E.H.

Gombrich's 'Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation', 1960
Author(s): CHRISTOPHER S. WOOD
Source: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 151, No. 1281 (December 2009), pp. 836-839
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ArtHistoryReviewed VI:
E.H. Gombrich's'ArtandIllusion:A Studyin thePsychology
of
Pictorial i960
Representation',
by CHRISTOPHER S. WOOD

'making precedes matching': with this famousformula, decade laterKeith Moxey presentedGombrichas 'the most
the epitome of his Art and Illusion(i960),1 ErnstGombrich eloquentadvocate'ofthe'resemblance theoryofrepresentation',
proposedthatartists, beforetheyever dreamof copyingwhat accordingto which 'representation has somethingto do with
theysee beforethem,make picturesby manipulating inherited the imitationof nature'. Moxey then contrastedthis view
'schemata'thatdesignatereality byforceofconvention.At some with that of the philosopherNelson Goodman, numbering
pointan artistcomparesa pictorialschemato directobservation him among'Gombrich'scritics',who 'pointedout that[. . .] a
of theworld,and on thatbasispresumesto correcttheschema. pictureneverresemblesanything so muchas anotherpicture'.3
This thenentersthestockof availableformulaeuntilsomelater A readerwho turnsto Goodman's book LanguagesofArtfor
artistholdsit up to theworldand venturesa further adjustment. further elucidation,however,will be surprised to findthatthe
In thisway artmaycome to have a history. Beholders,in turn, authormentionsGombrichnotas hisintellectual antagonist, but
maketheirown senseof picturesby collatingwhattheysee on ratheras a principalwitnessin his own conventionalist cause:
thecanvaswithwhattheyknowabouttheworldand withwhat 'Gombrich,in particular, hasamassedoverwhelming evidenceto
theyremember ofotherpictures. showhow thewaywe see and depictdependson andvarieswith
Gombrich'saccountof the makingof artas an experimental experience,practice,interests, and attitudes'.4
and even improvisationalprocess impressedmany readers In Artand IllusionGombrichmakesa powerfulcase against
beyondtheacademicdisciplineofarthistory. However,fortwo what Ruskin called the 'innocence of the eye' (p.296). Per-
decadesor more,manyarthistorians have consideredhis name ception,in Gombrich'saccount,is not a givenbut a learned
a bywordfor a rationalist, Eurocentricand naivelynaturalist practice,involvingan activeconstruction oftheworld.Resem-
approachto artwithwhich theyno longerwould wish to be blanceto realityis an effectgeneratedby theinterplay between
associated.A forceful blow to Gombrich'sreputation was struck the expected and the unexpected. Pictures are 'relational
by NormanBrysonin his Visionand Painting:The Logicofthe models' of reality(p.253). Pictorialrealismwas a historicaland
Gaze (1983), an intricately reasonedcritiqueof the quest for collectiveproduct,and hard-won.The artistis not free,but
an 'EssentialCopy' thathas supposedlydrivenWesternartand facesa limitedarrayofchoices(p.376). Culturesdetermine what
arttheorysinceAntiquity. Brysonarguedthatthepicture,as a is possible(p.86).
conventionalsign,deliversnot realitybut onlya coded message Such propositionsinvertedthe conventionalwisdom about
about realityand that verisimilitude is nothingmore than representation. Like hisnear-exactcontemporary, Claude Lévi-
'rhetoric'thatpersuadestheunwaryviewerthathe or sheis see- Strauss, Gombrich was a thinker'.
'reverse Lévi-Strauss argued
ingthingsas theyreallyare.Withinthedisciplineofarthistory, thatmythsare made by combiningbitsand pieces of previous
forat leasta decade, Bryson'spolemic was highlyinfluential. myths.Meaning does not precede, but ratherfollows,the
His anti-naturalism was embracedby arthistorians who wished myth-maker's 'Mythicalthought[. . .] is imprisoned
bricolage. in
to modernisetheirdiscipline,bringing it into step with the the eventsand experienceswhichit nevertiresof orderingand
developmentof criticaltheoryand poststructuralism thatby the re-ordering in its searchto findthema meaning'.5Gombrich
1980shad alreadyprofoundly reshapedliterary studies. too solvedproblemsby turningtheminsideout. For example,
The problem-solving model of the developmentof Western he pointed out that astrologicalassociationsdo not explain
artthatArtandIllusion proposedleftGombrich,inBryson'sview, character butcreatethem:humannatureadjustsitself,
traits as it
alignedwithan unacceptableclassicaltheoryof representation: were, to fitthe signs.6
'so farfromquestioningthe Whig optimismof thatversion,it Gombrich'sparadoxicalargumentis also homologouswith
in factreinforces itsevolutionaryand ideological drive'.2After thatof Thomas S. Kuhn, who in his The Structure ofScientific
Bryson, one could almost be forgivenfor thinkingthat the Revolutions (1962) describedthe paradigmatic, essentially social
phrase 'EssentialCopy', implyingan endpointto theprocessof basisofscientificknowledge.Just as Kuhn's demonstration of the
experimentation, was Gombrich's,whichit was not.Yet onlya collectiveand conventional knowledge a
natureofscientific was

forsponsoring
to theAzamFoundation
We aregrateful thisarticle. played a similarrole in Umberto Eco's Theoryof Semiotics, Bloomington
1 E.H. Gombrich:Artand Illusion:A 1976,pp.204-05, a classictreatisethatmakesthe mostextremecase possiblefor
ofPictorial
Studyin thePsychology Representation,
deliveredin 1956as theA.W. MellonLecturesin the
New York i960. Originally the conventionality whichwould seem
of signs.Even iconic signs,or pictures,
FineArtsattheNationalGalleryofArt,Washington. to be relatedto whattheysignify in strongerthanconventionalways,figurein
2 N. Eco's analysisas the productsof culturalconvention.In makinghis case, Eco
Bryson: Visionand Painting:The LogicoftheGaze, Cambridge 1983, p.21.
3 K. Moxey: The PradiceofTheory:Poststructuralism,
CulturalPolitics,and ArtHistory, enlistednone otherthanGombrich, of Constable'srecodingof
citinghis analysis
Ithaca1994,pp.30-31. the lighteffectsin the Englishlandscapein Wivenhoe Park(NationalGalleryof
4 N. Goodman:Languages andCambridge
ofArt,Indianapolis 1976,p.10.Gombrich Art,Washington; 1816).

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 E.H. GOMBRICH

revelationfor non-scientists, so too were non-arthistorians 'bewildering', as 'conundrums'or 'experiments', as artthathad

greatlyimpressed by Gombrich'sarguments. Kuhn strippedthe 'lostitsbearings'.Cubismin ArtandIllusion is dismissed as a 'last
scientificrevolutionofsomeofitsaurabyshowingthatscientists desperaterevoltagainstillusionism'(p.281).
were drivenby ambitionand limitedby forceof habit.Gom- But Gombrich'srelationto modernartis more complicated
brich,forhispart,desanctified thecontentsofthegreatmuseums thanthis.He was a contrarian by natureand could notabidethe
by showinghow thepainters, even as theywere aimingat ideal smugpost-War consensus, amongan educatedelite,thatabstrac-
formor expoundingarguments, were also solvinglocal, prac- tion had vanquishedfiguration once and forall. By the 1950s
tical,technicalproblems.Yet arthistorians, alreadyfamiliar with abstractionhad lost its revolutionary edge and had become
the conventionsof pictorialrepresentation, were not takenby universally palatable.Criticsacrossa wide ideologicalspectrum
surprise,forthisis thebasicpremiseof themoderndisciplineof agreedthatabstraction held out thepromiseof a new spiritual-
art history,especiallyas it was formulated by the pioneering ism, whetheraustereor romantic,in the face of the brutal
theorists and historians Konrad Fiedler,HeinrichWölfllinand literalisms and the delusionarymythologiesthathad together
AloisRiegl. 'People haveatalltimesseenwhattheywantto see', wreckedthecentury.The bourgeoisamateurof artcould con-
saidWölfflin.7 ArtandIllusionechoesand amplifies thisdictum. gratulate him-or herself forapprehending a modernartwhich,
Further,Gombrichstandsaccused of reducingart to mere accordingto André Malraux,writingin 1949, 'has liberated
technology.Art,to an arthistorian, is self-evidently something paintingwhichis now triumphantly a law untoitself.9Even the
made.The arthistorian is interested in thewaysartists selectand ThomisttheologianEtienne Gilson,who deliveredthe A.W.
recombine,contriveand construct, perhapseven add to reality. Mellon Lecturesin the Fine Artsin 1955, one year before
To speak of artistsstrivingto matchtheirfabricated worldsto Gombrich,proclaimedthatpainters couldneveragainindulgein
a realworldis to renderthemakingof artlessa poeticactivity 'the easypleasuresof imitationalor representational art'. Since
and more a technology.Poesis or artisticcreation,in many Cézanne, Gilson affirmed with satisfaction, paintinghad been
moderntheoriesof art,is compromised ifit submitsto practical forcedto submitto a 'cure of abstractionism'.10 Gombrichdid
imperatives. Art-making, an activityno doubtless freethanit not like the complacenttone of this,any more thandid Leo
pretendsto be, is nevertheless takento symbolise thefreedomof Steinberg,who in 1953 remindedreadersthatthe ambitions
theimagination. Technology,by contrast, is a problem-solving of the major modern artists,includingManet, Van Gogh,
processand does notclaimautonomy. Cézanne and Matisse,had been 'adequatelysummarizedin
To a certainextentGombrichinvitedthis readingof his Constable'sdictumwhich definesthe goal of paintingas "the
workby distancing himself, in repeatedcommentsthroughout pureapprehension ofnaturalfact'".11
the 1960s and 1970s,from the radicalconstructionist reading Unlike Steinberg,Gombrichin 1956 could not foreseethe
ofArtandIllusion - from Umberto Eco and Nelson Goodman, returnto figuration, to iconography andto theplenitudeofcon-
in effect.Gombrichfeltthattheirpositionswere unreasonable. temporary experience that was just thehorizon,therejection
on
He also courtedthenaturalist readingofhisworkby appearing ofthedogma of abstraction. Gombrich's reactionto thecrisisof
to say thatEuropean paintersgot betterand betterat repre- art in a modern culture - the lossof confidence in anytranscen-
sentingthe waysthingslooked betweenthe fifteenth and the dentalreference point - was simply to setaside the conceptofart,
nineteenthcenturies. atleastprovisionally. He mistrusted all themodernphilosophical
This raisedthe possibility thatGombrichmightbelieve that guides,metaphysicians andanti-metaphysicians alike,who might
European art was better than non-Europeanart.Emergingin have offeredhim a glimpseof a new conceptof art,suitedto
the earlynineteenthcentury,at a momentwhen medievalart modernexperience:Friedrich NietzscheandMartinHeidegger,
was recoveredforscholarship and when academicprejudicesin but also his own near-contemporaries, Theodor Adorno and
favourof ideal beautyand measuredproportionswere under MauriceMerleau-Ponty. Insteadhe envisioneda comprehensive
attack,thedisciplinehas deep rootsin a relativist mindset.The 'scienceoftheimage'.Here he wentfarbeyondSteinberg. After
eye of the modern academic art historian, whether in searchof theWar,Gombrichactuallysubmitted to a publishertheproject
theunderlying principles of form that reveal the shapeofhistory of an 'ambitiousbook ofwhichactuallyArtandIllusionand the
or
itself, in search of the concrete links that connect theartefact Senseof Order(1979) are only fragments: a generalbook on
withhistorical is
life, officially neutral. Riegl, whose pupilJulius images and the different functions of images',forexample,illus-
von Schlosserwas Gombrich'steacher,is allegedto havesaidthat tration,symbolism, emblems and decoration,to be called The
'thebestarthistorian is theone who has no personaltaste'.8 RealmandRangeoftheImage.In hismistrust bothofidealism(the
Otherarthistorians dismissedGombrichas a reactionary who hope that imagesmightguide us to a truth beyondexperience)
failedto graspthepowerandsignificance ofthedominantmodes and of hermeneutics (thehope thatthe truthmightbe embed-
of the makingof art in his own lifetime.Gombrichdid not ded somewheredeep insidetheimage),Gombrichis theallyof
disguisehis lack of sympathy forthe twentieth-century avant- suchdisparate but influential figuresasJohnBerger,HorstBre-
and
gardes appeared panderto to the ill-informed opinionofthe dekamp and JonathanCrary.For ArtandIllusion, withitsmany
man on the streetwhen he describedworksof modernartas and of
reproductions analyses posters,advertisements, popular

5 C. Lévi-Strauss:
TheSavageMind,Chicago1966,p.22. endup producing fourquitedifferent-lookingworks- thatWölfllinhadretoldon
6 R. Woodfield:'Warburg's"Method"', in idem,ed.: Art History as Cultural thefirst
page ofhis Principles.
Amsterdam 2001, p.285, citinga little-read 8 CitedbyO. Pachtin idem:ThePractice ofArtHistory,
London1999,p.29.
History:Warburg's
Projects, essayby
Gombrich publishedin a Belgianjournalin i0S4· 9 CitedbyL. Steinberg: 'The Eyeisa PartoftheMind',in idem:Other New
Criteria,
7 H. Wölfllin: (1915),New York1950,p.17.Gombrich
ofArtHistory
Principles even York 1972,p.290.
withtheveryanecdotefromLudwigRichter- involving 10E. Gilson:PaintingandReality, New York 1957,pp.259and265,note25.
beganhissecondchapter
fourdraughtsmenwho striveto rendera naturalmotifwithperfect and
objectivity 11Steinberg,op.cit.(note9), p.292.

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E.H. GOMBRICH

prints,opticalillusionsand scientific illustrations,indisputably opticalmodeis shadowedbythethreatofa collapsebackintothe

prophesiedthefieldof studythatwould laterbe calledBilduHs- corporeal;thepowerofthedrivesandthesensesto confoundthe
in Germany,
senschaft andin BritainandAmerica'visualculture'. reflective ambitionsof artbecomesthe verythemeof modern
The studentofvisualculture,who maywell harbourambitions art.But in theend itis alwaystheasymmetry betweenbodyand
to liquidatethedisciplineofarthistory outright, believesthatthe mind thatgivesthe narrative its shape. This is the accountof
studyofimageshasbeenimpededbyoutmodedtastesforthefine the discipline,more or less,offered by Michael Podro's Critical
arts,aestheticexperiencesand theartofinterpretation. HistoriansofArt(1982),a book thatexpressly excludesGombrich.
By identifying a problem-solving dynamicembeddedwithin Gombrichlostfaithin reasonas thebasisforthisnarrative, and
the historyof the fine arts,Gombrichdrew firefromtwo so turnedto technology.Problemsolving,as explicatedin Art
constituencies:on the one hand, those who believe thatart andIllusion, is a kindof externalised reason.Technologymakes
historians shouldnevertellthestoryofartas a storyofprogress, measurableprogressand yetdoes not dependon humanvirtue,
and on the otherhand,thoseconvincedthatmodernartdoes onlycompetence.Gombrichwas notsayingthatart,in theend,
represent an advanceon earlierart- notbecauseitbetterrenders turnsout to be nothingotherthana technology.He was only
how thingsappear,but becauseit proposesa new social order, sayingthatifyou areinterested in tellingthestoryofartas a story,
capturestheinvisiblestructure of the cosmosor reflects on the witha plot,andifyou areinterested in showingthatartregisters
natureofartitself. theprogressive dominationof mindovermatter,thenyou had
To thelattercharge,Gombrichpleadedguilty:he was sceptical betternarrowyour field of vision and focus only on those
of all avant-gardisms. He revealsthe sourcesof thisview in his episodesin thehistoryof artwhen artists were trying to render
book-length interview withDidierEribon,wherehe describesa thelook ofthings.
lengthyunpublishedmanuscripton the subjectof caricature, Althoughhe was averse to avant-gardeart, Gombrich's
whichhe wrotetogetherwithErnstKris.The two authorssaw theoriesoftheproductionand receptionofartdevelopedin Art
caricature, whichfirstappearedin Europeanartonlyin thelate andIllusioncan easilybe extendedbeyondrepresentational artto
sixteenth century, as a successorto themagicalimage,whichin abstractart and indeed any art. Podro, in his book Depiction
pre-moderntimeshad been creditedwiththepowerto defame (1998), saw no barrierto extendingGombrich'saccountof the
or even injureits subject.Caricaturewas only possibleonce artof paintingas a reflection on the conditionsof perception-
people stoppedbelievingthattheimagecould workrealharm. on therealisation ofthesubjectthroughrecognition, in Podro's
When theinterviewer askedGombrichwhetherhe stillheldthis terms- beyondthe horizonof illusionistic painting.'It would
theory,thearthistorian answered:'No, certainly not'. For Kris, be hard to conceive of a practiceof this kind [Mondrian's
like so manyothermodernthinkers, includingFreudas well as abstractions] - thisplayofvariations - withoutthecultivation of
Riegl and AbyWarburg,was 'underthespellofan evolutionist formalrelations in earlierdepiction,withoutfamiliarity withthe
interpretation of human history,imaginedas a slow advance consistencies of morphologythatrun throughdiscreteobjects
fromprimitiveirrationality to the triumphof reason'. After and there-visionof one featurethroughanother'.The process
the Second WorldWar Gombrichfeltit was simplyno longer is structured as a feedbackloop: 'recognitionsustainedand
possibleto believeoptimistically in theinevitablerefinement of developeditselfthroughrecruitment of its own materialand
thehumanspirit.12 psychologicalconditionsto make itselfmore replete'.13The
Art historians, in Gombrich'sview, were simplyunable to 'depiction'phaseofarthistory, whichhasthemeritofrevealing
resisttellingthestoryof artas a progressive dominanceof spirit clearlythe structure of the game, now appearsto have been
over matter.He associatedthismodel with Hegel, but it has a limitedepisode. Not only the 'look of things',but also the
mucholderChristianroots.Gombrichwas rightthatthedema- hidden essence of things,can be modelled, schematised,
terialisationofartis thebasicplotstructure ofvirtuallyall ambi- corrected.Some artistsseem to do nothingbut make and
tiousarthistorywrittensincethe nineteenth century, whether make, neverbotheringto match.In fact,theyare comparing
formalist, humanist, Marxist or in
poststructuralistflavour;from whattheymaketo a conceptionofrealitytheyfindsomewhere
Riegl, Wölfflin and Meyer Schapiro to TJ. Clark, Hubert insidethemselves.
Damisch and Rosalind Krauss.In thisnarrative, artbeginsby We are not dealingwith 'progress'here,but ratherwithan
a
restagingprimal tactile or bodily relation to theworld. Ata later emergent processthatseems,fromtheinside,to havea structure
art
point puts itstrust in the sense of sight,offering worldas
the evenifitis notatfirst clearwhereitis headed.It islikelearning-
a picture.In thiswaythebeholderis stabilised andputfaceto face not masteryof a skill,but learningas the growthof a deep
withtheworkofart,preparing himor hereitherto enterintoa familiarity witha subjector a problem.Learningis a convergent
virtualrelationwiththework,or to reflect on thework'sreflec- process that nevertheless has no endpoint.We mayfeelthatwe
tions on the conditionsof its own possibility, includingthe arelearningmoreand moreandyet,paradoxically, haveno idea
beholder'sperceptualand cognitiveparticipation; and so on ad what it mightbe like to have learned everything, to have
The
infinitum. story is retold with many nuanced In
variations. nothing more to learn. And I
this, believe, is the nature of the
Wölfflin'sscheme,the linearor tactilemode is succeededby process that Gombrich was describing. European arthas at times
the painterlyor optical mode; but the sequence of linearto appeared - even and especiallyto the artists
themselves - to be a
painterly can alsobe repeated,as a kindofsub-routine, insidean convergentprocess and yet no one has ever imagined that art
overallpainterly regime. In the twentieth of
century Krauss,the would one dayachieveitsendsand ceaseto change.

12ifciW.,
pp.51-53. Fictiveand theImaginary:ChartingLiterary Baltimoreand London 1993,
Anthropology,
13M. Podro: Depiction, New Haven 1998, p.26. Bryson,op. cit. (note 2), pp.284-89.
p.30,allowedas much.W. Iser:HowtoDo Theory,
Oxford2006,pp.52-55,makesa 14E.H. Gombrich:'Raphaels "StanzadellaSegnatura, in idem:Symbolic
Images,
similarargument.See themoreextendeddiscussion
of Gombrichin W. Iser:The London1972,p.ioi. See alsothefinalwordsof'Meditations
on a HobbyHorse',in

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 E.H. GOMBRICH

In the last chapterof Artand Illusion,Gombrichwonders
how art,ifit isjust a technologyforsimulating opticalimpres-
sions,managesto amountto anythingat all. In fact,he never
once losthis senseof whatartis and whyit is significant, even
as he denied himselfany facile satisfaction in art. Like his
teacher,Schlosser,who held an ineffableCrocean conception
of art,Gombrich,in his scholarship, tendsto evade the ques-
tion. He gives us glimpsesof his view of artonly in gnomic
comments,typicallyin the closing pages of his essays,for
instanceat the end of 'Raphael's "Stanza della Segnatura'",
where the painteris creditedwith transforming humanistic
commonplacesinto a beautifuland complexcompositionthat
givestheimpressionof 'an inexhaustible plenitude'.Gombrich
adds,and one wisheshe had saidjust a littlemoreon thetopic:
'This plenitudeis no illusion'.**
Such comments,which hintat a positiveaesthetic,are rare.
Gombrichunderstoodthat under the altered conditionsof
modernity, anytheoryof arthas to be routedthrougha theory
of the image, a Bildwissenschaft. Neverthelesshis dramatic
accountof the dialecticalhoningof representational algorithms
acrosstimeconjuresup brief,mirage-like visionsof an artthat
finallyshowsus whatlifeis like.The possibility ofsuchan arthad
been explainedawayby a centuryof art-historical scholarship
a secular science. Gombrich,true to his Viennese training,
demonstrated once more the paradoxicaldependenceof the
image on formulaeand improvisedsolutions.Yet in the end
Gombrichcannotdisguisehis excitementabout the imagethat
managessomehowto seize thereal.That imageshinesthrough
Art and Illusion'sscreen of explanations.Non-art historians
did not perceivethisshiningthroughof reality,fortheywere
more interested in the argumentabout the conventionality of
pictorialrepresentation, whichwas new to them.But some art
historians did,and thatis why theyheld Gombrich' s book at
arm'slength.NormanBryson,when he calledfora systematic
semioticsof theimage,was onlytellingarthistorians whatthey
already wanted to hear:that the image of the true imageis too
threatening, thatit mustbe exorcised, that it will dragus backto
religion.
In the thirdchapterof ArtandIllusion,'Pygmalion'sPower',
Gombrichplaceshis storywithinthelong-termcontextof the
mythoftheimageor artefact thatcomesto life.He assignedthe
dreamof 'rivallingcreationitself (p.93) to an 'archaic'phase
whenimageswerethoughtbyvirtueoftheirlifelikeness to wield
magicalpower. The impression of lifelikeness was created,not
strictly but
by resemblance, by efficacy within a 'contextof
action', a ritualor a game. But the threats to orthodox religion
andto reasonposedbymagicandbyritualareworriesthatGom-
brich inheritedfrom'Christianity' and the 'Enlightenment',
In
respectively. assigning the confusion ofartand lifeto a prim-
itivestagein humanhistory, he acceptedtheveryevolutionary
model of human naturethat he had reproachedFreud and
Warburgforholding.In fact,art'spossessiverelationship to life
has by no meansdiminishedin ardour.In modernity it simply
takesdifferent forms.
Techne, the Greek word forart,is whatman adds to nature.
The ultimateaim of techne - thechallenge- is thegenerationof
lifeout of non-life.At thatpoint,artwould come to an end
becauseman becomesnature.Artneverquitelostsightofthat
self-annihilating goal.15Sculptureand paintingtriedto capture
and deliverlife.When in the nineteenthcenturymechanical
and electrictechnologies, immeasurably morepowerfulthanthe
traditional media,took up the challengeof animation,theidea
thatone mightstillbe able to fabricate livingimagesby hand
cameto seemquaint.More lifelikethananyoil paintingwerethe
imagesof photography and cinema.But not everyonebelieved
thatthesemarvelsbelongedto a history ofart.When Gombrich
deliveredhis Mellon Lecturesat the NationalGalleryof Artin
1956,manyin hisaudiencesurelybelievedthattheambitionsof
seriousartand the largelycommercialmotivationsof cinema,
includinganimatedfilms,had partedcompanyforever.The
capricesofDisneyHollywoodStudios,itseemed,werea puerile,
trivialisedextensionofthedreamofa 'secondlife'thathad once
sustainedthegreattradition ofthemakingofart.
Many artists in thelate 1950sand early1960s,impatient with
thepietiessurrounding painterly abstraction, were emboldened
to turnto theillusion-generating technologies.These were the
yearsof video art,multimediaperformances, Fluxus,Structural
film;theyearsof theintroduction ofphotography intoconcep-
- tualpractice;not to mentionphotorealism in painting.Like the
old masters, whose obsessionswithperspectiveor lighteffects
Gombrich chronicled,these artistsfound no contradiction
between control over representational technologiesand the
projectof deliveringtheworlda secondtimein orderto make
it strange;to make art,in otherwords.ArtandIllusionis more
easilycontextualised withina history ofmodernartthanwithin
a history ofmodernarthistory.
Today,halfa century afterthebook'spublication, themoving
image,the animatedimage,the interactive image,the moving
body, the machine,the flow of information itselfhave all
become basic componentsof artisticproduction.The stagings
and restagings thathave structured artsincethelate 1950s,from
Fluxusto Happenings,fromperformance artand installationart
to theartofrelationandparticipation, mightwellbe understood
as reinsertions of creativityinto 'contextsof action', rituals
and games,with the aim of collapsingreflective distanceand
reinvesting the work of art with life. This projectlooms once
again as the vanishing point of art. Illusion reaffirms thebodyas
thecentralpreoccupation ofart.The bodygenerates perceptions
and memorieswhich it then imitatesby fabricating images
beyond its own boundaries,such as paintingsor films.The
illusionis nothingotherthanan externalimagethathas come
to resemblevery closely an internalimage, thus seemingly
abolishingtheboundaryof thebody.The bodymergeswithits
environment and so postponesannihilation.
The fusionof techne withlifeas envisagedby theartistis less
sensationalbut no less real thanthe artificial lifehypothesised
today in the robotics or the biology laboratory.Gombrich
seemed aware in 1956 thathe was standingat the brinkof a
completely new era,in artas muchas in science,butwas unable
to peerovertheedge. In ArtandIllusionhe foundnevertheless a
way to remind us that artis most art-like when it imagineswhat
itwould be likenotto be art.

thevolumeofthesamename(London1963);or ArtandIllusion, p.396,thepenul-
timatesentenceof the book, on our habitualreluctance'to recognizeambiguity
behindtheveilofillusion'.
15Comparethe reference by Brysonto a 'generally held,vague,common-sense
conceptionof the imageas the resurrectionof Life'; Bryson:op. at. (note 2),
p.3. I am not surethatcommonsensedoes conceiveof the imagein thisway,
butifit does,thenthisis themostinteresting
remark Brysonmakesin Visionand
Painting.

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