The Oxford Dictionary of Art

Contemporary Review, August, 2004

The Oxford Dictionary of Art. Ian Chilvers, editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xlvi 816 pages. ISBN 0-19-860476-9. This classic reference work, first published in 1988, has been comprehensively rewritten and enlarged for this third edition. This new version also has a most useful classified list of entries whilst under the biographical entries the places and exact dates of the subject's birth and death are given whenever possible.

With some 3,000 entries it still aims at giving the layman easily digestible information about art and artists. Its remit remains primarily 'Western and Western-inspired painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing from ancient times to the present day'. For the modern period it includes those new fields that one is told by the art industry constitute 'art'. Most of the entries are biographical and those that are not are concerned with relevant aspects such as 'styles, movements, materials and techniques'. No artist born after 1965 is included. (T.B.)