National Gallery of Art: Concise Edition

By nature, I am not overly fond of "coffee table books." I do own quite a number but seldom do they ever find a place on any of my coffee tables; rather, they are stored on shelves with the rest of the bookish flotsam I have collected over the years. Of the four books that I do have out in the open, this is one of them. If nothing else, it is so large (696 very oversized pages) that it could be used as a defensive weapon if needed...if of course you could lift the thing. Now that being said: I have spent many hours reading through this wonderful collection of primarily paintings found in our National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. These paintings start with offerings from the Byzantine era and work there way through in chronological order up until the early 20th Century. Each painting has been very well photographed (more about that later) and is accompanied by a brief description and vital statistics such as measurements, artist, surface used, era, year painted (if known) and date of birth and death of the artist, etc. The book offers compact briefs on many of the paintings and quite a bit of history can be gleaned from these numerous offerings. Now no book of photographs of paintings can come anywhere near equaling the quality or impact of seeing the work of art first hand...in the original. I don't care how good the photography is...it just is not going to happen. But if you are an individual like myself who does not have accesses to these paintings (I have never visited the National Gallery and have no intension of doing so in this life time), then photographs are the next best thing. The paintings represented here are well done. I have seen better quality in books which are more specialized, but for the massive number of works represented here, I am quite satisfied. Yes, many of the paintings posted here would be much better represented if the prints were larger but of course there are limits on such things. You get a very good idea of what each school of art is trying to represent and a good insight to the artist's work. Reading and browsing through this work year after year, month after month, gives the reader a sort of mini art history/appreciation lesson and much can be learned. I find myself reaching for this thing more than I care to admit to and simply enjoying brief moments with each and every page. Like another reviewer here, this is one of my favorite books to kill time with and I always walk away a bit richer for the time I spend with it. The neatest thing about this work is that you do not have to be an art expert to appreciate and enjoy it. The test is not made up of the pretentious clap-trap you so often run into with books of art. So often you run into books of this ilk which read more like wine reviews; filled with ramblings which no one has a clue as to their meaning but fear to say so because they do not want to appear unwashed, uneducated and uncouth. I like simplicity in this sort of thing and

This big, beautiful book should be on any art lover's shelf! A treasury of reproductions of some of the world's best art is contained here. The reproductions are excellent; colors are preserved in all their glory. Walker's text is informative and consistently interesting. The next best thing to actually visiting the National Gallery is owning this book.

This is a large book full of pictures of beautiful artworks. While there are some photos of sculpture and some of drawings, the bulk of what is reproduced here is painting. While many pages have multiple artworks, there are also quite a few where the painting is given a full page for more close observation and study. The quality of the reproductions is quite good, if not quite superb. The captions and text describing the art and artists are very good and most helpful for the general reader. The book opens with several articles on the National Gallery and its history and policies. The plates are organized chronologically and by the national schools of their times. The earliest artworks are circa the 13th century and concludes with works of the 20th century. You could spend many days enjoying this glorious selection of art and still find many more days of study before you exhaust all that is offered in this fine book about a great national treasure.

This book is one of my favorites, and has been for many years. Its beautiful color illustrations are grouped by the period and country in which they were created. The book presents works (mostly paintings) from many countries (mostly Western) beginning in the Byzantine era, extending up until the early twentieth century. Many of the works are accompanied by art historical abstracts which offer insight for both the inexperienced and learned art enthusiast. This is a great book to have around as an extensive survey of Western painting.