, 341, 354, 522 Velázquez, Diego, xx, 141–2 Veronese, Paolo, 139–40 ‘vicarious creation’, 388, 413, 494 Viollet-le-Duc, E., 292, 315 visual arts, 99, 101, 104, 107–8, 143, 208, 257–8, 395, 430, 455, 482, 484 Vitruvius, 113–14, 158, 162, 522 Waelder, K., 59 Wagner, Richard, 204 Walley, Arthur, 438 Warburg, Aby, 5, 7, 12, 71, 98, 174, 297, 460 Warburg (Institute, library, school), 4, 5, 11, 69–72, 86, 121, 170, 175, 297

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Whorf, Benjamin Lee, 235 Wickhoff, Franz, 4 ‘willed type’, 453 ‘willing suspension of disbelief ’, 74, 96, 381, 471–2, 484, 495 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, 3, 16, 113, 134, 173–182, 188, 192, 194–5, 197

Wölfflin, Heinrich, 4, 8, 315, 323, 363 ‘World 3’, 24, 33–36, 38, 40–4, 48–50, 53, 287, 360, 374, 377, 400 Zeuxis, 118, 338, 418 Zola, Émile, 204–5

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Joaquín Lorda  Gombrich: A Theory of Art

The first English translation of Gombrich: una teoría del arte, by Joaquín Lorda, originally published in 1991 Joaquín Lorda was considered by Gombrich himself to be one of his most astute students. This book presents an extensive, expansive and holistic analysis of Gombrich’s thought. Built on four paradigms – Science, Joke, Play and Rhetoric – it sheds new light on Gombrich as a thinker, shaping his ideas into a workable theory of art that can be used to examine the history of world art and architecture, and its current practice. Joaquín Lorda (1955–2016) was Professor at the School of Architecture at the University of Navarre, Spain.

Cover design: emilybentonbookdesigner.co.uk

edinburgh university press.com

Joaquín Lorda

Gombrich: A Theory of Art

ISBN 978-1-3995-1257-2

Edited by María Angélica Martínez Juan Luis Lorda María Antonia Frías Ramón Alemany