What Should Be Included or Excluded?

 

What Should be Included?

    In the book, the art that is covered spans across the entire world. From Europe to America, and from Asia to Africa, many of the most influential regions are in the book. However, I feel like an excellent region and time period to include in the book would be Nordic and Northern European art, specifically Viking age pieces. The structures made during those times, from houses to war boats, are very intricate and unique. Furthermore, the Nordic and Viking art symbolizes their customs, religion, and power, which gives a good lesson on all of these points through their art. I feel as though they would be excellent things to include in the book to teach students about this time period and everything it represented. It would give a very positive effect because we would be able to learn about the art of an ancient civilization which was very prevalent in history.

What Should be Excluded?

    In this book, every single section is prominent in its own way, and each has an important role in teaching us about the art of the world. In the world of art, no continent has more prevalence than Europe. This is understood and represented very well, but maybe a bit too well. Throughout the 20 sections of the textbook “Art: A Brief History”, half of these sections' main topic is European art. While Europe is extremely prominent in the world of art, I feel like a cutback on some repetitive sections would be good to make room for other sections (even my included recommendation of another section of European art that is not covered). Of course, some is more important than others (for example, the Renaissance versus specifically Roman art), so the cutback would be on the more centered sections. I feel as though a section to exclude from the book would be section 6, Etruscan, and Roman Art. While this is a good topic to cover, I feel as though it can be combined with another European section instead of being its own standalone gig. I feel like, if we reserved this section for another topic and combined the previous topic with other European sections, it would be an overall positive effect. It gives us room to learn about more different and niche arts, while not taking away too much from the original topic.