The 12-Hour Art Expert: Everything You Need to Know about Art in a Dozen Masterpieces

With its inviting title, I was looking forward to reading a condensed, hopefully enriched treatise on learning to appreciate and further understand art. Unfortunately, this sample is disappointing. In a conversational text style with lots of irritating but supposedly clever quips in the script, the book starts off on a solid basis. First defining what art is and the different types of expression that may be considered art, explaining the terminology and describing the various techniques employed, these topics serve as foundations.

He covers sculpture well and delves into religious paintings, but it is difficult to focus on the points emphasized, since the included reproductions are too small to decipher or unclear. Frequently, he delves into extended details on samples that are not illustrated in the book. Modern and post-modern art are mostly lacking, but the latter bulk of the chapters focus on restorations, forgeries, art crime, and the art market.

This is supposed to be a book about everything you need to know about art in twelve hours, but unfortunately, it lacks balance and appears to be pieced together from fragments of other publications by the author.