Cave Paintings to Picasso: The Inside Scoop on 50 Art Masterpeices

Rating:
Summary: Great art history book for middle school and up
Review: I love the line in the section on Rene Magritte: "Magritte's paintings never answer questions. They just ask them." This line captures what is so unique about Cave Paintings to Picasso: analysis that provokes readers' critical thinking skills. As an art student, I read so many tired art history books that did little to inspire or even entertain. This book does both, and somehow manages to cover a lot of facts about 50 masterworks of art. The beautifully-written description of the art and artist is chronologically organized, with sidebars on each page visually portraying the artist's timeline. In addition, each work of art is briefly described as to media and size (information that is not easily gleaned from other art history texts). There is a brief, but helpful glossary in the back of the book, and the book is well indexed. The text is easy to read and very interesting; it would easily engage the interest of students grades 6 and up.