Prompted by modern critical discussions, the 14 papers, lectures and articles assembled in this volume revolve around key issues raised by twentieth-century art and theory.

Taking abstraction and expression as his main themes, this eclectic assortment of Professor Gombrich's monumental essays encompass the whole of the history of art, and includes major articles on the social history of art, visual metaphor, tradition and expression, and psychoanalysis.

Characteristic of his thought-provoking use of diverse sources for inspiration and exploration, this book embodies a timelessly powerful corpus of Gombrich's ground-breaking thought.