Interlink's newest series, "Art for Travellers," is an attempt to give museumgoers a specialized treatment of art in personal pocket docents. These two inaugural titles follow a similar format with some notable distinctions in organization. Italy is organized along geographic lines called trails, first focusing on Florence, Rome, and Venice and then on routes between these major cities. The book walks travelers through the large museums (e.g., the Uffizi, Pinacoteca di Brera, and Accademia), stopping here and there to discuss a painting critically. As only works of Renaissance art are included, whole collections and rooms are avoided, while smaller museums and churches often get only a single paragraph. France (really Paris and the surrounding countryside, as the subtitle indicates) is organized by periods of art: the Middle Ages, Impressionism, the 20th century, and world art in the Louvre. Awkwardly, different collections in the Louvre are treated in separate sections of the book, although an index is included. Notre Dame de Paris, Chartres Cathedral, the Pompidou Center, and the Musee d'Orsay are each treated as trails. Although finely written, both volumes really provide only a basic overview of each work of art. That said, they certainly do offer more information than most general travel guides, whose coverage of art is too rudimentary for well-informed travelers. They also feature good color reproductions of some of the works described, a few floor plans, and typical tourist info (e.g., visiting hours, addresses, and phone numbers). Owing to their oversimplified features, the maps are less useful. Overall, the books work best for larger museums because they discuss a number of works and provide cohesive tours. But since most of those museums already provide guided audio or printed tours of the highlights in their collections and because many of the small museums and churches are also covered in the more useful Eyewitness guides to the same locations (all in new editions this year), these are optional purchases for large travel collections.-Linda M. Kaufmann, Massachusetts Coll. of Liberal Arts Lib., North Adams Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
