Global Culture after Gombrich

Ernst Gombrich can be considered the mostinfluential art historian of the 20th-century. Untilnow, however, the global impact of his work hasbeen under-appreciated. Global Culture afterGombrich: Art, Mind, World presents essays byhistorians of art and culture - themselves studentsof Gombrich or associated with his scholarlyhome, the Warburg Institute - from Asia, the USA,and Europe. Subjects range from picture-making's place inhuman evolution to the visual marginalia of theRenaissance, and from nineteenth-centurymodernism to the implications of the latestneuroscience for cultural history. Other chapterstreat fundamental issues, such as the notion ofconnoisseurship, the fate of the idea of 'culture', orthe cultural specificity of modernism. They rangefrom theoretical broadsides - notably, a defence ofthe 'intelligence' of art - to intricate reflections - forexample on caricature as a style. In showing how Gombrich initiated enquiries thathave spread in numerous - and global -directions, Global Culture after Gombrich: Art,Mind, World makes a vital contribution tocontemporary debates around the languages of arthistory and showcases the range of approachesand methods by which art history is, and has yet tobe, written.