This learned and heavy volume should be placed on the shelves of every
art historical library.--E. H. Gombrich, New York Review of Books
This is an engaged and passionate work by a writer with powerful
convictions about art, images, aesthetics, the art establishment, and
especially the discipline of art history. It is animated by an
extraordinary erudition.--Arthur C. Danto, The Art Bulletin
Freedberg's ethnographic and historical range is simply stunning. . . .
The Power of Images is an extraordinary critical achievement,
exhilarating in its polemic against aesthetic orthodoxy, endlessly
fascinating in its details. . . . This is a powerful, disturbing
book.--T. J. Jackson Lears, Wilson Quarterly
Freedberg helps us to see that one cannot do justice to the images of
art unless one recognizes in them the entire range of human responses,
from the lowly impulses prevailing in popular imagery to their
refinement in the great visions of the ages.--Rudolf Arnheim, Times
Literary Supplement