Art For Dummies by Thomas Hoving
(14 chapters, 384 pages, published 1999)
was written by the eloquent and highly enthusiastic former
director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City .
In my opinion,
the Gombrich book
is a slightly better choice, if you intend to buy only
one book. The Thomas Hoving book is sometimes criticized by readers
for having too small a ratio of photographs to words, in an area
where visualization is everything. Hoving has certainly produced
a written work that delivers that full range from sensory delight
to intellectual appreciation, but some readers prefer a greater
quantity of high-quality color photographs, in which case I
would recommend
Gombrich's book, discussed on the other page,
over this one.
On the other hand, if you generally like the way books in the " For
Dummies " book series explain subjects, with clarity and naturally
flowing sequence, and a bit of humor injected into the teaching,
you would likely be happy with Hoving's whole approach.
Art for Dummies
is relatively a high-ranking bestseller. Recently it is only
around sales rank 2000 at Amazon.com, but that's out of millions of
books if all fiction and nonfiction categories. There are more
reviews which you may read on the linked Amazon.com page.