The opening image of this compelling screensaver--Michelangelo’s Delphic sibyl from the Sistine Chapel--moves me each time I see it. From the sibyl’s beautiful, careworn face follows a riveting sampling of humanity's great and beloved art. The Art Museum Screensaver includes expected masterpieces (who could leave out the Mona Lisa from such a collection, for instance?), but it also includes what were, for me, surprises: horses painted on cave walls 10,000 years ago, each animal as alive as those in any Constable or Bierstadt. Every period of Western art from the Renaissance to the Impressionists is included (with the addition of the aforementioned brilliant example from the end of the last Ice Age). The screensaver also includes two Japanese masterworks.

Impressive as this assemblage is, however, I feel that it is a release or two away from being truly noteworthy. The collection already spans time and culture: why not, then, make it what it already partly is: an educated attempt to reference the best of this world’s painted art? To that end, I encourage the editors at Cass Design to consider adding, in future releases, representative Indian, Persian, Anasazi, Egyptian, and Chinese paintings. Modern Western art should also not be absent from this collection; Cass Design sells another screensaver dedicated entirely to twentieth-century art, but surely room could be found in this collection for expressionist and abstract examples: perhaps one Pollock; at least one Picasso. And lastly, a screensaver such as this should download with an explicated bibliography. Even with these correctable omissions, however, this screensaver is a joy. I recommend it.