thorough and very readable standard textbook on art history I purchased this book for a class and am very happy with it. It is a beautiful edition of a standard work on art history with high quality prints of masterworks and illustrations. It is also very well written and makes history and art very approachable without dumbing it down. Good Book. I liked the CD that comes with it - very practical study companion.
Not perfect, but really good To attempt to put the entire history of Western Art into one volume containing all the necessary illustrations that is nonetheless light enough for students to carry is indeed an ambitious undertaking, and the Jansons do an outstanding job of it. I found it pretty darn fabulous up until it got to the 20th Century. Then I felt that it lost focus as a survey of Western Art and became more of a cheerleading squad for particular artists. But there are more things to admire about this book than to denigrate. First of all, the text is quite readable and tells what's important. Second, the quality of the color illustrations is excellent, especially for a book of this price. My biggest complaint is that certain works that I think are important, or were important in their time, are not mentioned. For example, can one really talk about Surrealism and not even mention Salvador Dali? Whether you like him or not, I don't think you can just ignore him when you talk about 20th Century art. Can you talk about Victorian art and not mention Alma-Tadema? The sections on late 20th Century art completely ignore such influential artists as Robert Crumb and Keith Haring, but yet devote a lot of space to work that could only be of interest to frequent gallery-goers. (I regarded these final pages as the equivalent of including some current off-off-Broadway shows in an anthology Western Drama along with Sophocles, Shakespeare, Shaw and Tennessee Williams.) Of course, you can't include everything and the authors have, I'm sure, had a lot of pressure put on them to include works by people who fit certain demographics. An artist friend of mine, who happens to be a lady of a certain age, told me that she had used an earlier edition of this textbook 40 years ago. She said that there was a big protest at that time because there were no women artists included. That is not the case with this edition. I felt that women artists were well represented by top-notch works, and it wasn't just the usual suspects (e.g., Rosa Bonheur, Mary Cassat, Georgia O'keefe). This edition includes a couple of great ones that I was previously unfamiliar with, like Artemesia Gentilischi and Judith Leyster. And then for all the omissions of artists I have a particular liking for, I was delighted to see discussions of John Singleton Copley and Caspar David Friedrich included.
Despite my criticism, I think that this is an excellent choice for an art history textbook. It manages to take a large and complex subject and put it into one plainspoken and cohesive volume. That's an accomplishment: Four stars.
EXCELLENT If your an artist or interested in art history...this book is very helpful....I had to get it for class..but i still reference it to this day...
Art for study's sake In the introduction to this revised seventh edition, Anthony Janson (whose father, H.W. Janson, still has top billing for the volume) talks about the long tradition he and his father have had toward this volume and the larger work that carries the same name. It has been a standard in Western art education for decades, and the revisions periodically placed serve to bring new interpretations, perspectives and finds into the mix of history.
Prior to diving into the depths of art, Janson provides a primer - art history is a relatively new discipline, and often studied by historians and others with interest but relatively little training in artistic areas themselves. This book is about the visual arts (those of drama, music, etc. are not included here, but architecture is to some degree); Janson gives a brief survey of key concepts that are critical to understanding the mediums (artists, Janson states, prefer to use the plural of medium as mediums rather than media). Geometric and visual appreciation concepts are introduced, as are philosophical/aesthetic ideas.
The majority of the text is divided into four broad sections: The Ancient World, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance through the Rococo, and the Modern World. This is a book that really a survey or history of Western art - it does have a brief section at the beginning of the Ancient World on cave art and neolithic art in North America, but apart from this never wanders outside the main courses of Western art even in the modern period. As an introductory text, this is not surprising - many of the values and concepts of art in non-Western cultures require more explanation for adequate aesthetic appreciation of their art than an introductory survey course could cover. Still, it is a deficit worthy of note for those who are looking for a more comprehensive volume.
The Ancient World covers art of Egypt, the Fertile Crescent and Persia, Aegean/Greek art, Etruscan art, and Roman art. The section on the Middle Ages begins primarily with the rise of Christendom as the dominant political power - this includes Byzantine art, early Medieval art (Carolingian and Ottonian times), Romanesque, and the ascendancy of the Gothic style, including the great Abbey of St-Denis. The Renaissance focusses early on Italy, but also explores the Renaissance influences in Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, France, and England. The Modern Period is the most diverse, with movements such as Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Art Nouveau and other schools that had a greater tendency to cross national boundaries. The twentieth century brought about a great explosion of artistic expressions, in architecture, sculpture, painting and photography, each of which get a chapter. While the fourth section begins with a discussion of modernism, it ends with the discussion of post-modernism, a period of transition.
The colour reproductions throughout are stunning, and the use of black-and-white images to highlight details is also useful. Two-thirds of the 600 illustrations are in colour. The photographs showing architectural styles are interesting, far from being boring 'sample' shots. The text is engaging and informative, achieving a good balance between the artistic, the philosophical and the historical. There are maps, chronological tables, a glossary of terms, suggestions for further readings arranged topically, and a very useful index (always a plus for students and scholars).
The predecessor edition was entitled 'A Basic History of Art'; this one has added the word 'Western' to the title, very appropriately. This new edition has included new essays in the introduction, including 'The Power of Art', 'The Impact of Context', and 'Experiencing Art in Museums'. The maps and timelines have been revised, and there are new Cultural Context boxes alongside the text. Also, 'Materials and Techniques' pull-quote boxes give an explanation of principal art practices, methods and conventions through history.
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