Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
An art historian who wrote 'The Story of Art', the world's most popular introduction to great artists and their work.
On the island
Eight records
My first record, which I selected, was a gramophone record which we produced in memory of my mother, whom I have just mentioned.
String Quartet No. 12 in E flat major, Op. 127 (first movement)
I took one of the late quartets because I shall have plenty of time to listen to it on the desert island. And since these are notoriously difficult pieces, I shall profit from my solitude there.
Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 'Pastoral' (first movement)
I thought I should also have the more cheerful side of Beethoven… I hope that I have similar feelings when I arrive on the Desert Island.
Piano Concerto No. 9 in E flat major, K. 271 'Jeunehomme' (third movement)
I couldn't very well not choose the Mozart concerto, piano concerto, because they are the greatest one of the greatest bodies of great music in our heritage.
Divertimento in E flat major for string trio, K. 563 (second movement)
I think is absolutely miraculous, both for its economy of means and the richness of its content.
String Quartet No. 2 in C major, Op. 54 No. 2 (last movement)
I have one favorite and that is the one I wish to play because there this slow movement is very poignantly put at the end.
Nelson Mass (Missa in angustiis) – 'Et incarnatus est'
I am not myself a religious person, but I think as a historian of art, one must be concerned with religion and religious art, and one learns very movingly what these things mean to a believer if you listen to this music.
I have chosen one of the leader, which is not perhaps Schubert's greatest, but it is in praise of solitude, which would be very suitable for a desert island.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:15So much was art a part of your mental furniture, Professor Gombrich, that I think I'm right in saying you were able to write your best seller, The Story of Art, off the cuff, as it were. A secretary came to your house and you simply dictated it. Is that correct?
Yes, that is more or less correct. I mean, I had illustrations at home which I used, but I didn't plan very much, and I certainly didn't didn't draft what I was to dictate. It just flowed.
Presenter asks
1:40So forty years on, sixteen editions, millions of copies, twenty different languages, are you do you remain surprised by its success?
I'm afraid it was fifteen editions so far. Yes, I was immensely surprised by its success. I never expected anything like it.
Presenter asks
8:52How much were you aware, during your childhood, Professor Gombrich, and then as a young adult, of the growth of anti Semitism? How much did it impinge upon you and your family as Jews?
The keepsakes
The luxury
a bathtub with endless hot water
I think I wrote all my books in the bath. I mean, I thought about them in the bath. It's my way of composing something. I lie in my bath and think about it.
It only very slowly started to impinge. In artistic circles, of course, as always, nobody asked whether an artist was a Jew or not a Jew, one asked whether he was a good artist. And the issue of anti-Semitism seemed something rather vulgar, which intelligent and if one may call it refined people wouldn't even consider. But of course, gradually, as the growth of these parties was evident and the posters appeared in the street inciting violence against Jews, one became very much more aware of it.
Presenter asks
13:47What's your view, your belief, about the nature of our cultural life today, some sixty years on? Do you think we are we are less cultured? Are we more Philistine than your generation?
There are some very cultured people, but I think that there is a certain danger of Philistinism, which is largely due, I would say, to the spread of television and similar media. I think that it is quite likely that the real enjoyment of great music or great art still exists among a minority, but there is a certain tendency, as Anin tell you, to speak of elitism and to deprecate this kind of selectivity which in which I believe.
Presenter asks
20:23What was the first that you knew about what had actually been going on [regarding the Holocaust]?
The first I knew was in Russian broadcasts when they uh reached the place where Auschwitz and the other death camps were. And they claimed at that time I remember that as if it were today they claimed that in this place five million people had been killed. And I remember a colleague of mine coming to me I was at the time I so can't call supervisor and asked me to check this figure because it seemed impossible. And I said, Yes, it is impossible. But it happened to be true.
Presenter asks
31:59Do you feel British? What what do you feel now?
I certainly don't feel English. I mean, after all, you heard my accent and I don't feel English in any way. I feel precisely as what I am. I am a Central European intellectual who works here in England. I should say that I appreciate very much the possibility of working at a place like the Warburg Institute, which is unique both for its staff and for its library. And I'm immensely grateful for the reception we foreigners received here. I'm still staggered by the fact that the Queen awarded me the Order of Merit. And so my appreciation could not be more, but I would deceive myself if I now thought that this makes me into an Englishman. I cannot be.
“I think that everybody should look particularly children should look at what they really like. I think the fatal error is to ram anything down anybody's throat and to make them like things. They can only become attitudinizers. They cannot become anything else.”
“I am not a great friend of abstract art. I have never quite appreciated, though I know that some of these artists are immensely serious and dedicated and are trying to find new ways of using painting and of using paint, which had become urgent in this century after photography has taken away from painting what I sometimes call the ecological niche of painting, portraits, landscapes, storytelling.”
“I am not myself a religious person, but I think as a historian of art, one must be concerned with religion and religious art, and one learns very movingly what these things mean to a believer if you listen to this music.”
“I certainly don't feel English. I mean, after all, you heard my accent and I don't feel English in any way. I feel precisely as what I am. I am a Central European intellectual who works here in England.”
“Well, I think I wrote all my books in the bath. I mean, I thought about them in the bath. It's my way of composing something. I lie in my bath and think about it.”