I read this book two pages at a time over the course of a few years, which was a great way to do it. I took me not just through the history of art, with beautiful colour plates of all of the art pieces, but also through the history of humans and their time on earth.
I learned so much, not to mention discovering some amazing works of art, and this book put so much into historical context for me. Interestingly, for many of the artists whose work I was familiar with the pieces selected for the book were not known to me. I don’t know if this was a concerted effort to feature some less famous pieces, or if these were really seminal works for each artist and I am just not as familiar with them as I thought.
At the end of the book are a couple of timelines which I found really fascinating , showing the dates of the various artistic movements in different regions o father world, and then showing art through the ages in the context of significant world events.
Published in 2007 by a publisher with offices in London and New York, I did find this a bit American-centric. Also it was shocking how few women artists were featured, however I think this is a reflection of how women’s art has not been valued over the eons, so it has not been preserved until recently. But despite that, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in art - and as a side benefit you will learn a lot of history too!
This is not doe the faint of heart, however - it is a physically large, and very heavy book, and it is over 1000 pages long. But it is a great “dipper” and can be read over an extended period of time, as I did. In fact that is the way I would recommend reading it, so that you can fully absorb what you are reading and also examine the art closely.