"...one of the most often cited source books on art...a penetrating inquiry into one of the great aesthetic problems: Why does a period in which proficiency in all branches of art and philosophy seems almost a way of life- in this instance the Renaissance- eventually peter out and die away? Wolfflin also touches on a related problem: Why is it that art cannot build on itself, consolidating its advances as the sciences can but has to be constantly in a process of revolution and change?" --from the bookjacket(Photo from German hard cover edition )