Book Description
The market-leading text for the art history survey course, GARDNER'S ART THROUGH THE AGES has served as a comprehensive and thoughtfully crafted guide to the defining phases of the world's artistic tradition. With this book in hand, thousands of students have watched the story of art unfold in its full historical, social, religious, economic, and cultural context, and thus deepened their understanding of art, architecture, painting, and sculpture. By virtue of its comprehensive coverage, strong emphasis on context, and rich, accurate art reproductions, GARDNER'S ART THROUGH THE AGES has earned and sustained a reputation of excellence and authority. So much so, that in 2001, the Text and Academic Authors Association awarded both the McGuffey and the "Texty" Book Prizes to the Eleventh Edition of the text. It is the first art history book to win either award and the only title ever to win both prizes in one year. The Twelfth Edition maintains and exceeds the richness of the Gardner legacy with updated research and scholarship and an even more beautiful art program featuring more color images than any other art history book available. The Twelfth Edition features such enhancements as more color photographs, a stunning new design, and the most current research and scholarship. What's more, the expanded ancillary package that accompanies GARDNER'S ART THROUGH THE AGES, features a wealth of tools to enhance your students' experience in the course. With each new copy of the book, students receive a copy of the ArtStudy 2.0 CD-ROM--an interactive electronic study aid that fully integrates with the Twelfth Edition and includes hundreds of high-quality digital images, plus maps, quizzes, and more.
About the Author
Fred S. Kleiner received his Ph.D. in art history and archaeology from Columbia University. Author of more than a hundred publications on classical art and architecture, he also served as Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Archaeology from 1985-1998. He has taught the art history survey course for more than a quarter century at the University of Virginia and at Boston University, where he is currently Professor of Art History and Archaeology. Long recognized for his inspiring lectures and devotion to students, in 2002, Professor Kleiner received Boston University's Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching as well as the College Prize for Undergraduate Advising in the Humanities.
Gardner's Art through the Ages: Chapters 1-18, Vol. 1 FROM THE PUBLISHER
In the mid 1920's a teacher at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago had a vision to provide students and instructors with a textbook that would introduce them to the artistic legacy of not only Europe, but of the entire globe. In 1926, Harcourt Brace and Company published that vision - Art Through The Ages. Since that time, Helen Gardner's vision has been the leader in educating students about the artistic legacy of the world. For the past 75 years, ART THROUGH THE AGES has defined the introductory art history course. The intention of this classic, in Helen Gardner's words, has been "to introduce the reader to certain phases of art, architecture, painting, sculpture, and the minor arts from the remote days of the glacial age in Europe, through successive civilizations of the Near East, Europe, America, and the Orient, to the twentieth century." Now, as we begin a new millennium, we do so with the eleventh edition. This text is more accessible and easier to read for students, but does not compromise the richness of the Gardner tradition.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Tansey and Kleiner have collaborated on the most thorough revision since 1970 of one of the central monuments of art-historical study. Extensively reorganized and rewritten, this massive book now contains five more chapters than the 9th edition. Among the beneficiaries are both African and Etruscan art, which each have their own chapter for the first time. Somewhat larger, more colorful illustrations, maps, and chronologies add to the overall improved look of this new version. As before, the prose is dense but readable, focusing primarily on appreciative descriptions of exemplary works and emphasizing the periodicity of artistic style. In a new concluding chapter, the authors acknowledge recent revisionist challenges to this more traditional approach. It's a cursory tip of the hat to postmodernism, followed by unconvincing attempts to legislate categories within the art of the 1980s and 1990s. Far better is the way most of the book deals with earlier eras, so that this remains the benchmark text against which all other general surveys can be measured. An improvement upon an already first-rate work; highly recommended.Douglas F. Smith, Oakland P.L., Cal.
Art & Photography
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