A Journey Through Art is a global history of art with a time- travel twist, taking young readers on a expedition from the Paleolithic period to the present day, voyaging to thirty locations around the world. As readers travel from one incredible destination to the next, they discover the amazing network of caves carved into the rock in AD 500 at Ajanta, India; Cambodia’s Angkor Wat as it stood in AD 1200; the glories of Renaissance Florence in AD 1500; and the remarkable energy of New York in the 1950s. At every location readers encounter stories of artworks and the cultures that surrounded them.
The journey is chronological with three sections: prehistoric and ancient; medieval and early modern; and modern and contemporary. Two beautifully illustrated spreads showcase each destination, allowing children to engage with the art, artifacts, and culture of a unique place in time as Aaron Rosen tells the story of how art developed across the world.
Reviews
A world tour featuring select highlights of human culture, from 37,000-year-old rock paintings to modern murals and architecture…broader in scope and less Eurocentric than standard surveys.
— Kirkus Reviews
Using art as a lens through which to examine history, Rosen gives readers an expansive tour of the history of civilization… Each four-page chapter offers snippets of information about political, religious, or cultural touchstones that affected a region's art, as well as reproductions and collages composed of colored pencil cityscapes and photo elements. The broad scope of the cultures and locations is impressive… There's plenty here to pique the curiosity of young readers and inspire further research elsewhere.
— Booklist
This sweeping overview of world cultures, as revealed through art, spans continents and ages, from prehistory to the present. The expansive text is brought to life with maps, illustrations, and photographs. The illustrator's colorful sketches of vistas emblematic of various cultures are interspersed with photographic examples of the art… This title is a refreshing departure from Eurocentric volumes on art history. Reader will come away with a wider grasp on the history of humanity.
— School Library Journal
Contributors
Aaron Rosen
Author
Aaron Rosen is a Senior Lecturer at Rocky Mountain College, Montana. He is the author of Art + Religion in the 21st Century, and is a guest curator at the Jewish Museum London.
Lucy Dalzell
Illustrated By
Lucy Dalzell is an illustrator and artist based in London who works on a range of projects in publishing, advertising, and editorial.