Product Description: Presenting an entirely new way of looking at art, here is an easy-to-use, informative and fun art book for everyone. An A-Z guide to 500 great painters and sculptors from medieval to modern times, it debunks art-historical classifications by throwing together brilliant examples of all periods, schools, visions, and techniques. 500 full-color photographs.
Amazon.com Review: There is no introductory essay, there are no comparative illustrations, and there is little placement of these 500 works in historical context. The Art Book is a completely visual survey of the history of art. Each of the 500 great works is arranged by artist from A to Z. Works are not surrounded with historical data, supplemental illustrations, or other works by the artist, which relieves viewers of expectations or influence and allows them to judge each piece as it appears. The editors of the book are not irresponsible, though. Information critical to the work and its creator is unobtrusively listed in upper and lower margins of the page, giving some context and allowing each work to be reproduced as largely as possible. With its large format, elegance, and well-produced illustrations, The Art Book is hard to put down, once you have picked it up.
Reduces art to convenience The summary: - Cute coffee table book featuring 500 artists arranged A to Z, each page with one piece of art by an artist. Each page also features one paragraph putting the artist or piece of art into historical and social context.
The Great: - Small, convenient, cute. Great for the coffee table. - Features some lesser-known artists and puts them on an equal level with the biggies. I found a few gems I otherwise wouldn't find in many other art books. - Cheap.
The Good: - Concise paragraph on each page to tell us about the artist and piece of art featured. In addition to mentioning the essentials, the editors were not afraid of being subjective and analyzing some of the artworks on their own.
The Bad: - It's one thing to focus the book on Western art, but this one TRIES to be all-inclusive for cultures. It fails when it includes fewer than 10 Asian and Middle Eastern artists. Either cut all of them and have a focused book or include more of them to be fair. - I'm not an expert on art, but I noticed Norman Rockwell was not included. I can't imagine who else was cut from this book. - Sometimes we're not sure what country the artist was from. At the bottom of every page, a caption mentions the artist's city of birth and death. We know where Paris and Amsterdam are, but where are Stavenger and Kuslovo? - Only one piece of art featured per artist. It's not always representative of the artist's lifetime body of work.
The Ugly - Reduces all the pieces of art to a small 4x4-ish photo (in inches). It's fine for some of the paintings featured, but the small size of the book prevents it from capturing the emotions we would get if we were seeing something like a 10x6-foot breathtaking landscape painting in person. That's the problem with all art books, but at least most of the other ones are oversized and get a BIT closer to resembling a painting's actual size.
size matters Be advised that this wonderful book comes in different sized editions. My hardback edition of 1994 measures 10 x 12 inches, and the color quality of the large reproductions and the text size are everything you could wish for.
Read easily with a microscope!! Due to the size of the art prints and the barely visible text,, the book is close to worthless. These paintings were never meant to be shrunken down to this size. The actual book is not much bigger than a paperback. Very disappointing. Very misleading. Total waste of money. I'm surprised Amazon chose to market it.
The Art Book Small compact paperbook can take with me when traveling. Am enjoying the brevity, but not as much the small print type, but still very enjoyable book.
A Super Book of Art I love this book. It shows a beautiful example of the artists work in alphabetical order and a great short history of each artist. I discovered a lot of artists I wasn't familiar with. It's a great quick reference and easy/enjoyable reading. It's more than I expected! A must for anyone interested in art/artists.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
