Review by Choice Review
This mini dictionary/survey's value lies as much in presentation as in content. Little (Web editor, Royal Academy of Arts, London) presents the work in Web site format, reversing the traditional print to Internet conversion. Icons, headers, color coding, small blocks of text, large illustrations, and intellectual content limited to major artistic and cultural movements (shorthanded as "isms") will appeal to patrons who prefer electronic sources. Even though the printed icons do not click and are not intuitive, the information (introduction, key artists, key words, main definition, key works, and other works) displays in consistent, helpful page placements. In addition to providing a glossary and time line, appendixes allow users to go from artists and collections to "isms." The publisher describes the work as a guide for art lovers and gallery visitors. Add students in Western art survey courses and print-phobic patrons, and put it in the circulating collection (where it will be enjoyed, checked out, and taken to museums and galleries) rather than in reference. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. General readers; lower- and upper-division undergraduates. M. M. Doherty University of South Florida
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Art history is divided into schools and movements, or "isms"--a suffix meaning practice or process--from classicism to naturalism to conceptualism, categories even the most informed of art lovers would be hard pressed to list or define. Enter Stephen Little of the Royal Academy of Arts in London and . . .Isms0 , a welcoming and cogent primer of Western art trends. Little helpfully identifies four types of isms: trends specific to the visual arts (perspectivism), broad cultural trends (romanticism), artist-defined movements (cubism), and retrospectively named movements (mannerism). He then moves forward chronologically, deftly defining more than 50 isms, naming key artists, and showcasing splendid examples. --Donna Seaman Copyright 2005 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
