宮布理希宣稱提供一個具象藝術發展的普遍理論。他只討論了歐洲藝術，但如果他的解釋是正確的，則這個解釋應該也可以施用於中國藝術。在簡述其分析概要後，我使用一系列的例子來評估這個解釋如何能施用於中國繪畫。同時我也討論一些中國作者對圖式幻覺主義所提出的說法。接著我轉而分析宮布理希這套解釋（或理論）的政治意涵。根據宮布理希，追求幻覺的藝術出現在高度關注實驗科學與科技發展的文化中。那麼，中國無法持續一致地發展出自然寫實繪畫，和中國在科技發展上的停滯（這為中國從十八到二十世紀帶來許多問題），此二者間是否有關連呢？對這個問題的探討，讓我們能夠將宮布理希對於藝術史的解釋連接上更廣的世界藝術史。

（翻譯：謝佳娟）

Ernst Gombrich claims to offer a general theory of the development of figurative art. He only discusses European art, but if his account is correct it should apply also to the art of China. After sketching his analysis, I use a sequence of examples to consider how this account could apply to Chinese painting. And I discuss the accounts of pictorial illusionism developed by writers in China. I then turn to analysis of the political implications of this account. According to Gombrich, illusionistic art is found in cultures with an interest sympathetic to experimental science and development of technology. Is there a connection, then, between the failure of China to consistently develop naturalistic painting and the stasis, which in the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries created such problems for that country? Discussion of that question allows us to link Gombrich's account of the story of art with a broader world art history.