Learning to Look at Paintings

by Mary Acton (Author)

• New

  Hardcover
  2008

  $126.37

  Presents a study and appraisal of paintings, drawings and prints. This book shows how you can develop visual, analytical and historical skills in learning to look at and understand an image by analyzing how it works, what its pictorial elements are and how they relate to each other. It contains images by such artists as Rembrandt and Tacita Dean.

• Used

  Paperback
  1997

  $4.18

  Learning to Look at Paintings is an accessible guide to the study and appraisal of paintings, drawings and prints. Mary Acton shows how you can learn to look at and understand an image by analysing how it works, what its pictorial elements are and how they relate to each other. The book is illustrated with over ninety images by artists ranging from Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Botticelli to Picasso, Matisse and Rothko. It also includes a glossary of critical and technical terms used in art history. Learning to Look at Paintings is a highly accessible guide to the study and appraisal of paintings, drawings and prints. It provides a practical analysis of works of art through an understanding of the visual ingredients of composition, space, form, tone and colour. Mary Acton draws upon a varied collection of pictures, prints and drawings to demonstrate the skills required to better understand the visual experience of paintings. She discusses the subject matter and its meaning, the original function, the settting, the technique and the purpose of each picture and provides a vocabulary with which to discuss works of art. Illustrated with over ninety images of oil paintings, murals, frescoes, ceiling decorations, sketches and watercolours, Learning to Look at Paintings provides a critique of works of art dating from the early fifteenth century through to commentaries on modern installations and soft sculptures. Suggesting a series of questions to ask when looking at a painting and offering a comprehensive glossary of terms, this work will help develop a more structured, ordered and critical understanding of art.