Roman Sculpture by Diana Kleiner

I read textbooks out loud to my youngest son, who is partially deaf but also an auditory learner.  There are many things that I have read in that role that I would never have otherwise picked up and this is certainly one of those books.

We read it in connection with an art history course that he is taking.  I discovered that there is really almost nothing that I know about art history in general and Roman art in particular.   At first I thought that my problem stemmed from not going to class.  Surely if I were to hear the professor I would understand it all better.  But then there was an extra credit evening lecture to go to.  Since my son has no more talent for art history than I, he knew he had to go and get those extra credit points.  They could be the difference between passing and failing.  I went to help take notes, and that is when I discovered that being in the lecture was not going to be the magic bullet for me.  Oh dear.  So what did I learn from reading this book?  More than I would have guessed from where I started, but when I look for art books in the future, I am definitely going to do more than look at the pictures to see if there is some hope on this green earth that I could follow the story.  Somewhere toward the end of the book I started to feel like I might be able to do better with my next art history book.