History of Art for Young People 6/E

The name Janson is synonymous with the introduction of college undergraduates to the canon of western art; this latest volume for the younger set recapitulates the Jansons' particular narrative of art history at a slightly more elementary level. With its brief histories and capsule essays written for an upper school audience by father and son (Anthony took over the History of Art projects after his father's death in 1982), and including nearly 600 illustrations of antique, Gothic and Renaissance masterpieces, this tome is an encyclopedic look at art from the 30,000 year-old cave paintings of Lascaux to fairly recent developments in performance art and photography. From Egypt to Greece to Rome to France, and eventually even to America, the story of art unfolds in an empirical succession of buddings, blossomings and decays, rarely digressing into non-European or particularly idiosyncratic works. While there are certain inconsistencies in pitch--the authors provide a definition for fable, but make the sophisticated observation that, in Borromini's 17th century Roman church,""it is the syntax, not the vocabulary, that is new and disquieting""--overall, this is a rich resource indeed. For the precocious youngster or the older art neophyte, this book offers a skeleton key to civilization's most beautiful visual accomplishments, and does not condescend while instructing.