The book I read to research this post was The Story Of Art by Sir Ernst Gombrich which is an excellent book which I bought from a car boot sale. This is the 7th impression of the 12th edition published in 1977 so is quite. It tells the story of art from earliest times to the early 20th century. Something the author does say is if you are writing about the state of art in the present you are unlikely to write about the greatest artists at that time because only the passage of time can confirm who the greatest artists are. If you look at the 1890’s when one of the greatest artists was Van Gogh who was inspired by Japanese prints at the time. He was regarded as a mad Dutchman whose pictures weren’t successful in his lifetime. He sold them for a pittance. Another factor is you have to remove any artists preconceptions you have prior to seeing art to appreciate it. You have to ignore how you think something should be and also come to terms with things you find distateful. Much of what we regard as great art was drawn in the 18th century in what is regarded as the later renaissance. In the earlier renaissance great leaps were made in art but they had a long way to go. Many of the greatest thinkers of that age like Leonardo da Vinci were self taught often ignoring the classics like learning Greek and Latin and learning what they wanted to learn. There were many other self taught men with wide ranging knowledge apart from Leonardo and in general it was a time of great learning. There were a lot of wealthy people with lots of time on their hands in this position.
