Customer Reviews

How to Read a Painting: Lessons from the Old Masters

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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.

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.

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'.

This book is worth every cent, just for the 1,000 glossy photos of major European "Old Master" works!!

I wish I had read this book instead of struggling to stay awake in very boring art history classes!

A great little book if you're looking for basic lessons on art symbolism. Definitely leaves the reader wanting more details, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, if you have time to do more in-depth research when needed.The illustrations and highlights are well thought out. But overall, was hoping to get a lot more from this book.

i am not an art major by any stretch, but i enjoy visiting museums and marvelling in these detailed and complex creations. i purchased this book after several visits to the art museum. now, after reading - actually devouring every page - i have a much greater and deeper appreciation and understanding for these masterpieces. true, as it is not a substitute for an in-depth examination and education into the whole of the painting, it does highlight various areas of the work and also relates some history of the time, why it is located/depicted in that manner, and of the master. it also has given me the desire to linger longer over many other masterpieces to see where i might look for significances and meanings to the placements of persons or objects gaining another perspective of the work - instead of 'just looking at a nice painting'.

Excellent book, the quality of the pictures if great and very useful content. It is one of the best book for your library.

A nice book. But it does not explain the general concepts of painting. It does not teach you to look at a painting in general. I ONLY tell you who and what in EACH specific painting. If you are not Christian and not familiar with the Bible, it can be hard to understand.

i bought this book to help me write my art paper. i am in college and am the furthest thing from an art major. this book really did not help me at all. they just have many images and tell you some hidden symbolism in each painting. it's a very good book if you are interested in just gaining some insight into the painting that you may have missed but, otherwise it's not the best book.

This book is a tremendous read. And you don't need to be an art historian or student to appreciate the information. Easy to understand, you will never look at those "boring old masters" the same way again.