A.N. Hodge

The subtitle is important, here: The book covers painting only. It also only covers the historical period of the Western painting tradition, with only a very few exceptions. So the book should really have been "Western Painting: Giotto to the Present Day." Of course one cannot cover all of visual art from the neolithic to now, globally, in 200p, but it's a bit disengenuous as it stands. In fact even given the restricted range it does tackle, it can still only be relatively superficial if it's going to give over more than half the space to illustration - and what would be the point, if it didn't? So, given all the limitations, it's a pretty good effort and brought to my attention some interesting artists I was previously unfamiliar with. The short essay at the end about the technical side of painting over the same period was also interesting.… (más)