Originally published in 1963, this book was the first volume to be published in the author's long and distinguished series of collected essays. In it he addresses fundamental questions about the nature of artistic achievement, the criteria of artistic value, and the role of language in understanding and interpreting images. These essays explore the problematic character of metaphors, analogies, symbols, myths, conventions and traditions in art and art-historical writing, and investigate the notions of representation, expression, abstraction and illusion.