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Contents

Author's Note
I. Introduction
II. Cimabue - Giotto
III. Masaccio - Mantegna
IV. Fra Angelico - Jan van Eyck
V. Botticelli - Memling
VI. Perugino - Giovanni Bellini
VII. Raphael - Wolgemuth
VIII. Da Vinci - Durer
IX. Titian - Holbein the Younger
X. Correggio - Michelangelo
XI. Veronese - Tintoretto
XII. Rubens - Velasquez
XIII. Van Dyck - Frans Hals
XIV. Rembrandt - Murillo
XV. Jacob van Ruisdael - Poussin
XVI. Hobbema - Claude Lorrain
XVII. Watteau - Hogarth
XVIII. Reynolds - Gainsborough
XIX. Constable - Turner
XX. David - Delacroix
XXI. Rousseau - Corot
XXII. Breton - Millet
XXIII. Courbet - Boecklin
XXIV. Rossetti - Holman Hunt
XXV. Piloty - Fortuny
XXVI. Manet - Israels
XXVII. Puvis de Chavannes - Gerome
XXVIII. Whistler - Sargent
XXIX. Monet - Hashimoto Gaho
Concluding Note
Bibliography
Glossary of Terms
Index

Chapter 1 Excerpt

THE world is full of beauty which many people hurry past or live in front of and do not see. There is also a world of beauty in pictures, but it escapes the notice of many, because, while they wish to see it, they do not know how.

The first necessity for the proper seeing of a picture is to try and see it through the eyes of the artist who painted it. This is not a usual method. Generally people look only through their own eyes, and like or dislike a picture according as it does or does not suit their particular fancy. These people will tell you: "Oh I don't know anything about painting, but I know what I like"; which is their way of saying: "If I don't like it right off, I don't care to be bothered to like it at all."

Such an attitude of mind cuts one off from growth and development, for it is as much as to say: "I am very well satisfied with myself, and quite indifferent to the experiences and feelings of other men." Yet it is just this experience and feeling of another man which a picture gives us. If you consider a moment you will understand why. The world itself is a vast panorama, and from it the painter selects his subject: not to copy it exactly, since it would be impossible for him to do this, even if he tried. How could he represent, for example, each blade of grass, each leaf upon a tree? So what he does is to represent the subject as he sees it, as it appeals to his sympathy or interest; and if twelve artists painted the same landscape, the result would be twelve different pictures, differing according to the way in which each man had been impressed by the scene; in fact, according to his separate point of view or separate way of seeing it, influenced by his individual...

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