By Time Period
History of Modern Art by 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, c2010. With a readable text and liberal illustrations this title traces the development of trends and influences in painting, sculpture, photography and architecture from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day.
History of Italian Renaissance Art by 7th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, c2011. Covers over four centuries of Italian painting, sculpture and architecture.
19th-Century Art by Rev. & updated ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, c2005. Survey of painting and sculpture beginning in 1776 and ending with the dawn of the new century at the Paris Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) of 1900.
Photography
History of Photography by New York: Museum of Modern Art: Distributed by the New York Graphic Society Books; Boston: Little, Brown, c1982. Since its first publication in 1937, this lucid and scholarly chronicle of the history of photography has been hailed as the classic work on the subject.
A World History of Photography by 4th ed. New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 2007. Encompasses the entire range of the medium from the camera lucida to the latest computer technology and from Europe and the Americas to the Far East.
Definition
A textbook is defined as a book used in schools or colleges for the formal study of a subject. In the case of art history textbooks, these are usually written by distinguished faculty who have not only a deep understanding of the subject but also experience in presenting the information to students. The textbooks cited here are lavishly illustrated, include maps and graphs, and timelines, essays and commentary, as well as bibliography for further reading. They provide an overview of the subject and are an excellent starting place to learning about the art and the artists.
Comprehensive
Art History by 5th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2014. A global history of art from prehistoric times to the present. Stokstad is an emeritus Distinguished Professor of Art History at the Univ. of Kansas.
Art across Time Combined by 3rd ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, c2007. This title places each work withing the time-and-place context in which it was created. Includes large scale and high quality visual reproductions of artworks often presented from multiple perspectives.
Gardner's Art Through the Ages by Australia; United States: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, c2013. An introductory textbook to art history.
Asian Art
The Art of East Asia by Cologne: Konemann, c1999. An introduction to the representational culture of Japan, China, Korea and Southeast Asia from architecture, sacred and secular, to painting, crafts and dance.
A History of Far Eastern Art by 5th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall; New York: H.N. Abrams, 1994. Covers a vast amount of cultures and time periods in an integrated approach with organization by chronology and theme rather than geography.
Asian Art by Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2014. Illuminates the rich history of Asian Art from ancient times to the present.
Architecture
A Global History of Architecture by 2nd ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, c2011. Chronologically organized, the work spans the globe devoting most of its space to specific architectural works.
A World History of Architecture by 2nd ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, c2008. Covers from prehistoric through modern structures and provides photos, plans, scales for many world-famous structures.
World Architecture by New York: Oxford University Press, [2013]. Building on Kostof's global vision and social context, Ingersoll integrates extensive coverage of world and contemporary architecture. Presented chronologically, each chapter now focuses on three unique architectural cultures.
