A Love of Art (4 CD-ROM)

Exploring A Love of Art is much like walking the halls of an art museum;some things you love, some things you're indifferent toward, and some things youdon't quite understand. This program, itself a series of five programs containedon as many CD-ROMs, is comprised of the following titles: Art & Music of the20th Century, Starry Night, Scrutiny in the Great Round, Painters Painting, andThe Claude Monet Collection.

We Loved:The highlight of the package, and what makes it worth thepurchase price (and perhaps even a bargain!), is Painters Painting; fans orfollowers of modern American art will find hours of fascinating information,presented in a manner that echoes the feel of the period's height in the 1960sand 1970s. Based on Emile deAntonio's documentary of the same name, Painters Painting revolves aroundthe 1969-70 retrospective of American painting at the Metropolitan Museum of ArtentitledNew York Painting and Sculpture, 1940-70.

The software program is filled with highlights from the film, all set to edgyperiod music and design. View the original film in its entirety, put nicely intocontext by a detailed textual introduction, or watch video clips of interviewswith many of the artists involved in the retrospective show. If you tire of thesomewhat grainy film clips, peruse more complete transcripts of the interviewsor bios of the artists; read a description of the museum show, then watch avideo tour of the exhibit filmed in the museum. (Seeing clips of museum visitorsin their '60s getups is a real treat.)

While there are some failures of the program (not enough examples of artworkfrom each artist to review in detail, less-than-stellar video quality), this istruly a find--the chance to learn about modern art from the artists themselves,to essentially step back in time to the New York art scene, is a rare andwonderful experience.

And even casual fans of van Gogh will enjoy Starry Night, a program about theartist focused around perhaps his best-known painting of the same name. Easilyinstalled and guided by a simple, cleanly designed interface, Starry Night'sstrongest feature is a lengthy slideshow (to be viewed on autopilot orself-guided) that combines an academic's musings on the artist and his masterworkwith historical context, art from other artists and periods, and, of course,other work from van Gogh himself. Also interesting are the 50-plus letters fromthe artist to members of his family.

We Were Indifferent About:Art & Music of the 20th Century is a crudeseries of slideshow presentations, definitions, and historical backgroundfocusing on 20th-century art, all set to soothing classical music. (Soundfamiliar?) A poor graphic interface and a somewhat useless search functionalitymake this program useful only as a very broad introduction to a mammothtopic.

Fans of water lilies and Giverny will doubtless enjoy The Claude MonetCollection, essentially a translation of a selection of the artist's work intoscreensavers. When the fun wears off, make virtual puzzles of your favoriteselections. A nice complement to the package, but not a product that can standon its own.

We Didn't Quite Understand:Scrutiny in the Great Round might best beclassified as software performance art--a lot of unusual but interesting musicand sound effects drawn from the natural world, with a dose of esotericspoken-word clips for good measure. The program's art creates itself before your veryeyes, but unfortunately, it's quite difficult to determine what most of theobjects are intended to be or signify. There's no menu or guide to the programto provide a context, and once you get into the program, there's no easy wayout.--Leah Ball