HSE Publishing House

This book comprises a collection of essays on vital problems of art history seen as the practice of reviving of meanings related to the visual reality of the past. Here the model for the investigator has een Ernst Gombrich, the art theorist, as well as art historian, whose scholarly discourse is truly creative. Gombrich revealed the performative core of any kind of scholarly knowledge. Gombrich's work and personality, and also the story of his relationships with Popper, Warburg, Panofsky, Mitchell, Preziosi, Wind and many others, give us insight in research as interpersonal communication in the variety of conceptual contexts, which causes specific illusive effects resembling the illusion which is usually considered typical of visual arts exclusively.

The book will be useful to specialists in esthetics, psychology and philosophy, and to all interested in art and its interpretation.