What Adults Don’t Know About Art | Book Review

Book Review of What Adults Don’t Know About Art
The Children’s Book Review

What to expect: Sophistication, Beauty, Educational, Profound

Edited by renowned philosopher Alain de Bottom, this book offers a truly sophisticated and inviting discussion of art. So much of what children are told is essential—art, culture, reading, being kind—is, of course, necessary to be a functioning adult in the world, and yet not all adults have as complete a grasp on a subject like art as they would like to offer to their children. The child can, of course, be taken to museums and encouraged to appreciate the works there. Still, this book provides the extra help of deep and approachable contexts—apt to make the appreciation deeper and easier to approach.

As the book’s subtitle says, this is truly focused on “inspiring young minds to love and enjoy art.”

Organized around subjects like “Why an Art Gallery is like Your Bedroom,” “Why Art Galleries Are Boring,” and “Why a Work of Art is like a Tool”—the answers, in order: “your room is really a private version of a gallery”; “art isn’t really boring…it can be made boring if it gets turned into an exam”; “the artist is asking us to look as carefully as they looked”—the book works great to make seeing art within galleries and museums into a fuller, more fun experience.

Besides many very insightful readings of a host of paintings and a great way of contextualizing museum and gallery experiences, What Adults Don’t Know About Art is full of illustrations and explanations that will help children—and adults—get a lot more out of their next experience with art. It will reorder the previous ones in a more meaningful way, too. 

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What Adults Don’t Know About Art by The School of Life was reviewed by Trevor Laurence Jockims. Discover more books like What Adults Don’t Know About Art by following along with our reviews and articles tagged with art and educational books.