pbA groundbreaking account of perception and art, from one of the twentieth century's most important art historiansb pE. H. Gombrich is widely considered to be one of the most influential art historians of the twentieth century, and iArt and Illusioni is generally agreed to be his most important book. Bridging science and the humanities, this classic work examines the history and psychology of pictorial representation in light of modern theories of information and learning in visual perception. Searching for a rational explanation of the changing styles of art, Gombrich reexamines ideas about the imitation of nature and the function of tradition. In testing his arguments, he ranges over the history of art, from the ancient Greeks, Leonardo, and Rembrandt to the impressionists and the cubists. But the triumphant originality of iArt and Illusion iis that Gombrich is less concerned with the artists than with the psychological experience of the viewers of their work.p