Art: The Definitive Visual Guide (DK Definitive Cultural Histories)

Art: The Definitive Visual Guide by DK is one of the most impressive art reference books I’ve come across. Covering around 30,000 years of art history, it showcases more than 2,500 paintings and sculptures from over 700 artists, making it an incredible resource for both beginners and art enthusiasts. (DK⁠) What makes this book stand out is its visual presentation. The high-quality illustrations, detailed close-ups, timelines, and clear explanations make complex artistic movements easy to understand. Rather than feeling like a textbook, it feels like walking through a world-class museum from the comfort of your home. Reviewers have also praised its accessibility and the way it presents art in a highly visual format. (makingamark.blogspot.com⁠) The book covers everything from prehistoric cave paintings to contemporary art, placing each movement in its historical and cultural context. The “Closer Look” sections are especially useful for understanding artistic techniques, composition, and symbolism. (DK⁠) The only downside is its size and weight—it’s a substantial coffee-table book rather than something you’ll casually carry around. However, that large format is also what allows the artwork to shine. Overall, this is an excellent investment for anyone interested in art history, visual culture, or simply owning a beautiful and informative reference book. Highly recommended.

Well presented and illustrated. Highly informative and enjoyable book.

Wow this book is just amazing. It’s divided into time periods and styles. 1000s of paintings with descriptions and info about the artists. So much information. For anyone who enjoys art you really can’t go wrong.

Quite a hefty book, packed with both text and images. Great for learning about art.

This book is extraordinarily good - such coverage of the art you need to know about. Glossy pages. Erudite descriptions. Incredible value - at under £30 it’s a no-brainer

A good light introduction to art. Plenty of pictures. Short paragraphs. The little jargon that is used is explained. One nice feature is the 'closer look ' where a section of a picture is magnified to show the aspect that the writer is describing.

The book is stunning. But the first book arrived damaged, marks on cover and dented book corners - clearly thrown around in the box. I asked for an exchange. The second book arrived 24 hours later, so appreciate that, but with something gross stuck all over front cover. I'm giving this as a gift so had to carefully clean the cover as not enough time to exchange again. The seller should be ashamed to send out items dirty and damaged. The book itself is very heavy and impressive.

Really impressed with this book. I have recently taken up drawing again after finishing work, and as well as creating, I wanted to learn a little bit about other painters, and a bit of art history. I've found this book really well produced. Its a beautiful book to flip through, amazingly detailed full colour photos of paintings, and lots of useful information. I tend to just dip in and out rather than reading it from cover to cover, and its helped improve my inspiration for drawing subjects. Only negative is that some of the photos span two pages, and as its a very thick hardcover book, part of the images are difficult to see in full as they disappear into the spine/crease between pages.

Extensive information, this book has lot of information in the subject, greatly composed, excellently explained the topic with variety of example and supporting evidence, i will highly suggest you to get this book if you wan to know the whole history and evolution of art through time

The book cover is stunning. The content is very informative and easy to navigate through. It covers pretty much everything I learned in art school and more. Perfect for people who want to broaden their art knowledge.

Worth every penny

Ha molte immagini a colori e bel formato

For me personally, this book is a personal book gallery. I can recommend it as a gift.