I hope and believe cultural history will make progress if it also fixes its attention firmly on the individual human being. Movements, as distinct from periods, are started by people. Some of them are abortive, others catch on. Each movement in its turn has a core of dedicated souls, a crowd of hangers-on, not to forget a lunatic fringe. There is a whole spectrum of attitudes and degrees of conversion. Even within the individual there may be various levels of conviction, various conscious and unconscious fluctuations in loyalty. What seemed acceptable during the mass rally or revivalist meeting may look pretty crazy on the way home. But movements would not be movements if they did not have their badges, their outward signs, their style of behaviour, style of speech and of dress. Who can probe the motives which prompt individuals to adopt some of these, and who would venture in every case to pronounce on the completeness of the conversion this adoption may express? Knowing these limitations, the cultural historian will be a little wary of the claims of cultural psychology.
Austrian art historian (1909–2001)
Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich, OM, CBE (30 March 1909 – 3 November 2001) was an Austrian-born art historian who became a naturalized British citizen in 1947, and spent most of his working life in the United Kingdom. He was the author of many works of cultural history and art history, including The Story of Art (1950), a book which had reached 16 editions by 2022.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Alternative Names:
E. H. Gombrich
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Sir Ernst Gombrich
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Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich
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Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich
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Enrst Hans Gombrich
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