arts and photography

This book sells itself, of course, with the beautiful paintings from throughout history. But I have just a couple of problems with it: First, I question the choices of some of the art in the book. Or should I say not in the book. Of course, they couldn't put in every painting ever done, but I think there are some too-obviously missing pieces. Second, I miss Sister Wendy's warm humor. The material seemed clipped, as if the editor just crossed out everything funny, just to shorten the material. Well, not everything -- some of it managed to find its way in. On both of these counts, I must say I would rather have had two volumes and included more paintings and more of her commentary. This one is just not enough. But still, if you were brought up to admire fine art, as I was, you will LOVE sitting down with this book.

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The first time I came across Wendy Becket's "The Story of Painting", I was taking some History of the Art classes and I thought this book would be very useful for my lessons. I was completely wrong. It was not only useful for my course but also for my everyday life as an art enthusiast.

Now, three years and much more experience later I still have this book at hand because I always want to check something about a painter or a work. Her stile is unique and easy. Although the book is chronological developed, one can pick a picture at randon and read and learn about it. It deals with the whole history of painting since the primitive humans to the late 20th century artists. It is packed with beautiful colourful paintings that are a refresh for the eyes - some readers may find funny what I said hence the fact I am writing about a of about art, but I myself have some art history books in which most pictures are black & white, what can be very frustating.

In the begining of every section, there's a very complete timeline showing historical and artitics events of each era. And in every single page there are some margin notes about any relevant point related to the main picture such as times, characters, literature... But the most important thing, to me, is the study of the paintings. They are very detailed and easy to understand even for those who always complian not understanding art. Evey tecnical term that the writer uses is explained in an easy way.

It seems to me that the only thing that this book misses out is sculpture. But it is not actually a problem, once the book is about painting. I feel that after reading and studying most of this book - I haven't read everything yet- I've never looked to a painting as I did before. Now I know how to analyze and really enjoy it. I highly recomend this book for those who when contemplating a painting can only say " OH! That's beatiful!",because everybody says so. This book will give you background to say why a painter is good or not.

More than two thirds of the book is dedicated to paintings related with Christianity. And the real arts are either completely ignored or dealt carelessly. For example, The whole Van Gogh's paintings are described in mere four pages, while each of so may Christian related paintings by some obscure painters, is shown using four split pages. If your religion is Christianity and your objective is to investigate Christian paintings, this book should be fine. But for the rest of us who are not Christians, this book is not worth reading or looking at. There are so many other good art books out there without religious bias. This book is not about painting as described. It is about the Christianity religion disguised with "Painting".