Paintings: How to Look at Great Art,

by Ann Raymond Campbell

Book Overview

Explains, with photographs of well-known paintings, the meaning of design, pattern, composition, space, perspective, light and shade, movement, sfumato, and many other concepts. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0531018679
• ISBN13: 9780531018675
• Release Date: January 1970
• Publisher: Franklin Watts
• Length: 136 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

Great way to jump-start yourself

I have read and studied literally hundreds of books on art history and architecture, and this little book is the best way to "jump-start" yourself on the subject. Rather than another book on art history per se, however, this book is more on how to "look at" some of the great paintings in history, getting you to "see" some of the things that are special or unique about them, without bogging you down in a lot of historical detail, which is what a typical art history text will do. The author presents a number of important paintings with a descriptive commentary opposite, so you can just flip through through the book if you want since each essay is self-contained. The author tells you in very simple terms what to look for in each painting, explaining a number of important concepts along the way, such as perspective technique, sfumato, chiarascuro and other special lighting effects such as those in La Tour and Vermeer, pointillistic effects, and so on. Armed with the knowledge from this little book, you will be able to look at paintings with a new awareness of what is really going on, and can move on to more advanced study on the subject.