The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things. This item is unavailable.The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things

When it was first released in 1962, The Shape of Time presented a radically new approach to the study of art history. Drawing upon new insights in fields such as anthropology and linguistics, George Kubler replaced the notion of style as the basis for histories of art with the concept of historical sequence and continuous change across time. Kublers classic work is now made available in a freshly designed edition.

'The Shape of Time is as relevant now as it was in 1962. This book, a sober, deeply introspective and quietly thrilling meditation on the flow of time and space and the place of objects within a larger continuum, adumbrates so many of the critical and theoretical concerns of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. It is both appropriate and necessary that it reappear in our consciousness at this time.' --Edward J. Sullivan, New York University

'Kubler's telling of the history of things remains a key text, his vision a compelling mixture of the habitual and the poetic in human behaviour. For him, human creativity is a constantly repeated attempt to refine answers to a set of questions that change only slowly. But this universal habit is punctuated by the great works of art, ways of doing and seeing that he compares to stars, influencing, shaping and illuminating even after they have been destroyed.' --Neil MacGregor, Director, The British Museum