Rating: 
Summary: A VOLUME WITH UNIVERSAL APPEAL
Review:
Published in association with the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., this guide to the history of western art is a handsome volume containing over 450 masterpieces, each rendered in glorious full-color. The eminently readable text covers the development and movements in painting over the past 800 years, from Gothic to Renaissance, Romanticism to Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism to Modernism.
The author selects over 30 of the world's most famous paintings for in-depth studies. For instance, greater meaning is found in Van Gogh's "Self-Portrait" when the author uses enlarged details of the painting to reveal hidden meanings and symbolism. The swirling background that surrounds the solid, vivid head points toward the delicate nature of his mental state. A patch of bright green beneath the eye draws the viewer to Van Gogh's unswerving gaze, while this green added to the red in the hair suggest unleashed passion.
A member of the Notre Dame order, a teaching order of nuns, Sister Wendy Beckett studied at St. Anne's College, Oxford, where she graduated with highest honors. The author of several art books, she also writes for art magazines and has been featured on a television series.
Whether well schooled in the world of art or a neophyte, The Story Of Painting is a valuable addition to your library.
- Gail Cooke
Rating: 
Summary: The Danger of Self-Teaching
Review: "Sister Wendy" as she is known throughout the world for her series of PBS broadcasts about art, or the fifteen books she has written, describes herself as a self-educated "art nun." Sister Wendy began her crusade to increase appreciation for the visual arts by "reading everything she could get her hands on about art." Unfortunately, despite her popular success, Sister Wendy is an example of the danger of self-education: Sister Wendy knows nothing about art.Before I am accused of being too harsh, or for beating up on a nice, old lady (and a nun at that), let me state that, in attempting to bring art appreciation to the public, there is nothing more noble than what Sister Wendy is doing. In my opinion, it is truly God's work. What I question is the kind of appreciation she brings. The following reviews describe that appreciation: "In the end, Sister Wendy doesn't set out to tell us which paintings are good and which are bad,.............. " (amazon.com's review of Sister Wendy's Grand Tour: Discovering Europe's Great Art) "Let the aesthetes, ........ prattle on about color, technique, or social context; ............... public just wants to know what the picture says. . . ." (Booklist review of The Story of Painting) These reviews are more than just symptoms of cultural dumming-down. The anti-intellectualism they represent follows in the tradition of Martin Luther, who argued that no man requires an intermediary before God. Perhaps no man needs an intermediary to understand God, but art is another matter. Sister Wendy's methodology is to tell stories about paintings. That is, she tells stories about the content of paintings. Although, according to one reviewer this is "art appreciation at its highest," there is more to art than content. If content was the only important issue in art, there would be no need for various artistic mediums. After all, photography is just as good, if not quite a bit better, at factual representation than painting. Or, for example, if the idea content of fiction was the only reason for reading literature, there would be no reason to read literature. Non-fiction essays or histories would do just as well. Indeed, it requires little or no training to move from the unique, intrinsic character of a work itself to the ideas or facts with which the work is concerned. But, no one, aside from perhaps Sister Wendy and her ilk, looks at art, listens to music, or reads literature simply for content, for content alone can do nothing to reveal the sources of pleasure that a particular work affords. Instead, aesthetes "prattle on about color, technique, or social context" because those ingredients add to, not distract from, the experience of art. I'm not suggesting that art cannot be enjoyed or appreciated by those who know nothing of those things. Nor am I saying that knowledge of those things is required to enjoy or appreciate art. Only that they help. For example, critics study color theory because color effects people's emotions. Understanding how an artist manipulates color to achieve a certain effect helps one understand how art achieves its emotional impact. Indeed, study of artistic technique is vital for appreciation of the arts because without it there is no vocabulary with which to discuss one's experience of enjoyment (and without vocabulary, perhaps there is no thought or enjoyment). And, even if content held preeminent position in the aesthetic hierarchy, techniques such as color, form and composition, positive and negative space, or meter, structure, rhyme scheme help explicate the content. After all, what is aesthetic experience if not the alert perception of art? William James noted that the critical faculty approached wisdom: The feeling for a good human job anywhere, the admiration of the really admirable, the disesteem of what is cheap and trashy and impermanent,--that is what we call the critical sense, the sense for ideal values. It is the better part of what men know as wisdom. The justification for Sister Wendy's methods given in the reviews I cite not only fail to perform the due delivery of art to the mind but also obstructs the process by which it might occur.
Rating:
Summary: Incomparable Visual Presentation
Review: After re-reading The Story of Painting up to the Mannerist period, I read History of Art, by A. W. Janson, up until the same time. I found both experiences wonderful. Glancing back at The Story of Painting, the incomparable visual presentation was dramatically apparant. I have been wondering ever since if Sister Wendy Beckett arranged for some of her profits to be plowed back into high quality paper and extra large details that you find throughout the book. I also appreciate the time she takes to closely analyze some of the paintings. In the History of Art, there are many references to the necessity to be brief. Sister Wendy takes the time to look in depth at key paintings. In regards to a former review where it said that Sister Wendy knows nothing about art, I would be interested in a few solid examples of her ignorance. She certainly delights me with her presentations and has motivated me to further study. If you are a Sister Wendy Beckett fan, I would encourage you to get a copy of the VCR-taped interview with Bill Moyers. I find her depth and insight an inspiration and Bill Moyers is a most excellent interviewer. I wish they would do it with a few more topics, such as English Literature and European History.
Rating:
Summary: Incomparable Visual Presentation
Review: After re-reading The Story of Painting up to the Mannerist period, I read History of Art, by A. W. Janson, up until the same time. I found both experiences wonderful. Glancing back at The Story of Painting, the incomparable visual presentation was dramatically apparant. I have been wondering ever since if Sister Wendy Beckett arranged for some of her profits to be plowed back into high quality paper and extra large details that you find throughout the book. I also appreciate the time she takes to closely analyze some of the paintings. In the History of Art, there are many references to the necessity to be brief. Sister Wendy takes the time to look in depth at key paintings. In regards to a former review where it said that Sister Wendy knows nothing about art, I would be interested in a few solid examples of her ignorance. She certainly delights me with her presentations and has motivated me to further study. If you are a Sister Wendy Beckett fan, I would encourage you to get a copy of the VCR-taped interview with Bill Moyers. I find her depth and insight an inspiration and Bill Moyers is a most excellent interviewer. I wish they would do it with a few more topics, such as English Literature and European History.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful & informative for any reader
Review: Beautiful Italian printing of art set this book apart from ordinary. Details of pictures are expanded and commented on for greater understanding and appreciation. Side bars note where other work of the artist is available. Commentary is just right amount and depth for all to enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Nun of that, now...
Review: How bizarre... ...and yet, how wonderful. Who would have ever thought that a nun going through the museum would have (a) been interesting, (b) been publishable, (c) been television-worthy, or (d) been within the realm of credible imaginings? And yet, here is the proof, on my coffee table. Sister Wendy's smiling face, next to a scowling Vincent, greets me each day with my morning cocoa. This is a book to be savoured. It cannot, like the morning cocoa, be rushed and enjoyed. This must take time. Not because the text is dense or confusing--indeed, it is not. It is lively, witty, historical, accessible, all that one could want in a book on art. But, mostly, it is exquisitely visual in layout. Everything is photographed and reproduced in stunning colour and low-gloss format to make the pages vibrant and durable yet easily seen. Care has gone into the production of this volume. None of the art is reduced to black and white, but rather presented in glorious colour. With over 800 images in under 400 pages, this is a feast for the eyes. Each page is dominated by art, not text. That makes for slow moving, like reading a museum.. Sister Wendy Beckett takes us on an historical tour of painting (in the European theatre of history), beginning with prehistoric cave-art and drawings, leading up to modern and post-modern artists. She takes representative pieces, such as the Bosch painting of Death and the Miser to illustrate points of colour, detail, composition, and story. Some paintings have complex stories (such as this one), others have simple composition (such as the 'innocently disadvantaged' Mona Lisa) which give endless speculation as to the meaning. Sister Wendy explores each era of artistic history, listed below in broad categories (there are several subcategories of each), giving history and philosophy as well as major and representative minor works, explaining in detail at least one or two works for each, concentrating on painting, but also bringing in as relevant sculpture, stained glass, architecture, and other artistic media. + Art of the Ancient World
+ Gothic Painting
+ Italian Renaissance
+ Northern Renaissance
+ Baroque and Rococo
+ Neoclassicism and Romanticism
+ The Age of Impressionism
+ Post-Impressionism
+ The Twentieth Century Sister Wendy does an admirable job at not concentrating exclusively on religious and Christian art (for being a nun), however, given the history of art in Europe, this is a major theme in its own right. The Epilogue, says Sister Wendy, 'is both an afterword and a foreword: hundreds and thousands of artists come after the disappearance of the 'story line' into the maze of contemporary artistic experience and these same artists may of course, be the forerunners of a new story.' In concluding her volume, she highlights the paintings of Robert Natkin, Joan Mitchell and Albert Herbert, the art of each she hopes will endure.
Rating:
Summary: This book is a must for all interested in european painting.
Review: I first read this book when I was enrolled in an art history class in college. The text book we had for the class was informative, but many of the works we studied in detail were not pictured in the text. Sister Wendy covered each of those major works with great care. Her photos and close-ups were, almost work for work, the exact paintings and close-ups we had discussed in the class. I ended up reading more from Sister Wendy than from the text, because she gave wonderful synopses of key points, and included more photos. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who is curious about painting. It will improve your future museum visits just by flipping through the pages
Rating:
Summary: More risque than expected
Review: I was looking for an art book for my kids. I thought that since this had been written by a nun, it would steer clear of nudity and sexual themes. Wrong! There's a lot of nudity in fine art, and Sister Wendy found no need to refrain from it. I found her treatment of the works to be scholarly and insightful, but my 13-year old didn't like looking at "all the naked people."
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I've liked the book very much. It's so exciting! Thousands of paintings whith extraodinary explanation. I'm sure it will be difficult to make another book so good as this one. I could never imagine so great images could fill just one book. Congratulations Wendy!
Rating:
Summary: Excellente!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: Me encanta su libro,esta muy divertise.Creo que ella es una mujer buena. Su cabeza es grande. Ella es la mejor porfessora de arte. Ella es un mujer muy religioso. Ella lista para "God". No me espero por la programa porxima.
| 
