Small wonders
Are the best things in life small? Think of iPods for listening, Mini Coopers for driving, tapas for dining, and now E.H. Gombrich's "The Story of Art" for reading.
Gombrich's book and H.W. Janson's "History of Art" have long been the Coke and Pepsi, the Larry and Magic, of undergraduate art history. If you ever took an introductory fine arts course, chances are one of them was your textbook. Large, weighty, coffee-table-busting tomes, both have been updated in many subsequent editions since their original publication s in, respectively, 1950 and 1963.
A new edition of "The Story of Art" has just come out, but it isn't an updating. It couldn't be. Gombrich, who died in 2001, is no longer around to do the updating. It is, however, the most novel edition of either book -- and easily the most winning.
Phaidon , the book's publisher, has managed to give downsizing a good name by printing "The Story of Art" in a pocket edition. True, any pocket capable of containing this book has to be somewhat roomy. But the pleasing proportions of this edition are a marvel of compactness. At 7 3/8 inches by 4 3/8 inches, this pocket version is more than 2 inches narrower and shorter than any of its predecessors, and it's easily held in one hand.
Phaidon kept all the text and illustrations from previous editions. So to achieve the reduction in size a special lightweight paper was used and the book's 413 illustrations are no longer interspersed within the text. They're now segregated in back, everything from the Colosseum to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (detail, inset) to Munch's "Scream." This makes comparing words with images harder, of course, so the pocket edition has bound in a pair of ribbon markers to make it easier to go back and forth.
With these steps taken, the book tips the scales at 1 1/2 pounds instead of 4 pounds, as before. Jenny Craig should do so well. There's a certain irony in this weight loss, seeing as how the first illustration in "The Story of Art" is by Peter Paul Rubens. Just ask Kirstie Alley what "Ruben esque" is a euphemism for. But in art, it isn't the size but what you do with it.
MARK FEENEY 
