The Insider's Complete Guide to AP Art History

Book excerpt: The redesigned AP Art History Framework contains a challenging list of 250 required works of art. The units on Africa, West and Central Asia, South, East, and Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and Global Contemporary pose a particular problem. Existing textbooks and review books provide limited coverage that includes either short paragraphs or a list of bullet points. In addition, many AP Art History courses must rush to cover these works of art. Beyond the European Tradition with Global Contemporary is designed to provide concise, clear, and interesting narratives for each of the 84 works in Content Areas 6 - 10. Each narrative begins with a quarter page picture of the required image. The essay then describes the work's form, function, context, and content. In addition, each narrative concludes with a Making Connection feature linking the work to other required works. For example, the Making Connections feature for Travelers among Mountains and Streams compares Fan Kuan's use of shifting perspective with Bruegel's use of linear perspective in Hunters in the Snow. The volume concludes with 80 realistic multiple-choice practice questions testing key points about the works covered in this volume. A distinctive glossary provides concise definitions along with relevant examples from the required list of 250 works.