Richard Osborne. Illustrated by Natalie Turner.
 
From Paleolithic cave-painting to postmodernism,
Art Theory For Beginners is a concise and
entertaining survey of the major historical and
current debates on art. Painters, theorists and
philosophers are all included to show how the
idea of art has developed over the last 5,000
years. Art is a visual representation of a range of
concepts, stories and emotions, including curiosity,
humanity, political statements, and the Self. Art
Theory for Beginners examines and explains the
development of the different ways in which people
study, interpret and appreciate art in its rich variety
of forms.