IMAGE THEORY

READING GUIDE I – PRACTICAL SESSION

Reading E.H. Gombrich: Meditations on a Hobby Horse or the Roots of the Artistic Form

Unit Unit 1.1 Understanding the image. Image, representation and reality (Week 2)

Read the text and outline the main ideas following the questions below and search for
Activity images that may fit his different understandings of the image. We will discuss and
explain the text in classrooms using various examples.
At Aula Global, you should upload a pdf document with the images you have selected
for a general discussion and approach to the text.
Deadline for uploading this document: September, 12th (09.00 hours).

INTRODUCTION
Until the end of the nineteenth century, the prevalent theory of pictorial representation in Western
culture was imitation theory for about five hundred years. It was originated in the fourth century BC
in Greece and revived in the fifteenth-century Italian Renaissance. In this text, the Austrian Art
Historian Ernst Gombrich calls into question this assumption taking as a case in point the form and
the function of a specific object (a hobbyhorse). We will outline and discuss his main ideas using
different examples from fixed and moving images.

SEARCH IMAGES THAT MAY ILLUSTRATE THESE KEY QUESTIONS

 Following Gombrich, all images should be "read" as referring to some imaginary or actual
reality? Provide some examples.
 How does Gombrich explain the notion of "conceptual image"? Provide one example.

FURTHER QUESTIONS FOR THE DISCUSSION

 What has been the dominant and most common definition of the image? According to this
definition, what is the role of the artist?
 Gombrich proposes to understand representations as substitutions in terms of function. Please
select the most significant parts of the text in which he develops this idea and explain them with
your own words.
 According to Gombrich, is the beholder's relationship with the image passive? Why?
 How does the social-cultural background influence our conception of the image?