The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response

David Freedberg offers an unprecedented exploration of the psychodynamics of image apprehension and lays the foundations for a theory of response unrestricted by historical and social context.

"This learned and heavy volume should be placed on the shelves of every art historical library."—E. H. Gombrich, New York Review of Books

"This is an engaged and passionate work by a writer with powerful convictions about art, images, aesthetics, the art establishment, and especially the discipline of art history. It is animated by an extraordinary erudition."—Arthur C. Danto, The Art Bulletin

"Freedberg's ethnographic and historical range is simply stunning. . . . The Power of Images is an extraordinary critical achievement, exhilarating in its polemic against aesthetic orthodoxy, endlessly fascinating in its details. . . . This is a powerful, disturbing book."—T. J. Jackson Lears, Wilson Quarterly

"Freedberg helps us to see that one cannot do justice to the images of art unless one recognizes in them the entire range of human responses, from the lowly impulses prevailing in popular imagery to their refinement in the great visions of the ages."—Rudolf Arnheim, Times Literary Supplement