This stunning visual work is a repackaged update to the 2005 volume Eyewitness Companion: Art. Eight chapters take a chronological excursion through the history of Western art. Beginning with Early Art (30,000 BCE to 1300 CE) and flowing through the ages to Contemporary Art (1970-onward), each chapter details painters and sculptors (more than 650), with entries that include birth and death dates; nationality; medium; illustrations of key works; and a note on the artist's technique. The volume includes a glossary and an index. Libraries with the original version may want to update, especially considering the price. Recommended for most public and undergraduate collections.--Carbone, Jerry Copyright 2016 Booklist

Cumming, in his introduction to this book's precursor, Eyewitness Companion: Art, explained that his goal was to produce a "friendly companion [and] an entertaining and practical aid for looking at art," and that is his goal here, too. The book is arranged chronologically, with each section devoted to a period of time or a major art movement-early art, the Renaissance, the English landscape tradition, etc.-and beginning with a single-page discussion of the major aesthetics, techniques, and works in that movement, followed by entries on individual painters, sculptors, and other visual artists of the time. Major artists are covered in a page or two, but most in a couple of paragraphs that list the person's nationality, primary medium or media, and key works. Brief insets discuss movements within movements (e.g., Les Fauves in modernism) or techniques, and there are occasional quotations and time lines. The main difference between this edition and the earlier one (other than the titles) is its livelier page formats and cut-away slipcase that is based on an artist's palette. VERDICT With its solid, accessible information and hundreds of excellent, full-color reproductions, this is ideal for high school or college students as well as any art lover or museumgoer.-Marcia G. Welsh, Dartmouth Coll. Lib., Hanover, NH © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.