Rick Steves Europe’s Top 100 Masterpieces: Art for the Traveler by Rick Steves & Gene Openshaw

Reviewed by Jeanne

Rick Steves is probably one of the best known travel guide writers around.  Part of his popularity can be traced to his mission to help travelers enjoy the culture of foreign climes: the local foods, music, shopping, and art.  In this volume he has made a list of the 100 top works of art in Europe, including paintings, sculpture, and architecture and explains a bit about each to heighten appreciation for each piece.

The book is divided up chronologically, starting with pre-history (Lascaux cave paintings, for example) then moving through ancient Greece and Rome to the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, 19^th Century and ending with the 20^th century. The full color photos are lovely, and the text is informative but informal.  I could practically hear Steves’ narration and indeed there’s a list of video clips by Steves about individual pieces that are available on his free Classroom Europe site.  These is also a handy map at the back showing where the pieces are located, since some are not held where they were created.  For example, the Greek Elgin marbles are in London as are some of Dutch artist Van Gogh’s paintings. 

While serious art students might find the descriptions to be a bit simplistic, I found them to be interesting and insightful, sprinkled with Steves’ light humor. I feel that Steves’ goal is to heighten appreciation for the works, make people take time to appreciate what they are seeing and to have fun with it.  For the “Mona Lisa,” he gives a bit of the painting’s history and includes the fact that Leonardo was using “new-fangled” paints and mentions that the portrait is one of the few art pieces one can locate by sound because of all the people sure to be clustered around it. The chatty tone and feel of inside information is like catnip, making me want to keep reading.  That portrait of Louis XVI? It’s designed to show off the elderly king’s athletic legs, as well as show him as anointed by God to be a ruler. His sartorial choices were copied throughout Europe, from the lacy cravat to the elaborate wig to the red heels on his shoes.

On a couple of my favorite pieces I felt Steves didn’t explain enough or else blurred some of the facts but like Elsa I decided to “let it go.”  Those were picky things in an otherwise very enjoyable book.  If I ever head out on a trip to Europe, I’ll be sure to check this book to see what art I don’t want to miss.