Artof the Western World

[thosprice]

I just took this test and wanted to share my experiences. The test questions were a pretty even mixture of art styles, techniques, artists, and works. There were three pictures, one of which was to identify the work, the other two had questions about the style or composition. If you don't know how to describe neoclassical, you'd definitely have missed that one.

To study, I used "The Story of Art" as a primary reference. It's very readable, and since Gombrich isn't trying to be absolutely complete in who he includes, you get some idea of who he thinks is important. I wouldn't take a test like this using just one book (again , but if I did, Gombrich would be a good one.

I also watched the Annenberg "Art of the Western World" videos as a nice complement to Gombrich. They cover the same ground, but with different emphasis, and it can be helpful to hear some of the same information that you've read. I wish it had occurred to me earlier that I could turn on the closed captioning to get the author's names, rather than guessing how to spell "sheila". (It's really Schiele).

Neither the videos nor Grombrich are very good on the post WWII art (I guess it's hard to say what's actually important, especially in our post-modern world). The videos are better in this area.

I didn't read the companion book "Art of the Western World" by the PBS narrator, Michael Wood, but I assume it's very close to the videos. I'm not sure I'd choose to read that book over the free online versions of the video series.

Another resources that is available are the online companion sites to Janson's and Gardner's books. There are chapter quizzes out there, too, which I found helpful as a source of topics and artists to be familiar with. Performance on the online tutorial quizzes tells you nothing about how well you'll do on the DSST, as they're obviously intended to be done with the book in front of you. "What is on the July page of Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry?" is just not a question you'd put on the final of a freshman art history exam. Because they're so comprehensive, I don't think either one would be the best book to study from either, as you'd probably get swamped in all the trivia.

Wikipedia is great once you get a name, concept, technique from one of the other resources.

I found that the test, Gombrich, and the PBS series pretty much agreed on what was important. I don't recall anything that wasn't at least mentioned on one of those sources. The paintings they showed were by Titian, Picasso, and David, so the exam didn't exactly troll through obscurities.

As mentioned elsewhere, there is an "Art of the Western World Study Guide" that is something of an alternate companion piece to the PBS series of the same name. It's useless. It's all text, it only reference plates in other books (like Janson and Gardner), and it's too long to use as an outline. I don't know what it's supposed to be, but I wish I had the $10 (or whatever I paid) back.

Someone posted elsewhere about a comparison between this test and CLEP Humanities. I didn't take the CLEP Humanities for credit, but I did take the official CLEP sample test, thinking it might be a good analog for this one, as there is not DSST practice test. I finished the practice test in about 40 minutes and missed 3 questions. It's very broad and much easier. I probably got a few right because of my DSST studying, but still. If your level of cultural knowledge goes at least as far as knowing that Hamlet is a tragedy and that Toni Morrison is a novelist, I don't think you'll have a problem with the CLEP test.

[smartyhead]

Hey Do you have notes on the Annenburg videos?

[mrdrmr]

The Annotated Mona Lisa was one of the main books that I used to study for this test. I recomend it to anyone studying for this test. Important things to know for the test are the styles and techniques, Who created pointilism, impressionism, ect. And know what style the famous artists used.