Arts and Ideas

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for general studies in fine arts
Review: For anyone who wants to delve into the world of art history and the fine arts, this book is a beautiful introduction. Very extensive, and even rivalling other fine arts books specializing in specific areas of the arts. I've had the good pleasure of being taught by William Fleming in college, and it was truly a life enrichening experience. This book will offer the same. I particularly enjoyed the use of psychological/sociological aspects of the arts through history to show common themes of the human psyche, however common, rare and mundane. All the art reproduced is rich with extemely good DPI, color quality, being printed on high quality paper. This book is well worth its expensive price.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent source of information for the Humanities!
Review: I used this book as a Music Major and now am using it for a Humanities course that I am teaching. It's great to see that the book is still as popular as it was in the eighties!

Rating:
Summary: Highly readable history of Western creativity.
Review: Well-illustrated and organized. I use it as a reference ALL the time. The only downside is that, like most textbooks, it denigrates (i.e. ignores) the validity of other traditions than Western/Euro-American.