Reddit reviews The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern (Volume 1) (Annotated Series)

For reference of some of the things each of them have said, you can check out "The Annotated Mona Lisa", by the wonderful Carol Strickland, which is a quick reference guide to art history that's easily readable and probably available at your local library.

It supports a couple points from each of the previous posters. Namely that Da Vinci's street cred gets it a lot of attention. He's the ultimate "Renaissance Man" and genius.

Also, that it was stolen and possibly hung in Napoleon's bedroom, both more "modern" reasons that it stayed relevant and not replaced with other works.

And also, that it was one of the earliest examples of the sfumato technique, which was using many-many thin layers of translucent paint in an effort to mimic the translucency of human skin. Which was evolved from Da Vinci's study of real human anatomy. Also, not the lips but the HANDS are the anatomical

So, they are both kinda right sometimes, and kinda wrong other times.

Random selection of some of my favorites to help you expand your horizons:

The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan is a great introduction to scientific skepticism.

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris is a succinct refutation of Christianity as it's generally practiced in the US employing crystal-clear logic.

Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor by Anthony Everitt is the best biography of one of the most interesting men in history, in my personal opinion.

Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski is a jaw-dropping book on history, journalism, travel, contemporary events, philosophy.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson is a great tome about... everything. Physics, history, biology, art... Plus he's funny as hell. (Check out his In a Sunburned Country for a side-splitting account of his trip to Australia).

The Annotated Mona Lisa by Carol Strickland is a thorough primer on art history. Get it before going to any major museum (Met, Louvre, Tate Modern, Prado, etc).

Not the Impossible Faith by Richard Carrier is a detailed refutation of the whole 'Christianity could not have survived the early years if it weren't for god's providence' argument.

Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman are six of the easier chapters from his '63 Lectures on Physics delivered at CalTech. If you like it and really want to be mind-fucked with science, his QED is a great book on quantum electrodynamics direct from the master.

Lucy's Legacy by Donald Johanson will give you a really great understanding of our family history (homo, australopithecus, ardipithecus, etc). Equally good are Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors by Nicholas Wade and Mapping Human History by Steve Olson, though I personally enjoyed Before the Dawn slightly more.

Memory and the Mediterranean by Fernand Braudel gives you context for all the Bible stories by detailing contemporaneous events from the Levant, Italy, Greece, Egypt, etc.

After the Prophet by Lesley Hazleton is an awesome read if you don't know much about Islam and its early history.

Happy reading!

edit: Also, check out the Reasonable Doubts podcast.

Gardner's Art Through the Ages. It's a staple for art history majors. It's giant though (and pricey) so if you want something lighter, The Annotated Mona Lisa is great.


Gardner's: http://www.amazon.com/Gardners-Art-through-Ages-ArtStudy/dp/0495093076/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321898662&sr=1-1


Annotated Mona Lisa: http://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Mona-Lisa-Prehistoric-Post-Modern/dp/0740768727

The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern is by far my favorite art history book. After reading it, I am now able to offer interesting insights to friends and relatives whenever I am at an art museum.

Also, art museums are pretty good at publishing materials about their works. If you have a particular art museum that you like start there. A visit to the museum is so much more enjoyable when you have an understanding of what you are looking at.

Are you just learning to art or do you have goals?

Dynamic Figure Drawing The early bits of learning to draw focus on correct proportions, but just knowing the facts doesn't mean you understand what you're looking at. Learning about weight and line of action can make figure drawings a lot more interesting.

If you're interested in comics Understanding Comics helps you understand how they work, but not how to draw them.

Do you have access to art classes? Have you done any art history? Art history is pretty great for knowing about the masters and the people that paved the way for today's artists. The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern This book tries to give a short and succinct summary of most of the art movements, but it's worthwhile to get deeper into parts that interest you. The Ninja Turtles (Michaelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo, Raphael) are icons of the Renaissance, and I imagine the 11 pages for that time period fail to cover quite a lot of the Renaissance. Art is more than the paintings, it's the culture that is responsible for patronizing their work, it's the lessons they learned in pursuit of grander and grander works (The Monalisa represents a lighting choice - twilight hours with indirect lighting; On either side of her is two-point perspective and atmospheric perspective), the men and women that created these works, how these ideas traveled through the regions, and what their work meant to the artists in the time period they lived in.