great art review book!

As a fan of art, I thought the Annotated Mona Lisa got to the point and was easy to read. For those who have absolutely no idea about Matisse or Caravaggio, this is a great book to acquaint yourself with the world of art. As a student of art history, the Annotated Mona Lisa is the closest thing you can get to an art history review book. Although there is some background information there and some quotes here, there is definetly substance hidden in it which could help one answer the free-response questions completely. The charts which characterize each artist during some of the art periods are very helpful, clear and no-nonsense. The multiple choice AP Art History exam tests more factual not analytical information and the book can help one tackle those questions. For the art history student, the only down side to this book is that it only depicts a few art pieces per period, and the AP Art History asks for a little more. In all, the exam tests one knowledge of overall themes and characteristics, and the Annotated Mona Lisa was really helpful!

A Crash Course Indeed!

This author takes you through the first 25,000 years of art history in a mere sixty-three pages, including the Renaissance, and devotes fully one-third of the book to the modern art of the twentieth century. Perhaps I was mislead by the title, hoping for a little bit more attention to Mona's time.A better choice would be Thomas Hoving's "Art for Dummies", with his more objective point of view.

accuracy please!

Although I was excited to see attention brought to baroque woman artist Artemisia Gentileschi, I was dismayed to see yet again inaccurate facts about this brilliant woman disseminating to the general public. Artemisia was not raped by a fellow pupil, but by Agositino Tassi, a landscape painter her father arranged for her to study perspective under. She was seventeen at the time. The "sibile(sp)" or thumbscrews were a correct account, but Tassi was in fact convicted and sentenced to time already served and ordered to leave Rome. As for Artemisia Gentileschi devoting herself to painting women who wreck havoc on men, that is, if you ask me, a short sighted, and shallow opinion of her work. Such dramatic generalizations do not give this artistic genius a fraction of the credit she deserves.