1 JANUARY 1983, Page 24

J. G. Links

In The Image and the Eye (Phaidon) Sir Ernst Gombrich has again led us entertain- ingly along the path towards understanding Gestalt psychology and all that; occasionally the old magician made me think I really understood the difference between art and illusion. C. M. Woodhouse waited nearly 40 years to tell his thrilling war-time adven- tures and the benefit of hindsight seemed to give his autobiography Something Ven- tured (Granada) a unique quality. With the fourth volume of The Lyttelton Hart-Davis Letters (Murray) we seem ominously near the end of this enchanting series. Will life be supportable without them?