Art, Second Edition: A Visual History

by Robert Cumming

Overview

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see." Edgar Degas

Covering every era and over 650 artists, this comprehensive, illustrated guide offers an accessible yet expansive view of art history, featuring everything from iconic works and lesser-known gems to techniques and themes.

Offering a comprehensive overview of Western artists, themes, paintings, techniques, and stories, Art: A Visual History is packed full of large, full-color images of iconic works and lesser-known gems. Exploring every era, from 30,000BCE to the present, it includes features on the major schools and movements, as well as close-up critical appraisals of 22 masterpieces – from Botticelli’s Primavera to J. M. W. Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire. 

With detailed referencing, crisp reproductions, and a fresh design, this beautiful book is a must-have for anyone with an interest in art history – from first-time gallery-goers to knowledgeable art enthusiasts. 

What makes great art? Discover the answer now, with Art: A Visual History.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780744023671
Publisher:	DK
Publication date:	05/26/2020
Series:	DK Ultimate Guides
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	387,998
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

The founder and former Chairman of Christie's Education, Robert Cumming is a bestselling writer and art critic whose books have won several international awards. He is currently an Adjunct Professor of Art History at Boston University. His previous books for DK include Annotated Art and Great Artists.

Editorial Reviews

"With its solid, accessible information and hundreds of excellent, full-color reproductions, this is ideal for high school or college students as well as any art lover or museumgoer." — Library Journal (Starred Review)

From the Publisher

★ 09/15/2015
Cumming, in his introduction to this book's precursor, Eyewitness Companion: Art, explained that his goal was to produce a "friendly companion [and] an entertaining and practical aid for looking at art," and that is his goal here, too. The book is arranged chronologically, with each section devoted to a period of time or a major art movement—early art, the Renaissance, the English landscape tradition, etc.—and beginning with a single-page discussion of the major aesthetics, techniques, and works in that movement, followed by entries on individual painters, sculptors, and other visual artists of the time. Major artists are covered in a page or two, but most in a couple of paragraphs that list the person's nationality, primary medium or media, and key works. Brief insets discuss movements within movements (e.g., Les Fauves in modernism) or techniques, and there are occasional quotations and time lines. The main difference between this edition and the earlier one (other than the titles) is its livelier page formats and cut-away slipcase that is based on an artist's palette. VERDICT With its solid, accessible information and hundreds of excellent, full-color reproductions, this is ideal for high school or college students as well as any art lover or museumgoer.—Marcia G. Welsh, Dartmouth Coll. Lib., Hanover, NH

Library Journal