Customer Reviews

What Great Paintings Say: Old Masters in Detail (Examining Paintings)

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This book is a beautiful edition, and serves the purpose of explaining sybolism in art quite nicely. There is, though, one flaw: Most of the large color plates are spread across the spine of the book. This is not a problem for most, but as an art student, studying the paintings with 15% lost in the spine is a problem.

The book is fascinating. The reproductions are big and good, and the text is readable and jargon-free. The authors present a painting, then provide a historical and social analysis of what the time's effects were on the artist and how to read below the surface of the picture, illustrating their points with details drawn from the work. In the few cases where I was acquainted with the works and their times, I found the interpretations spot on.
This is a book that will help anyone interested in art, art history, or just plain history to develop a fuller understanding of great artists and of the times when they lived.

I bought this book hoping that it will explain to me why some painters are so highly regarded and other copy caps are not. Book basically goes over mostly Renocence pictures and tell the story behind each painting either what it depicts in terms of symbolism or history behind it or resons and financing behind it. It is a combination History book and paintings. It tells yo that for example Boticelli's Birth of Venus is first in Ronecance for nudity but it does not tell me why her feet is crooked, why anybody else who probably did similar paintings at the same time did not get this much fame. That is what I was looking and could not find. Still looking for the right book but this book by itself is very good for the purpose of its design.