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The Arts
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677 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1937
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229 people want to read
About the author
Hendrik Willem van Loon
286 books80 followersHendrik Willem van Loon (January 14, 1882 – March 11, 1944) was a Dutch-American historian and journalist.
Born in Rotterdam, he went to the United States in 1903 to study at Cornell University. He was a correspondent during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and in Belgium in 1914 at the start of World War I. He later became a professor of history at Cornell University (1915-17) and in 1919 became an American citizen.
From the 1910s until his death, Van Loon wrote many books. Most widely known among these is The Story of Mankind, a history of the world especially for children, which won the first Newbery Medal in 1922. The book was later updated by Van Loon and has continued to be updated, first by his son and later by other historians.
However, he also wrote many other very popular books aimed at young adults. As a writer he was known for emphasizing crucial historical events and giving a complete picture of individual characters, as well as the role of the arts in history. He also had an informal style which, particularly in The Story of Mankind, included personal anecdotes.
Born in Rotterdam, he went to the United States in 1903 to study at Cornell University. He was a correspondent during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and in Belgium in 1914 at the start of World War I. He later became a professor of history at Cornell University (1915-17) and in 1919 became an American citizen.
From the 1910s until his death, Van Loon wrote many books. Most widely known among these is The Story of Mankind, a history of the world especially for children, which won the first Newbery Medal in 1922. The book was later updated by Van Loon and has continued to be updated, first by his son and later by other historians.
However, he also wrote many other very popular books aimed at young adults. As a writer he was known for emphasizing crucial historical events and giving a complete picture of individual characters, as well as the role of the arts in history. He also had an informal style which, particularly in The Story of Mankind, included personal anecdotes.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 25, 2019
I picked this book up on a whim at a thrift store in Galena, Illinois back in 2001 or 2002 (I was on a day trip with my future wife). I still remember the store and the discovery quite fondly. I didn't buy the book right away. In fact, I picked it up, examined it, then initially decided against it. But I returned about an hour later to buy it. It was about $8, as I recall. Of course, it would be another five years or so before I finally got around to reading it.
But once I started, it was difficult to put down. What a fascinating view on the history of art! It was witty, informative, and incredibly well-written. And there were so many passages that stuck with me, both as an artist and a writer, but none so strongly as this (though I'm paraphrasing), "There's one principle that must underlie all art: have something to say, say it in as few words as possible, then stop talking." I didn't take this to mean that all artwork--whether it be writing, painting, sculpting, or dancing--should be minimalistic, rather if you're able to accomplish your message in the style of a minimalist, then that's what you should do. But, for example, if The Who needs 8 minutes and 30 seconds to perform "Won't Get Fooled Again," then they should absolutely use those 8 minutes and 30 seconds for all they're worth (but not a second more than is absolutely necessary).
Of course, some of the material feels dated, but that's not to take away from the wealth of information and entertainment that van Loon collected within the nearly 650 pages of this book. I was so inspired by this book, in fact, that I named one of the main characters in my own book after the author, Hendrik.
But once I started, it was difficult to put down. What a fascinating view on the history of art! It was witty, informative, and incredibly well-written. And there were so many passages that stuck with me, both as an artist and a writer, but none so strongly as this (though I'm paraphrasing), "There's one principle that must underlie all art: have something to say, say it in as few words as possible, then stop talking." I didn't take this to mean that all artwork--whether it be writing, painting, sculpting, or dancing--should be minimalistic, rather if you're able to accomplish your message in the style of a minimalist, then that's what you should do. But, for example, if The Who needs 8 minutes and 30 seconds to perform "Won't Get Fooled Again," then they should absolutely use those 8 minutes and 30 seconds for all they're worth (but not a second more than is absolutely necessary).
Of course, some of the material feels dated, but that's not to take away from the wealth of information and entertainment that van Loon collected within the nearly 650 pages of this book. I was so inspired by this book, in fact, that I named one of the main characters in my own book after the author, Hendrik.
Want to read
January 6, 2026Annotated Book in F. Scott Fitzgerald's College of One
August 14, 2024
3.5 stars
December 28, 2018
I picked up this book some years back when I was writing an Art column. I thought it might be a good source of info. I finally got around to reading it starting last year. I've taken my time due to the quantity of information in it.
Van Loon starts with the Stone Age and ends in 1937. He covers two-dimensional and three-dimensional arts, architecture, music of all ages and then some. What is enjoyable is that his style is more conversational than dry and pedantic. He gives you facts but in a way that is entertaining and informing.
I found it interesting to read his take on some of the various art styles, especially ones that were fairly recent on the scene at that time, and then to be at a later date to see what had happened with them. Also his style lends itself to using the book to re-read items that pique your interest and maybe make you want to do some research. That is the reason for his writing this long 677 page book.
Van Loon also has included illustrations he created to add colour and visuals. Some are black and white and some have colour. They do help to break up the massive amount of text in the book.
Van Loon had a pretty solid background from studying at Cornell, working for the Associated Press as an international correspondent and later taking a Ph. D degree in Munich and returning to the U.S. to lecture on history and art. Born in Holland, he spent the majority of his life in the U.S.
I wouldn't have minded having this for my Art History book in college instead of the tome of boredom I had.
Van Loon starts with the Stone Age and ends in 1937. He covers two-dimensional and three-dimensional arts, architecture, music of all ages and then some. What is enjoyable is that his style is more conversational than dry and pedantic. He gives you facts but in a way that is entertaining and informing.
I found it interesting to read his take on some of the various art styles, especially ones that were fairly recent on the scene at that time, and then to be at a later date to see what had happened with them. Also his style lends itself to using the book to re-read items that pique your interest and maybe make you want to do some research. That is the reason for his writing this long 677 page book.
Van Loon also has included illustrations he created to add colour and visuals. Some are black and white and some have colour. They do help to break up the massive amount of text in the book.
Van Loon had a pretty solid background from studying at Cornell, working for the Associated Press as an international correspondent and later taking a Ph. D degree in Munich and returning to the U.S. to lecture on history and art. Born in Holland, he spent the majority of his life in the U.S.
I wouldn't have minded having this for my Art History book in college instead of the tome of boredom I had.
January 4, 2023
I need to read this, or at least skim it better.
I love contemporary stuff from the 1930s.
I've read a lot of FDR era stuff, tho not a fan of any Roosevelt.
I side with the anti New Dealers but all my grandparents liked FDR.
I think I paid a fin at an antique store in far southwest of Houston.
My copy looks just like this one. I am 67 so it's from my grandparents time (1937). Small to medium sized Indiana town folk, Van Loon might look down?
I love contemporary stuff from the 1930s.
I've read a lot of FDR era stuff, tho not a fan of any Roosevelt.
I side with the anti New Dealers but all my grandparents liked FDR.
I think I paid a fin at an antique store in far southwest of Houston.
My copy looks just like this one. I am 67 so it's from my grandparents time (1937). Small to medium sized Indiana town folk, Van Loon might look down?
September 21, 2022
Hendrick Willem Van Loon seemed to be one of those people who was constantly curious, and who wound up knowing more than just a little bit about a whole lot of things. I found this book in an antique mall for only $6.00. Paging through it at random, I found such as this, on the subject of painter Anthony van Dyck. “The English, not spoiled in the matter of painting (having produced very few good painters until then) were delighted with this newcomer. His excellent manners appealed to their love of good form. There was nothing grubby about him. He invited his clients to dinner so that he might the more carefully observe their idiosyncracies over a glass of good port. He did not keep them sitting endlessly in uncomfortable chairs as so many of those other foreign artists did. Instead, as soon as he had finished the face, he let his client go. A professional model could then afterwards pose for the hands, a method which accounts for the unfortunate fact that in so many of Van Dyck’s pictures the hands fail to fit the face. That a person’s hands are apt to be even more of an indication of his character than his face was something these noble customers had probably never noticed. Why would Van Dyck have told them? They were satisfied. He saved himself a lot of time and trouble.”
The whole book, all 632 pages of it, is like that. From the vantage point of 1937, Van Loon tells a sweeping story of the history of art from the cave paintings in prehistoric times to the music of Claude Debussy. Though he is not fond of much art of the 20th Century, or even music from the likes of Stravinsky or Hindemith, he concludes with this sense of possibility: “Fifty years from now we shall undoubtedly know whether these mysterious products of our bewildered contemporaries were just so much waste of time or whether I was just as foolish as those who objected to Bach because his music was a little too elaborate for their taste.
Van Loon is a creature of his time – the book is condescending in places. He imagines his target audience to be a poor boy and a girl he saw standing in a rural field, who he hopes will realize how much more beauty there is in the world outside their home. No mention is made of how they are supposed to, as he suggests, visit various European cities to see architecture and paintings for themselves (though he does occasionally mention books of reproductions, and even recommends picture postcards as a cheap way of acquainting oneself with the work of great painters). Van Loon puts Europe first in all things, and the white male above all others. These references are rare enough in the course of the book that I became aghast each time they showed up.
I was familiar with individual works and movements within the course of artistic history, but this was a very helpful and highly entertaining way to follow the sweep of how things changed through time. He was not afraid to include just enough political and economic (and even religious in the case of the Reformation) history to help explain how artistic output was affected. He is also conscious of the events in Germany in recent years as he wrote, and seemed sore afraid of what was to come next. Meanwhile, with the help of the Internet, I was able to visualize a lot of the works referenced (though not all, for that would have taken years).
The frontispiece proposes that this book will give the reader a better understanding and a greater appreciation that has been done within the realm of painting and architecture and music and sculpture and the theater and most of the so-called minor arts from the beginning of time until the moment we come so close to them that we begin to lose perspective. He does reference each and every one of these art forms, but the fact is that Shakespeare gets barely a page while painters and musicians of lesser merit are given long subsections and even chapters. It may come as no surprise that Van Loon was an amateur musician and an illustrator/painter himself. His greatest enthusiasms come for what he knows best.
Much of Van Loon’s output was in the children’s book field, but he wrote some other adult books which may be worth stumbling upon in the future. I don’t know how many of them have survived to our time – his erudition is one thing, his amiability and wit in the course of covering every topic is quite another. I’m not sure I’ve encountered any critical historian like him.
The whole book, all 632 pages of it, is like that. From the vantage point of 1937, Van Loon tells a sweeping story of the history of art from the cave paintings in prehistoric times to the music of Claude Debussy. Though he is not fond of much art of the 20th Century, or even music from the likes of Stravinsky or Hindemith, he concludes with this sense of possibility: “Fifty years from now we shall undoubtedly know whether these mysterious products of our bewildered contemporaries were just so much waste of time or whether I was just as foolish as those who objected to Bach because his music was a little too elaborate for their taste.
Van Loon is a creature of his time – the book is condescending in places. He imagines his target audience to be a poor boy and a girl he saw standing in a rural field, who he hopes will realize how much more beauty there is in the world outside their home. No mention is made of how they are supposed to, as he suggests, visit various European cities to see architecture and paintings for themselves (though he does occasionally mention books of reproductions, and even recommends picture postcards as a cheap way of acquainting oneself with the work of great painters). Van Loon puts Europe first in all things, and the white male above all others. These references are rare enough in the course of the book that I became aghast each time they showed up.
I was familiar with individual works and movements within the course of artistic history, but this was a very helpful and highly entertaining way to follow the sweep of how things changed through time. He was not afraid to include just enough political and economic (and even religious in the case of the Reformation) history to help explain how artistic output was affected. He is also conscious of the events in Germany in recent years as he wrote, and seemed sore afraid of what was to come next. Meanwhile, with the help of the Internet, I was able to visualize a lot of the works referenced (though not all, for that would have taken years).
The frontispiece proposes that this book will give the reader a better understanding and a greater appreciation that has been done within the realm of painting and architecture and music and sculpture and the theater and most of the so-called minor arts from the beginning of time until the moment we come so close to them that we begin to lose perspective. He does reference each and every one of these art forms, but the fact is that Shakespeare gets barely a page while painters and musicians of lesser merit are given long subsections and even chapters. It may come as no surprise that Van Loon was an amateur musician and an illustrator/painter himself. His greatest enthusiasms come for what he knows best.
Much of Van Loon’s output was in the children’s book field, but he wrote some other adult books which may be worth stumbling upon in the future. I don’t know how many of them have survived to our time – his erudition is one thing, his amiability and wit in the course of covering every topic is quite another. I’m not sure I’ve encountered any critical historian like him.
June 6, 2016
Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1937.
Ranging essays about art and music, their development, with an idea to explore and educate on art for art's sake is the purpose of the book.
From Chinese history to Indian society to Persian carpets to European cathedral building to the symphonic color of stained glass, to the music of Bach, Beethoven to Richard Wagner, the book delves into the connection between the arts and the instruments of art itself.
You would learn, for instance, about gesso and plaster and fresco painting to the invention of oil painting, learn about subjects that were treated in the paintings, learn about the origin of orchestras (a few odd musicians waiting for their supper in a medieval inn?).
What leaps out about the book is the Illustrations.
There are about 150 of them, done like color sketches in vivid blue, and red, detailing a laudable semblance of a impressionistic painting here, a realistic painting there, architecture of "a dynastic grandeur of the XVIII century" elsewhere. All in all, a sumptuous book on art for art's sake, a possible coffee table book of the 1940s and a Urban Sketch-like artistic curio that is still thought-provoking now.
Ranging essays about art and music, their development, with an idea to explore and educate on art for art's sake is the purpose of the book.
From Chinese history to Indian society to Persian carpets to European cathedral building to the symphonic color of stained glass, to the music of Bach, Beethoven to Richard Wagner, the book delves into the connection between the arts and the instruments of art itself.
You would learn, for instance, about gesso and plaster and fresco painting to the invention of oil painting, learn about subjects that were treated in the paintings, learn about the origin of orchestras (a few odd musicians waiting for their supper in a medieval inn?).
What leaps out about the book is the Illustrations.
There are about 150 of them, done like color sketches in vivid blue, and red, detailing a laudable semblance of a impressionistic painting here, a realistic painting there, architecture of "a dynastic grandeur of the XVIII century" elsewhere. All in all, a sumptuous book on art for art's sake, a possible coffee table book of the 1940s and a Urban Sketch-like artistic curio that is still thought-provoking now.
July 10, 2022
van Loon is a wonderfully entertaining, wry and good-natured critic of his own time (1937) in contrast to the history he is creating of the human arts. I learned about the repressive oversight of the "Watch and Ward Societies" formulated to censor books and performing arts, what a "Squeedunk" is (slang for small-town and its small mentality), and the depiction of Greek theatre in 436 BC as a catcalling forum as lively and political as the public battle between "the New Dealers and the Supreme Courters", an allusion to the contemporary 1930's scene.
I found his opinions, presented confidently but with a warm and humble tone and not-infrequently self-mocking, a very welcome commentary on the arts and civilization overall, wry yet of sober reflection. This book was a long and wandering conversation but of great value as an example of how to approach thinking about the immense variety of human forms of expression and how to judge their worth. It was a welcome antidote to the popular conviction that enduring values are a myth.
I found his opinions, presented confidently but with a warm and humble tone and not-infrequently self-mocking, a very welcome commentary on the arts and civilization overall, wry yet of sober reflection. This book was a long and wandering conversation but of great value as an example of how to approach thinking about the immense variety of human forms of expression and how to judge their worth. It was a welcome antidote to the popular conviction that enduring values are a myth.
February 28, 2021
Van Loon is oh so modern and opinionated! That may offend some, but it just made me chuckle.
This is quite a tome. My eldest is reading it through her high school years, but I’ll have her younger siblings read A History of Art by Janson and watch Sister Wendy DVDs since they are not speed readers like her.
This book would have been improved by having replications of the artwork throughout the book instead of Van Loon’s whimsical drawings approximating genuine works of art. As I read, I circled things I wanted my daughter to look up online. You can’t really study art without seeing it with your eyes!
A solid 3 stars. Not horrible, not great.
This is quite a tome. My eldest is reading it through her high school years, but I’ll have her younger siblings read A History of Art by Janson and watch Sister Wendy DVDs since they are not speed readers like her.
This book would have been improved by having replications of the artwork throughout the book instead of Van Loon’s whimsical drawings approximating genuine works of art. As I read, I circled things I wanted my daughter to look up online. You can’t really study art without seeing it with your eyes!
A solid 3 stars. Not horrible, not great.
January 29, 2024
great look on the history of art if u get past some of the biases
August 28, 2019
This book was written in the 30s of the last century and it shows. No Carravagio, of course, van Gogh gets hardly mentioned. The author noticed that Beethoven was losing fame etc. Different time and van Loon is quite idiosyncratic in his views, which is nice. That is why it is still readable. Best painter is Rembrandt. Followed by Frans Hals if I look at his picture of the painter landscape.
Van Loon used to draw the pictures in his books himself. Very charming, but one wished one would have pictures of the paintings discussed. It is only some mouse-clicks away these days, but still...
The main complaint I have is that this in not really about the Arts of Mankind. Now, van Loon, says he had written 1700 pages and then cut. Maybe. As it is, it would better be called On Painters and Musicians in Europe from 1500 to 1900. That is where he obviously feels at home. There is a chapter on Indian and Chinese and Japanese Art. But there is next to no information in these. The same is true of the art of Greece and Rome.
So this in not really about art, but mainly about artists. Which is fine, but disappointing. Hollywood is mentioned but certainly not films. Next to nothing about literature. Shakespeare is mentioned but does not even appear in the index. The only writer who gets a couple of paragraphs is Molière.
Van Loon used to draw the pictures in his books himself. Very charming, but one wished one would have pictures of the paintings discussed. It is only some mouse-clicks away these days, but still...
The main complaint I have is that this in not really about the Arts of Mankind. Now, van Loon, says he had written 1700 pages and then cut. Maybe. As it is, it would better be called On Painters and Musicians in Europe from 1500 to 1900. That is where he obviously feels at home. There is a chapter on Indian and Chinese and Japanese Art. But there is next to no information in these. The same is true of the art of Greece and Rome.
So this in not really about art, but mainly about artists. Which is fine, but disappointing. Hollywood is mentioned but certainly not films. Next to nothing about literature. Shakespeare is mentioned but does not even appear in the index. The only writer who gets a couple of paragraphs is Molière.
May 14, 2019
Didn't read it all. Just selected chapters for our homeschool.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews