Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and looking at the Gerome paintings which are great. I then saw this book in the museum book store and had a chance to look through it before buying it here (cheaper) on Amazon.com. I'm glad I looked before buying. There are two types of art books. One is the scholarly type with tons of text and then, two, the type that has a few pages of information in the front and then the "Color Plates" with little or no text. I much prefer the latter. I know what I like and I don't need an art scholar mumbling away in the driest words imagineable. I want sizeable pictures, color and detail. I want to look at art first and read about it second. Unfortunately this book is all about the text and the index of the paintings. Many of the pictures are reduced in size to accommodate the endless text... Too bad. Not buying this one.