30,000 Years of Art: The Story of Human Creativity across Time and Space

by Phaidon Press

Following on from The Art Book published in 1994, 30,000 Years of Art offers an original and accessible introduction to art for a general readership. Unlike The Art Book, it organises the work in chronological order (rather than alphabetical), it covers all cultures (not only western) and, as the title suggests, it covers 30,000 years of art (rather than art since the Renaissance). The book contains over 1000 works of art from all periods and regions in the world and breaks through the usual geographical and cultural boundaries of art history to celebrate the vast range of human artistry across time and space. Each work is accompanied by key caption information (date, title, place of origin, style or culture, medium, dimensions etc.), and a text that provides more information on the work and its art historical context. The book presents art in a way very different from other art history compendia, revealing the huge diversity, or in many cases, similarity, of man's artistic achievements through time and around the globe. Ordered chronologically, the resulting timeline of works will lead to compelling surprising juxtapositions will offer intellectual pleasure and a sense of wonder and discovery.

Genres: Art, History, Art History, Nonfiction, Reference, Art Design, Design

1064 pages, Hardcover

First published October 22, 2007

About the author

Phaidon Press is a global publisher of books on art, architecture, design, fashion, photography, and popular culture, as well as cookbooks, children's books, and travel books. The company is based in London and New York City, with additional offices in Paris and Berlin. -wikipedia

Reviews

[Peter Tillman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Your public library likely has a copy of this enormous (12.5 lbs!) and well-produced book. You should check it out and, well, check it out. Make sure you have your sturdiest book-bag to lug the thing out to the car! I'm particularly partial to the prehistoric and ethnographic stuff, but the whole thing is really, really nicely done. One of my 100 (or so) best books ever. Five stars! And a book that, given our pokey little Calif house, I have zero desire to own. Where would I put it? Best just to check it out from the library from time to time, Real Soon Now....

Sadly, our local library disposed of most of their copies, and the 2 they kept are for ref. use only. Sad & dumb.

[Meredith · Rating 5 out of 5]

You could kill someone with this book. Seriously. It's the biggest book I've ever read. According to Amazon.com, it is 12.1 x 12.1 x 2.8 inches and weighs 13 pounds.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Will probably take me another 30,000 years to fully read, but this is one the most prized books in my collection. I hope to pass it on to my children.

[Unpil · Rating 5 out of 5]

An art museum in one's home, spanning the circumference of the globe and the width of the time. Recommended!

[Robert Adam Gilmour · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's about 600 works of art, it's impressively wide ranging and roughly a third of this is spent on anonymous ancient art. I admit I couldn't be bothered reading every single entry, much of the writing about the anonymous art is highly speculative (repetitively so) and so much of the text just describes what can obviously be seen in the pictures. I noticed the 1960s is when there started being more and more art I was less keen on but this is a historical overview. I understand sticking to films shown in a gallery context but I really don't understand the tiny selection of photography.

[Kirsten Gorter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Visueel 💯 met goede, inhoudelijke uitleg.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reminded me why I consistently sucked at Art Theory in high school.

There's a lot here. And at the same time... not a lot. But that is the subject matter, there is no way to condense 30,000 years of art into a book that everyone would be happy with. Subjectively I think a lot of the art in this collection is male orientated and european focused. But then again, I am also a layman when it comes to art so it's not like my opinion is educated.

I think this is a great book to have sitting somewhere where visitors can see it and flick through and maybe you can talk about art together even though that sounds pretentious as hell. There's a nice scope, sure the actual art in the BC section is thin of the ground, a more accurate title would be 30,000 years of art except three quarters is going to be the last two thousand years. Again. Not a connosseur of art, just making an observation.

The layout is lovely, the size is nice, heavy as hell and not a book that you can transport around, I wouldn't be reading this on the train to and from work. The last couple of pages include performance pieces and video art and it doesn't translate well to print. But overall an interesting book.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fantastic book avoids the cloistered stylistic chapters of most art history. Instead, it treats its subject strictly chronologically, devoting an entire page to each featured work. This means you sometimes get fascinating juxtapositions on opposing pages. Highly recommended.

My only critique is that the binding is not strong enough for such a chunky book. The binding has completely fallen off of mine after years of reading. I don't mind the battered look, and I probably couldn't have afforded a binding that would have held something this large together, but it's a good thing to know before you buy.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an awesome book I was fortunate enough to find on sale at Barnes and Nobles. The premise is that the authors picked the most influential or definitive pieces from every age (pretty much their favorites) starting 30,000 years ago and working up to the present. I'm not really into "art," but there is a lot of pretty amazing history and there are hundreds of beautiful things in the book to look at. The only gripe is that some of the pictures on the page are kind of small, but otherwise its an amazing book and well worth the price.

[Poon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great coffee table book dedicated to art. Just flipping through this book to see the photos of artifacts is already a feast to the eyes but once you have time to read on, you will find more information to widen your appreciation in them.

This book also makes a great present. I gave couple of them as 2008 New Year gifts to friends and they all raved about it!

Highly recommended!!!

[ZC Zhang · Rating 5 out of 5]

1, A great and perfect composition of Art, History, and Archaeology,
2, No personal views, opinions,
3, Very even in chronology and geography, e.g, 500 pages are Art before A.D 1000, and 500 pages are Art after A.D 1000, etc.

A HUGE book ! like a table ! Also a great art book, however is not available anymore.

[Dee · Rating 5 out of 5]

It truly is human creativity over time and space. 30,000 years is a very long time. 1,000 masterworks from around the world all cultures and countries from cave drawings to the 20th century in chronological order.

[Rhonda Hankins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinarily well done and affordable art book. Lovely to keep open on a table and browse through at random to learn about art from different countries, from different centuries, and in different styles. One of my favorite books ever.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book two pages at a time over the course of a few years, which was a great way to do it. I took me not just through the history of art, with beautiful colour plates of all of the art pieces, but also through the history of humans and their time on earth.

I learned so much, not to mention discovering some amazing works of art, and this book put so much into historical context for me. Interestingly, for many of the artists whose work I was familiar with the pieces selected for the book were not known to me. I don’t know if this was a concerted effort to feature some less famous pieces, or if these were really seminal works for each artist and I am just not as familiar with them as I thought.

At the end of the book are a couple of timelines which I found really fascinating , showing the dates of the various artistic movements in different regions o father world, and then showing art through the ages in the context of significant world events.

Published in 2007 by a publisher with offices in London and New York, I did find this a bit American-centric. Also it was shocking how few women artists were featured, however I think this is a reflection of how women’s art has not been valued over the eons, so it has not been preserved until recently. But despite that, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in art - and as a side benefit you will learn a lot of history too!

This is not doe the faint of heart, however - it is a physically large, and very heavy book, and it is over 1000 pages long. But it is a great “dipper” and can be read over an extended period of time, as I did. In fact that is the way I would recommend reading it, so that you can fully absorb what you are reading and also examine the art closely.

[John Holdway · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have owned this book for a number of years. I say I’ve read it but of course I haven’t read it exactly. I just look at and read it periodically. It is a time line with one art work on each page. The facing pages form interesting juxtapositions. It has art In chronological order from all over the world. The authors incorporate non western art. It seems to be less hierarchical where most art books put western art at the top. Perhaps they do a decent job. It seems to make an effort in the start to break down racism but only just a bit. It is great to have a whole overview of art from around the world over 30,000 years.

[César Rey · Rating 5 out of 5]

He tardado tres años en leerlo y ojalá me durase otros tres. Las Venus paleolíticas y Lucian Freud, el arte vikingo y el románico, Grecia y la Dama de Elche, la cerámica de culturas alejadas miles de kilómetros, las máscaras africanas y Picasso, las xilografías japonesas y los impresionistas franceses, los mosaicos de los reyes normandos de Sicilia y Bizancio y los omeyas del norte de África: todo está conectado.

[Jessica Peters · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is what it is - an art book. Sometimes the descriptions of the art pieces are more about their creators than the pieces themselves - but understandably, sometimes there's really not much to say about another oil painting on canvas. That being said, there's plenty of variety in types of art pieces and I appreciate that.

[kmisamape · Rating 5 out of 5]

Big ahh book, i mean the book is thick, but its height is small like just a little bigger than my hand, Its really pretty, I love it!! I placed flag shaped post-its on the pages where I find art from my country. ACURRUNCUN ACURRUNCUNCUN

[Shahroz Bhatti]

best

[翰林院编修]

艺术三万年
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[Luca Macchi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Libro molto bello dalle grosse dimensioni

[Diego · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este voluminoso libro que incluye las fotos de 1000 obras de arte acompañadas por una breve explicación de cada una es sensacional.
Descubrí este libro en una librería mientras ganaba tiempo esperando a una persona. Me sedujo desde la primera obra de arte escogida que tenía 30,000 años de existencia hasta la última que todavía estaba inconclusa a fines del pasado milenio.
Las piezas han sido escogidas con un criterio estético que a mí personalmente me encantó. Todo es muy sugestivo. Me estimula ver cada trabajo, me inspiran los estilos y sobre todo la variedad. Como una ventana que nos permite ganar y utilizar ideas para nuestra creatividad. Creo que cada pieza artística sea pictórica, escultórica o arquitectónica, puede incentivarnos para visitar diversos lugares y museos de todo el mundo. Obras de todos los continentes están representadas en este hermoso libro que me salió mucho más barato comprarlo por la Internet a través de la www.amazon.com.

[Anna]

Hmmm. I've been looking at this book (thank you, Lena) for an hour now, wondering if it will be as good as it sounds, thinking it probably won't - that it can't be.... but it looks absolutely ...delicious.

My clearly impaired ability to make straightforward decisions (it's a one-click, totally non-committing thing for crying out loud) and my inner vision of devouringa chocolate cake makes me thik it's time to sign off for dinner.

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is actually an amazing book but it doesn’t get 5 stars from me because so much is left out that I wish was included. I especially like the timeline that shows the history of the art along with general human history. I doubt that I will ever read every page of this book, the way I normally do with art books.

[Stephan Ferreira · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has alot of ground to cover. It goes page by page matching art from all cultures at the same time at the pace of about 100-1000 years per page, picking one particular piece with some short text.

[Rhesa]

This looks good actualy, but it's so biggg!!!, almost the size of a small table. I'll need to pay extra baggage to carry this on the plane. Well hopefully gonna see this book in Jakarta soon. I'd rather buy this than the small 10,000 years one also recently published by Phaidon.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Due to it's size and weight, 30,000 Years of Art is not frequently taken down from my bookcase. The spine is far too weak and thus causes me more trepidation upon handling this book. While in theory this is a fantastic reference book, it's a pain to use.

[Ellis]

Anyone wanna get me this book??

[Chloe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a birthday present. It arrived by mail and is the size of a smallish meteor.

[Leonard Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Big and clumsy and pretty much focused on the mainstream, but for the price, you can't beat this, and the layout, design and big, beautiful reproductions of art can't be beat.