Product: Book ISBN-10: 0-7136-9258-8 ISBN-13: 9780713692587 Publisher: A & C Black Publishers Country: Year: October 6, 2004 Weight: 998gr Binding: Hardcover
An Immediately Indispensable Aid
Stephen Little has created a brief, succinct, thorough, and portable little book that provides a much-needed resource. No matter where you are with art, be it novice, museum visitor, gallery wanderer, artist, teacher, collector, writer, essayist, advanced art historian who makes frequent speeches, this book is so well done it is as valuable as a dictionary or a thesaurus.
Little has addressed the problem we all have: he has provided information with visual examples for all the periods and trends of art throughout history that can be confusing at best, contradictory at worst. Some of these periods are vague both in reality and in Little's book, but they are nonetheless defined in a scholarly, reader-friendly way. From trying to remember Baroque vs Rococo, Mannerism vs Symbolism, Impressionism vs Post Impressionism, Modernism, Cubism, Fauvism, Conceptualism vs Neo Conceptualism, Surrealism vs Illusionism, etc etc etc – it is all here: instant information regarding definition, time frame of each ism, list of artists of that ilk, and full color images of examples. The book is written in chronological order and does not linger on any one period, but instead maintains the speedy accessible overview of information we all should have at hand.
Recommendation? Buy this book. No matter your degree of interest or level of expertise, this is truly a valuable little volume of beautiful information. Highly Recommended! Grady Harp, January 06
The perfect pocket guide to art.
Isms: Understanding Art is a handy, little, reference book outlining the major visual art movements in an easy to follow manner. This is the perfect primer for those of us interested in art but without the background to know the painters, movements, and history surrounding a favorite style of work. Each section explains the particular movement in a light, easy to understand way and includes photos and information about key artists of the period.
Not really appropriate for »in-depth« study, this book is perfect for the beginning art student or those who want to enjoy the museums and galleries.
Very brief but can be useful
This book is a quick reference of major styles of visual arts with a very brief descriptions, most known artists and works. Because of it's small size, the reproductions are tiny and the descriptions usually are just a few lines long. Sounds like a not very useful book to you, doestn't it? Well, actually it has it's niche. Let's say you want to take your girlfriend (ok, let's say your kid) to an art museum and look smart. Or you want to buy some painting for your office and need to decide about style. Or you've been just always curious how visual art can be categorized. So this is one of those things like a street map or a sticker with a few phone numbers on your fridge. Yes, you can get better information from other sources, but sometimes you don't want to go deep into details and just want have something handy.
Good reference, but a little confusing
This is a handy dandy little book that serves as a quick reference guide for art movements. It, however, has a few shortcomings. The first is that the author makes up a few of the »isms.« The terms he makes up are marked--sort of, but are still hard to keep straight. The book progresses in chronological order, but it is confusing when the author delves into trends within movements. This book would benefit tremendously from a foldout timeline and some sort of chart to indicate how/when the various movement occurred in relation to each other. Overall, it is a good little reference, but be wary of which terms you use when in the company of those educated in art history.