This book is a classic study of image-making, which seeks the answer to an apparently simple but fundamental question: Why is there such a thing as style? In his wide-ranging exploration of the history of representation, Professor Gombrich examines old and new ideas on the imitation of nature, the function of tradition, the problem of abstraction and the interpretation of expression. Art and Illusion was described by Lord Clark as 'one of the most brilliant books on art criticism I have ever read', and was selected by Hugh Trevor-Roper in 1994 as one of the five works which he believes to have been the greatest and most influential in the last half-century.