Gardner's Art through the Ages: Chapters 19-34 FROM THE PUBLISHER
In the mid 1920's a teacher at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago had a vision to provide students and instructors with a textbook that would introduce them to the artistic legacy of not only Europe, but of the entire globe. In 1926, Harcourt Brace and Company published that vision - ART THROUGH THE AGES. Since that time, Helen Gardner's vision has been the leader in educating students about the artistic legacy of the world. For the past 75 years, ART THROUGH THE AGES has defined the introductory art history course. The intention of this classic, in Helen Gardner's words, has been "to introduce the reader to certain phases of art, architecture, painting, sculpture, and the minor arts from the remote days of the glacial age in Europe, through successive civilizations of the Near East, Europe, America, and the Orient, to the twentieth century." Now, as we begin a new millennium, we do so with the eleventh edition. This text is more accessible and easier to read for students, but does not compromise the richness of the Gardner tradition.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Tansey and Kleiner have collaborated on the most thorough revision since 1970 of one of the central monuments of art-historical study. Extensively reorganized and rewritten, this massive book now contains five more chapters than the 9th edition. Among the beneficiaries are both African and Etruscan art, which each have their own chapter for the first time. Somewhat larger, more colorful illustrations, maps, and chronologies add to the overall improved look of this new version. As before, the prose is dense but readable, focusing primarily on appreciative descriptions of exemplary works and emphasizing the periodicity of artistic style. In a new concluding chapter, the authors acknowledge recent revisionist challenges to this more traditional approach. It's a cursory tip of the hat to postmodernism, followed by unconvincing attempts to legislate categories within the art of the 1980s and 1990s. Far better is the way most of the book deals with earlier eras, so that this remains the benchmark text against which all other general surveys can be measured. An improvement upon an already first-rate work; highly recommended.Douglas F. Smith, Oakland P.L., Cal.