How to Read a Painting: Lessons from the Old Masters [Paperback]

Patrick De Rynck (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 7, 2004

Clues to the meaning of many of the masterpieces of art history lie in a rich system of symbols, themes, and motifs that often eludes modern museum-goers. The intimate knowledge of Christian theology, Greek and Roman mythology, and folklore that was so vivid in the minds of viewers during the Renaissance is rarely part of the preparation the contemporary viewer brings to a painting. This insightful, anecdotal, portable book-with 1,000 gorgeous color illustrations-helps to fill in those gaps by decoding the imagery of more than 150 of the most influential and admired artworks of all time.

Covering the works of the Italian, Netherlandish, German, and Spanish Old Masters, from 1450 to 1750-paintings by artists such as Giotto, Botticelli, El Greco, Bruegel, Holbein, Rubens, and Vermeer, all held in public collections-How to Read a Painting not only helps the viewer to understand the significant details of a picture but also explains the relationship with similar imagery in other works. The guide to Old Master paintings that every art lover has always wanted, this indispensable museum companion will open the reader to a whole new experience of Western art's most praised and visited paintings.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

As De Rynck succinctly observes, today's art viewers aren't "sufficiently familiar with the Christian and classical pictorial traditions on which European artists drew so heavily and for so many centuries." To correct this lack, he presents 150 paintings and frescoes that have attained the status of masterpieces. Each work is displayed on a full-color two-page spread that includes detailed close-ups and a meticulous decoding of the painting's subject, symbols, and intent. This is a truly felicitious approach, and the selections are supreme, ranging from Fra Angelico's The Annunciation to Titian's Venus and Adonis to Goya's The Third of May, 1808. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Patrick De Rynck is a classicist, a translator, and a writer for museums, publishers, newspapers, and radio. He is the author of ten books, including an ABC of Classical literature and a retelling of Greek myths.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams; 4th Printing edition (December 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810955768
• ISBN-13: 978-0810955769
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #224,518 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought-provoking book on European Art Masterpieces, July 24, 2005

By 

Sanjib Das (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Read a Painting: Lessons from the Old Masters (Paperback)

If you have never been particularly interested in art but want to start learning about the great European artists between the 14th century and the early 19th century, this is a great book to start with. And I am sure it has a lot to offer to advanced students of Art too.

The book offers comments on about 180 significant paintings painted over 500 years. The earliest painting in the book is Maestà (1308-11) by Duccio di Buoninsegna of Italy. The most modern is The Third of May, 1808 by Francisco de Goya of Spain. Every painting is dissected with numerous sub-illustrations and the various historical, artistic and social significances of it discussed in detail. Since all the paintings are European in nature, the originals are located mainly in English and European museums but a surprising number of paintings are located in American Museums too.

Here are the ones from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The Adoration of the Magi (1310) - Giotto
The Annunciation Triptych ("Merode Triptych") (1425-30) - Robert Campin
Diptych: The Crucifixion and The Last Judgement (1430s) - Jan Van Eyck
A Goldsmith in his Shop, Possibly St Eligius (1449) - Petrus Christus
The Opening of the Fifth Seal of the Apocalypse (1608-14) - El Greco
The Rape of the Sabine Women (1633-34) - Nicolas Poussin
The Preaching of St John the Baptist (1634) - Bartholomeus Breenbergh
The Death of Socrates (1787) - Jacques-Louis David

The majority of the paintings focus on Biblical topics, but there are a great number of secular and political paintings too especially in the later years. For example, there is a fascinating one called "An experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump" (1768) by Joseph Wright of Derby. It is a study of various peoples reactions to a scientific experiment in which a bird is suffocated to death in an air pump.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars excellent reference, November 4, 2006

By 

P. Ackley (new canaan, ct) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Read a Painting: Lessons from the Old Masters (Paperback)

This book was hard to put down. Each painting was a new story that revealed information I would have never known. I started it as I was planning a trip to Rome and Florence and it opened up a world for me that I would otherwise have been ignorant of while visiting the museums where some of these paintings hung. My only critisism would be that it didn't go into much depth-just mostly basic symbolism.
Good for reference and also entertaining.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Misleading Title, May 6, 2010

By 

efftee - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Read a Painting: Lessons from the Old Masters (Paperback)

Let me start by saying that the book is very nice. The overall quality is good, all the images, albeit a little small, are in color (as a book on art should be) with 'zoomed in' sections to support the author's comments. There are over 170 works of art featured on good quality paper bound properly and is, all in all, a great value for your money.

A similar title to this is Mary Acton's 'Learning to Look at Paintings'. Though in comparison, de Rynck's book is like a Deluxe Suite in the Ritz next to Acton's book, more like a Standard Room at the Holiday Inn. But whilst Acton's book is full of MEAT, an overload of information broken down to the various aspects of a painting, De Rynck's is more like GARNISH -- a brief summary of the artist and the work itself, each spread over 2 pages of several images and commentary typically no more than 300 words.

Here's an example of how disappointing some of the entries can be:
In da Vinci's The Virgin and Child with St Anne, this is the introduction -- "The Virgin Mary sits on the lap of Anne, her mother, while taking hold of Jesus' waist. The child is playing with a lamb. The three of them sit in a mountainous landscape. Leonardo received the commission for this altarpiece from the Florentine monastery of Santissima Annunziata. He did not, however, finish it: along with the Mona Lisa, the painter kept hold of this panel until his death."

Along with the painting shown, there were 3 'zoomed in' sections of the painting that de Rynck used to support a short paragraph on the symbolic depiction of the lamb with Jesus and 2 references to the Mona Lisa. Additionally, there was also a paragraph on the two main 'ways' the Holy Family had been painted.

Frankly, I did not need a book to tell me that.

And unless you were blind, have never seen the Mona Lisa and completely ignorant to even the most basic Christian symbols, you don't either. Sure, the background information on the commission, etc, were welcomed nuggets but they do not contribute in any way to helping the reader to 'Read a Painting' through the 'Lessons from the Old Masters'.

Another case in point. Acton used Vermeer's Young Woman in Blue Reading a Letter to illustrate her point on Harmony & Balance in the section on Composition. She dedicated 7 pages to this -- relating visual points like horizontal and vertical lines, tonal contrast, colors, etc, and other in-depth notes on influences from predecessor painters and comparisons with his peers and artists from a later period. For good measure, Acton even threw in a couple of pages on David Hockney's using a camera obscura contraption, that Vermeer likely used for compositional assistance, to sketch a Portrait of Brad Bontems.

In contrast, De Rynck used 2 pages on a precis on The Kitchen Maid. Less than 300 words in all. That said, his points were supported by 6 'zoomed in' images that showed more details on colors, shadow and, to some extent, a glimpse of the reason why Vermeer was such a master at using light in his paintings.

Which is better? Both. Or none. I learnt a lot more from Acton but enjoyed myself more with de Rynck.

If you were looking for a quickie guide to some of the masterpiece works, this and its sibling book 'How to Read a Modern Painting: Lessons from the Modern Masters' would do very nicely. If you want more information or details, consider also getting Mary Acton's 'Learning to Look at Paintings' and 'Learning to Look at Modern Art'.