<p>I already have the Annotated Mona Lisa, but it isn't too detailed. So should I order the REA Art History book and just read that instead? BTW, which edition should I get?</p>
<p>I’m not too sure about REA, but Barron’s for Art History is great.</p>
<p>Ok, so Barrons is good too? I’ve heard the REA book killed the 2009 exam though…any other input?</p>
<p>It hit the exam pretty well, I took it back in 2009, however, I still only got a 4 on the test (my only 4 out of 10 aps) </p>
<p>Ap art history was by far the hardest AP test i’ve taken… I still remeber i wrote on the short essay “robert Smith” instead of “Robert Smithson” for spiral jetty… ughh lol. </p>
<p>REA is good, just make sure you read through the book as much as you can. AP art history textbooks really CANNOT be used to study for the AP at all, its just way too much information.</p>
<p>Take E.H. Gombrich’s “The Story of Art” and read it over a weekend or something. It is INCREDIBLY helpful and well written. There aren’t many other books that will help you grasp the development of art + how to view a piece of art in such lucid manner. </p>
<p>REA isn’t particulary helpful imo. The lack of images makes it an absolute pain to study from, as you have to load the disk in a computer to view the slides corresponding with the text. If you are really serious about self-studying, then grab a Gardners/Jansens/Stokstad’s and read it through. REA will not help you when it comes to recognition + analysis of images, and really, that’s what Art History is about.</p>
<p>Actually I disagree with the guy above me.</p>
<p>Image recognition is good, but image analysis is a much more useful skill to have (I wish I had studied that more, along with contemporary artists which we didn’t get to in our art history class) And REA actually does this pretty well.</p>
<p>For Image Recognition, use [url=<a href=“http://www.freerice.com/index.php?&s=Famous%20Paintings]FreeRice[/url”>http://www.freerice.com/index.php?&s=Famous%20Paintings]FreeRice[/url</a>]
Memorize everything in it. Then since these ones are very narrow in terms of scope, go memorize roman, greek, medieval art and architecture as well as sculptures. </p>
<p>Gardners was really too big to be of any real help. Though going through the CD was really helpful. (which i DIDN’T discover that our library stocked it until the day before the AP test)…</p>
<p>If you’re going to use Gardners, ask someone who’ve used that book what chapters to study. The book covers wayy too much unnecessary information.</p>
<p>If you approach Gardner’s methodically, and pace yourself, it is far more helpful than REA or Barron’s. Art History isn’t a course you can frantically cram for; you want to devote a reasonable amount of time to it imo. </p>
<p>If you want some sort of logical parameters for studying from Gardner’s use the list here, [url=<a href=“http://sites.google.com/site/msmegg1/aparthistory]aparthistory”>http://sites.google.com/site/msmegg1/aparthistory]aparthistory</a> - msmegg1<a href=“bottom%20left%20corner”>/url</a>. Really though, nothing in Gardner’s is “unnecessary”. Almost everything in it has a logical chance at being included on the test. </p>
<p>The contemporary portion of the test is often a bit of a crapshoot. Don’t stress too much about specific postmodern artists/pieces. Instead learn the issues addressed in postmodern art (racism, feminism, colonialism, sexuality, gender, appropriation, presentation space, environmentalism, pop culture, etc)</p>