I'm going to Paris to visit my wife I'llbe there for a month. While I am there I would like to learn some art history. I'd like to read a chapter or two on a specific style or era in the evening and then spend the next day looking at examples in a museum. Do you have recommendations for an art history book formatted in a style conducive to this?
Yes.
Gardner's Art through the Ages.
Gombrich is the best "quick" option there is, but his book is still a good 600 pages long.
I'd also recommend you Likeness and Presence, by Hans Belting and Theories of Modern Art by Herschel B. Chipp.
>>8271318
This is ok but lackluster, it's better to tackle a more difficult text, but if you feel you won't be able to, go for this.
After you've read all of this, read Panofsky and Warburg and move to Confronting Images to find out why we're wrong.
Why not ask your wife? I mean, do you really expect to understand an artistic sensibility as complex and vast as the French just by reading a book a couple of evenings? Don't bother, just go to the Louvre and pretend.
>>8271347
She isn't French she is there for an internship. No I don't believe that I will become an expert but I would like to be able to recognize a style by its name so that I can assimilate what I see.
I recommend reading books about specific art.
I really don't like Gombrich but anyway.
Here's one:
19th century European Painting by Lorenz Eitner
>>8271374
No one likes Gombrich yet there's no better way to teach art history outside of his mannerist posotivist retardness.
The Story of Fart by Ernest Gombrich. It's the de facto general fart history book.
>>8271318
>>8271309
Gardner's Art Through the Ages is solid. Pretty much every introductory Art History course uses it.
But really, I imagine the museums will offer you plenty of context. But I've never been to the Louvre, I hope they have french and english text accompanying the collection. If not, I'm sure they've got tours our audio tours or some shit.
You could just get a book on Montmartre/Montparnase, but a lot of those will include the Paris commune and politics, and a lot are based around not just painting but cabaret and literature and street life.
Kiki's Paris (Kluver, Martin) if you want that kind of thing.
>>8271410
I think they may provide context for each piece but I'd like to begin to understand the whole as a story so that if I went to a museum I could take myself on a tour in chronological order.
