Rating: 
Summary: an entertaining and educational illustrated guide
Review: A nice beginner's guide to art, it not only has 62 color reproductions (though some are small, and 2 or 3 to a page), but many little b&w pictures, and some hilarious art cartoons by Rich Tennant, to lighten the subject, and keep it from becoming like some books on art education, ponderous and stuffy.
Part I deals with the basics of appreciating art, and gives tips on how to get the most out of visiting a museum;
Part II, which is the bulk of the book, is "Art Through the Ages", from the prehistoric to the contemporary "Isms", and includes some mini-bios of major artists, from the Renaissance masters to Picasso.
Part III, "Beginning Your Own Collection", deals mostly with the buying of antique art, and the "Many Faces of Forgeries". Part IV, "The Part of Tens": "The Greatest Works of Western Civilization", "The Ten Most Interesting Artists", and "Ten Artists Worth Watching", which includes a warning that predicting who will be known as a "master artist" years from now is risky business; of the ten artists, I would agree with three choices, disagree with three, consider Andrew Wyeth already in that category, and I don't have overwhelming convictions on the remaining three, which goes to prove that opinions will vary when it comes to deciding what is "great" and what is of lasting value when it comes to contemporary art, and how we view art is in so many ways a mirror of ourselves, and a mirror that can change as we grow and evolve as people. Part V is "Appendixes", and includes a checklist for buying art, an alphabetical list of major artists, and printed on yellow pages, a directory of the finest museums in the USA and abroad, and what pieces they own that one should not miss seeing.
This is a fast and easy overview for people who want a few pointers on understanding and buying art, from art expert Thomas Hoving, who knows how to simplify a wide-ranging and complex subject.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but with one MAJOR flaw
Review: An interesting author who knows his art but I found this a frustrating book to read because Hoving describes one great piece of artwork after another but only a small number are actually illustrated. Even a bad picture is better than no picture. The author tries his best but the beauty of words just don't measure up to the beauty of the artwork. Next time, the publisher should spend a couple of extra bucks and put in a few more pictures for us dummies out there who are not as knowledgeable as Hoving. They have, to their credit, included some nice color pages in the front and end of the book.
Rating: 
Summary: But Of Course
Review: As a successful writer and former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the author is guaranteed a large attentive audience. What a tragically missed opportunity then, as the result looks, feels and reads as if it were tossed together, less interesting and less persuasive than a second-rate art appreciation text. This is precisely what a "dummy" doesn't need. One wonders how Andrew Wyeth, who wrote the foreword, feels about having his name on it now. (Copyright © by Roy R. Behrens, from Ballast Quarterly Review, Vol 15 No 2, Winter 1999-2000.)
Rating:
Summary: a good, easy, broad introduction
Review: Before I read this book I knew less about art than perhaps any human alive. Now, having read the book, I know slightly more than less than any human alive. It's an easy, fun, broad introduction to art. It suffers terribly from insufficient illustrations (what do you want for the low price?) and the color prints are in isolated sections that are not well keyed to the text which means you spend a fair amount of time looking for the piece in question. All said there is good information from a reliable source for someone just "walking in the door", so to speak.
From here the next two books are the much more thorough and pricier books: "History of Art: Slipcased" (sixth edition) by Jansen and, for art appreciation, "Living With Art" (fifth edition) by Rita Gilbert. They are the standards in their respective fields. These two and, of course trips to your local museum.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed - but there is a fix!
Review: Being a lover of the "for Dummies" books, and having nothing but praise for there Classical Music for Dummies and Wine for Dummies, it pains me to give this book only 3 stars (and even considered rating it at 2 stars). In the first few chapters the author stresses that you must look, look, and look more at art to understand and enjoy. The problem is that the book has far to few color and small black and white photos to keep you interested. It is mostly text with several references to artworks you cannot see! I understand the expense involved in producing a book this cheap with more color photos, and the book falls victim to it. I have found a way to enjoy the book more though... I would recommend that if you purchase this book I would also purchase the book titled "Art Across Time by Laurie Schneider Adams". "Art Across Time" is more expensive (about $80), but is well worth the price for all the outstanding photos and maps that "Art for Dummies" is missing. The text portions of Art for Dummies is short and concise, so it makes for a quick read, and does provide other useful information, but without more photos I found myself quickly losing interest after about the first five or six chapters. With "Art Across Time" in hand I have found the for Dummies book more enjoyable!
Rating:
Summary: AN ARTFUL LOOK INTO THE WORLD OF BEAUTY AND HISTORY
Review: Can't tell a Baldung from a Balthus? Think Carpaccio is the name of a spaghetti sauce? Do you insist Cubism has something to do with blocks of frozen ice? Thomas Hoving, the former Director of New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, is here to lend a
guided hand through the palette known as "art." This fun and friendly guide removes art from its lofty perch high upon a pedestal (marble, Italian Renaissance) and chronicles its history in plain-English. The extras are endless: there's a museum checklist (where to go, what to see, what to avoid); how to start a collection without spending a bundle and shocking --- but true! --- anecdotes of artists and their work. And the introduction by Andrew Wyeth paints a rather nice picture as well.
Rating:
Summary: AN ARTFUL LOOK INTO THE WORLD OF BEAUTY AND HISTORY
Review: Can't tell a Baldung from a Balthus? Think Carpaccio is the name of a spaghetti sauce? Do you insist Cubism has something to do with blocks of frozen ice? Thomas Hoving, the former Director of New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, is here to lend a
guided hand through the palette known as "art." This fun and friendly guide removes art from its lofty perch high upon a pedestal (marble, Italian Renaissance) and chronicles its history in plain-English. The extras are endless: there's a museum checklist (where to go, what to see, what to avoid); how to start a collection without spending a bundle and shocking --- but true! --- anecdotes of artists and their work. And the introduction by Andrew Wyeth paints a rather nice picture as well.
Rating:
Summary: Good overview, nice tips
Review: I am a big fan of the Dummies series of books (I've read Mutual Funds for dummies when I was new to investing, anticipate purchasing Wine for Dummies, and have also read Personal Finance for Dummies), the pictures are nice, the it is easily digestable and worth the price. I like the little tips that they suggest. For example, the author suggests litte tricks the "pros" use when visiting museums. For instance, if one is short of time, simply make a first stop to the museum's gift shop where most often, pictures of the museum's best exhibits are on the post cards. This tells you the best that the place has to offer and gives you the heads up about what not to miss if you can't see everything. I thought that was a nice little nugget of information...
Rating: 
Summary: A mistake on every page -- at least!
Review: I give Art for Dummies one star for its one good piece of advice: to immerse yourself in art, to rely on your own eyes rather than on the opinions of others, and to go look at original works, rather than photographs, whenever possible. That's what I've told my Art History students for years. However, IDG Books is aggressively marketing this manual for use as a college textbook or a supplemental reading assignment, and the thought of putting it into the hands of undergraduates, especially intro.-level students, makes my blood run cold. A number of reviewers have commented on the lack of adequate illustrations. I might add that not only are they few, grainy, and postage-stamp size, but a lot of them are printed backward. What really bothers me, though, is the number of careless errors in the text. I'm not talking here about matters of opinion or interpretation, but of documented fact. On Page 5, there is a section with the heading "The Temple of Apollo at Olympia." The temple at Olympia was dedicated to Zeus, not Apollo, although Apollo appears on the sculptural decoration of the pediment. There's a really important difference in Greek religion between the supreme god of Olympus and one of his sons! And on page 48, we learn that " . . . while the Parthenon was being completed, other grandiose artistic achievements were happening. One was the invention of lost-wax bronze casting . . . The sculptor Polykleitos is probably responsible for this method . . . " BULLS**T! Greek historians credit the invention of lost-wax casting to two craftsmen on the island of Samos who lived at least a century earlier than Polykleitos, but Egyptians and Mesopotamians had mastered this technique even earlier. One thing's for sure: competently cast life-sized bronze statues existed in the Greek world long before ground was even broken for the Parthenon, because the Charioteer of Delphi (illustrated by Hoving on page 42! ) can be dated by the evidence of an inscription to 470 or earlier. Polykleitos benefitted from at least a century of workshop tradition in bronze-casting. He was a great and innovative artist, but his influence lay in his system of proportions and treatment of the body in motion, not in casting technology. Now, admittedly, ancient art is not Hoving's field, but shouldn't he at least have asked colleagues in other areas to review his chapters for him when he ventured outside his own area? And shouldn't he have done a little fact-checking for himself? I can just imagine the frustrating conversations in store for any professor who assigns this to college students: "Professor, you made a mistake! It isn't the temple of Zeus at Olympia, it's the temple of Apollo. It says so right here in the book." Students tend to trust what they see in print over what they hear in lectures. I have nothing against the concept of a breezy, informal book about art that avoids a pretentious tone or specialized jargon. But a handbook on art can't be slapped together quickly in the way that a manual for a computer-program can. "WordPerfect 8 for Dummies" will be obsolete as soon as the next upgrade comes out (maybe it already is?), but if the Dummies series is going to venture into other areas, they should give their contributors the time and editorial assistance to do it right.
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing like it
Review: I read a couple of reviews from readers of Art For Dummies complaining that it doesn't have enough illustrations either black or white or in color. I agree. But the Dummies book was never intended to be a "coffee-table" art book. One solution is to get Sister Wendy's 1000 Masterpieces (which illustrates almost every painting Hoving mentions.) This way you get the professional "insider" take from Hoving, the wonderful excited amateur take from Sister Wendy and a whole bunch of illustrations. By the way I peg Hoving's erudite book at 5 out of 5. Mike Fithian
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