Customer Reviews

30,000 Years of Art: The Story of Human Creativity Across Time and Space

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

With great cynicism, I bought this book at the Folk Art Museum in Santa Fe, NM where I am a docent. By arranging pieces from around the world according to time periods, a whole new perspective evolves. Very exciting to see what's happening in different places at different times around the globe. The images and their placement is first rate. Having recently returned from Papua New Guinea, I was especially interested in those pieces--they are stunning. Thank you Phaidon.

I thought I was familiar with art history but nearly everything shown in this book was new to me. The book has a fair amount of art from the first 25000 years. The book covers a wide variety of art types and locations. It is not simply a review of European art but includes Asian, and some African, Oceanic, and Pre-Columbian art. The book does not have references so that following up on a piece of art will involve art dictionaries, monographs and the internet. MAGNIFICENT

I was surprised by the fine image quality and the concise, but informative text accompanying the images. I am actually reading this book as I would a novel. What makes it especially interesting is that it is in chronological order, so the reader can compare art from different regions that was made contemporaneously. Please note, I was NOT an art major and am surprised at how interesting I have found this book to be.

Two things make 30,000 Years of Art a surprising book. First, the photography. Absolutely worth the purchase of the book. Second, the organization. Organized in chronological order, the reader is allowed to make comparisons between cultures. Wonderful. Also, the text accompanying the photos is concise and extremely informative.


I too am reading my way through this mamouth book and am enjoying the trip.

Highly recommended.

I have been hoping for a book that truly includes numerous cultures equally in the history of art. Most art history books focus on Europe, but this one give beautiful illustrations of works from all over the world. I teach art history and this is now our text. There are amazing works that I have never seen before and the images are great. Each has a short bit of written information which is just perfect for people that are learning about these various cultures and their art. The binding is an issue if you use the book a great deal as I do. The unfortunate size in order to create this inclusive book makes it a problem to open and close a lot. I might have made it a 2 volume book set in a box although then Phaidon would not be able to sell it so inexpensively.

30,000 Years of Art is a hard-to-beat collection of 1,000 works of art that will bring you in touch with hundreds of works that you've never seen before. It's like taking 50 trips to museums you've never visited before.

If you are used to seeing the art canon displayed in a certain way, this book will expand your horizons. I was amazed at how many prehistoric works are just as abstract and "modern" as works I see produced today. The repetition of themes (such as the ubiquitous pregnant female) across cultures was also fascinating.

One of the nice surprises was that small objects are illustrated to scale so you approximate the experience of seeing the object in a museum from one angle.

I was also pleased by the large page size that allows larger works to be represented in a way that made more detail available to see. The drawback to the book is that there are no foldouts which would have many many of the enormous screens and sculptures easier to see in detail.

I found the book to be most rewarding in showing me art from countries that I seldom see works from and for providing lots of prehistoric works.

From a religious point of view the book is pretty ecumenical in terms of the major religions (except those that frown on literally representing what's on Earth).

Don't think, however, that this book will replace buying other art books. Many obvious world favorites aren't in this book. I don't know if it was for reasons of economy (reproduction rights being costly for important works) or to expand our horizons. I mentally "looked" at those works where they fell in chronological order.

The photography and printing are excellent. Bravo!

The main drawback is that the book is very heavy. I found that I could most comfortably read it in a recliner with a pillow to help hold up the heavier side.

If you decide to give only one art book as a gift this year, this is the book to give!

I remember as a little girl, I'd grab my big sister's copy of the Janson art book and peruse it for hours. As I got older I realized how much of the world the book missed. So imagine my surprise to find this among my birthday presents. I am not a professional artist or archaeologist, but have long enjoyed reading about both fields. This book more than fills my interest in both. What amazes me is the age of some of these pieces, and how the editors included these from around the world, not just western countries. I was also impressed by the text, giving just enough information, describing the piece and putting it in context with others. I'd recommend this to anyone interested in art history and world history. I'd also recommend this to anyone who knows little about art, but is still interested in it.

BTW I had to laugh at the last few examples, of 'art' in the 1990s. Dear lord, if in 30,000 years someone looks at those examples, they are going to think that we actually went backwards in our ability to express ourselves through artistic means.

My wife and I are both enjoying this book daily. We've decided to open the book to a new pair of pages each day. Yes, it's a huge book - but it takes many pages to cover 30,000 years! Presently the book resides, open, on the end of our partners desk. But to read the entries requires bending; so I'm underway in the building of a lectern so we can read it while standing erect. As we both went to art school, we have some of our own work on the walls; but having masterworks in the home to speak to us daily is truly inspiring.

I refute the observation that the binding is less than adequate. (I've published two books myself.) This binding is sturdy, being sewn into signatures and properly glued, including headbands. Crackling sounds are characteristic of any large new book.

It is always stunning to see a photograph of the approximately 28,000 year old cave paintngs. In the eeriness of a flame-lit cave, a human being probably not much different than you and me depicted the world around him or her. All we know for sure is that someone had a need to express themselves. And so humans have done so for the past 30,000 years, with a sampling of 1,000 artworks between the covers of this magnificient book.

One of the most amazing features of this book is the price. Incredibly low for such a large book with so many finely reproduced photographs of artworks. Truly a bargain - and one that belongs in every home.

Why should a book on art be in every home? Because this is a book of history. Not the history of art, per se, but the history of humankind.

In many cases, the art is actually artifact - remnants of a culture, of a civilization. (It can be argued that much 20th Century Western art is actually evidence of the devolution of civilization, but that belongs in another venue.) Virtually every culture is representedd from across the globe. The collection is relatively eclectic, especially for what we consider "primitive" cultures where what we see as "art" was for that culture merely a everyday tool.

We see from the art that much of the time, it was the province of the powerful or the rich. We can see the preoccupation of certain cultures with religion, which is actually the theme of most of the works here. That may be a result of such works often being large and more survivable. One can only imagine how much of what we would consider art today has been destroyed or plundered. Think of all the gold objects carried off by invaders or the indigenous work destroyed, such as the Mayan manuscipts burned by the Spanish or the recurrent repressions of the Jews and their religions. Of course, much art was simply destroyed because it had outlived it usefulness: many Greek and Roman bronzes were melted down over time.

We should be thankful that we have what we have and that thanks to miracles of modern technology, we can enjoy and appreciate it in the comfort of our own homes. Truly amazing.

The commentaries for each of the artworks shown are mercifully plain-spoken. The pretensiousness of academics is happily absent.

Overall, this book is an admirable overview of the history of art and really should be in every home. It is a great value.

Jerry

The pictures are great, and I like the way they are arranged chronologically, so you see an example of art in Europe and then the next page might be an example of art in Asia during the same time period.

The book is huge!

But I don't think the binding is very good -- it looks like glued cardboard and when you open the book, you can hear the binding crack...so I'm not sure how long it will stay together.