Reddit reviews The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern

People swear by The Annotated Mona Lisa for art history. I'll say in my experience, there are obvious ones and there are ones you couldn't have prepared for. I still remember there was a question on an obscure artist that threw me for a loop. But you gotta do your best to use what you know to BS an answer. I threw as many details about that general area of the world to come up with an answer. Good Luck!

I would also recommend watching some videos first.

For a book recommendation, I'd suggest getting The Annotated Mona Lisa. It covers art from pre-history up until present day in 200 pages and is easy to read. Preview the first few pages of it on amazon, and buy it used for $4 shipped in the US, so it's a no-brainer: http://www.amazon.com/The-Annotated-Mona-Lisa-Prehistoric/dp/0836280059

There are nearly infinite subjects in art history to learn about. And I'm sure you won't care about most of them. So after reading through The Annotated Mona Lisa, I'd suggest you go to the (largely unknown) Google Art project: https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/project/art-project

Search for a museum near you and look through the collection to find something to learn about. Hopefully there will be something that interests you. Or if you live near a major city, search for an artist that you like. Pick a piece and LEARN all about the piece, the artist, and the period of art it belongs to on wikipedia. If there's no museums listed near you, just search for one online or stop by one and pick up a catalog, or plan a trip.

If it's something very famous there should be some video, documentary, or movie made about the piece or the artist.

Then go the the museum and look at it for yourself. A lot of art is very different in person than it is on a screen. You might be blown away by an 18 foot wide Jackson Pollock. Or you might stare at a Jan van Eyck painting and not be able to find a single brush stroke. Or you might not have known that some painters like Lucian Freud painted with giant crags of paint (it's much more dramatic in person when viewed from the side). Or you might be able to see details in the painting you were never able to notice on screen.

For example you've probably seen van Gogh's Starry Night. You may even have seen a high res image of it.
But that's not what it looks like in person. See it here and zoom in ALL the way: https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/the-starry-night/bgEuwDxel93-Pg?projectId=art-project

You can see the individual brush strokes, the unmixed paint, and you can see that van Gogh didn't paint in layers on top of layers, like painters did in the past. There's no base coat (underpainting), and his quick, light strokes skipped across as he painted them, creating frequent spots of bare canvas.

You can see this even more in his Irises: https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/irises/DgFVFAJo_30MeQ?projectId=art-project

And if you look under the white iris, you can see that he painted the leaves first and then the background later. The brush strokes only occasionally overlap, so the painting is like a collection of brush strokes that fit together as a jigsaw puzzle.

But that is all superficial stuff. Go to the museum to look at it in person and just wonder around. But looking only gets you so far. The more you learn about anything, the more you'll appreciate it.