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Reflecting on my reading year 2016, I came to think of books that have meant a lot to me over the past decades, and the first one that came to my mind was Gombrich’s excellent introduction to art history.

I will have to go back twenty years, half my life, to the year 1996. I am twenty years old, and just about to discover the pleasurable adventure called university. For Christmas, I receive a much longed-for gift card to buy books that “will help me in my studies��, and I stand in a bookstore, one of those exquisite, inexhaustible bookstores on several floors that German university cities provide, and I am browsing through options. I probably spend hours there. I can still feel the time pass, while I look, think, go through history, art, literature. I pick a book, then another one, and more still, until I have to bring one back. Gift card value is weighed against all these lovely, lovely possibilities.

At this moment in time, I own one Billy bookshelf, and it is not filled yet, as my children’s books and classics are left at my parents�� house. What do I pick? I don’t remember the fiction, but I do remember picking a “start of the term offer��, Mayersches Taschenlexikon, in 34 volumes, rarely used, as the internet takes over soon, and it is inconvenient to look up definitions by going through entries in alphabetical order. Some time between 1996 and now, it falls victim to one of our many moves between cities and countries. I don’t have it anymore. I bought it out of duty.

I choose one extravaganza: Gombrich. A German hardback copy, beautifully illustrated, taking a huge chunk of the gift card money. I start reading as soon as I come home. And almost magically, it opens up the world of art to me. I learn why Egyptians “walk like Egyptians��, I discover Rubens, Bernini, Raphael, Leonardo, and Delacroix,and Canova, Manet and Monet, and Picasso, Duchamp and, and, and...

I discover the world through a visual prism. Ever since then, Gombrich has followed my path. I soon come to read his more specialised works on form, function and symbolism in Renaissance art, I learn about his life, deeply influenced by 20th century history, and I keep going back to “The Story Of Art�� whenever I need to take a step back and look at general ideas again.

And I steal my mother’s Swedish copy!

I want to read it aloud to my children, and they are only used to their father reading in German, and me in Swedish. So in order not to confuse them more than necessary in their Babylonian curse, I read it in Swedish, the stolen goods. And what a help that has been in the many museums around the world that my children have visited over the years. They recognise their “Gombrich�� when they see it.

Two years ago, my eldest son wants a copy - in English, in order to be able to quote from it. And of course I can’t resist buying it for him, at a shop inside the British Museum. So we have three copies, and I would not be beyond buying one in French, at a shop in the Louvre, maybe, just for the silliness of owning a favourite in so many different shapes. For they are all slightly different in layout, but equally satisfying visually and textually.

I still recommend it to whoever wants a clear, concise, lovable account of the history starting with cave paintings in Lascaux, and moving forwards still, mirroring humanity in its need to express ideas, thoughts and feelings through the medium of art.

My children and I will now be reading A Little History of the World, which Gombrich wrote expressly for children, and YES - we read it in Swedish. And YES, we have it in English as well!

And NO - one Billy bookshelf is not even enough for our children’s books anymore!

This is The Story Of Lisa And The Story Of Art, to be continued...