Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 solid art history text October 24, 2007
A good text book, especially for students (like myself) who come from a a non-history background to study art history. Useful in preparing avenues for research topics or for constructing essays. I wish I had used this book more when I was studying for my MA!
 A must have if you are attempting an Art History course March 9, 2006
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
...but be warned, although the content of this book is excellent, the typeface (absolutely tiny) and the type colour (grey) makes reading it for more than 15 minutes at a time impossible!
small print paper back December 10, 2004
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
This book is informative, concise and useful, if a little heavy going in places. As previously mentioned by other reviewers the print is not just too small it is a very light and thin font. I have corrected vision with contact lenses and have never had a problem reading before - this book will be impossible for anyone with less than perfect sight to access. A new edition with plain font would be appreciated, especially as this is a study book for the O.U. with many mature students.
Awkwardly insighful September 4, 2003
29 out of 29 found this review helpful
Art history and its methods is a difficult book to read, especially for someone who has little grasp of the technical terms. I read the book, hoping it would give further my knowledge of art history, as I am applying to study that subject next year. Eric Fernie's comments were helpful, as the extracts from art critics, like Vasari and Wolfflin, were sometimes challenging to read. However the later critics become increasingly painless when reading their extracts, such as Hans Belting and Griselda Pollock, though the texts still provoke creative thinking.The book also has an extremely useful glossary of terms, in relatively straightfoward easy to understand definitions. This is a hard book to read all the way through, but I would recommend it to readers who have prior knowledge to the world of art history as it can be a useful reference book. For readers, who are new to the subject, like myself, I think starting with a less problematic book in terms of technical terms would be a better choice, such as the Story of Art, by E.H Gombrich, which I read shortly after finishing this book and was pleasantly surprised at how well he constructed his points without becoming stuck in technical detail.
 A definitive aid for the art history student. April 28, 2003
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
If you are serious about the study of art history, this book can provide you with a very good understanding of research methodologies. I have taken a postgraduate course in research methodologies of history of art however nothing make me understand the broad picture better than this book, I think I have learned more from this 11 book than what I learned from my first term of study.
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