This charmingly illustrated, highly informative field guide to
understanding art history is small enough to fit in a pocket yet serious
enough to provide real answers. This seventh entry in the hugely popular
How to Read series is a one-stop guide to understanding the world's
great artworks. The book explains the aesthetics of schools of painting
from the Renaissance masters and Impressionists to the Cubists and
Modernists. It enables readers to develop swiftly an understanding of
the vocabulary of painting and to discover how to look at diverse
paintings in detail.In the first part of the book, the author reveals
how to read paintings by considering five key areas: shape and support,
style and medium, compositional devices, genre, and the meaning of
recurring motifs and symbols. The second part explores fifty paintings
through extracted details, accompanied by insightful commentary,
training the reader and viewer to understand context and discover
meaning within art. How to Read Art is the perfect companion for anyone
interested in paintings and a book that no art lover's home should be
without.