Product Description: Winner of the Illustrated Book of the Year award in 1994, The Art Book has become a publishing phenomenon and a well-known event in the art book world. Reduced in size, making it light and highly portable, this new mini edition presents the same easy-to-use alphabetical guide to 500 of the world's greatest painters and sculptors. 500 color illustrations.
Amazon.com Review: This user-friendly book is an alphabetical reference guide to 500 of the world's greatest painters and sculptors, from antiquity to the present. Measuring roughly 5 by 6-1/2 inches and now in paperback, The Art Book is not only affordable, but also light, compact, and extremely portable, completely reforming the concept of an art reference book. It is perfect for the coffee table or for the backpack or pocketbook as well. Each artist is represented by a full-color plate and by explanatory and illuminating information on both the image and the artist. Cross references are provided to other artists in the book, and glossaries of technical terms and artistic movements are also included, making the book a valuable reference tool in the art library. Presented are some of the most famous artists of all time and their greatest masterworks--never before have they been so accessible as they are in this format.
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
