Books in the A Closer Look series

Materials and working practices influence a painter just as much as contemporary intellectual and cultural developments. This title helps readers develop a painterly eye by learning to recognize different materials and methods of application and to appreciate how these features contribute to how a painting looks.

Frames often catch the eye of visitors to galleries, yet labels and catalogues rarely comment on them. This informative guide offers insight into the various forms of frame housing some of the finest paintings in the National Gallery Collection. It includes some of the finest examples of the frame-makers craft.

How faces are captured shows in striking ways the artistic aims of those who painted them. But how can the depiction of a face suggest a personality? This book tackles this and other questions, and introduces such issues as the ideals of beauty and how portrait painters have captured a likeness and convey character.

Discusses and describes the material nature of paintings, how they age and the main types of conservation treatment carried out on panel and canvas paintings, along with some of the problems involved in cleaning and restoration.

How do experts spot masterpieces? Paintings are not always signed or noted in historical records, so how can we tell an obscure gem from an altered image? Through a series of examples and processes, this title draws the reader into the complex issues confronted by gallery professionals.

Landscape is probably the most popular type of painting, but anyone who has ever been disappointed by vacation photographs knows how difficult it is to turn a view into a picture. This book shows how artists in past centuries translated outdoor space and light into paint, and how landscape imagery evolved from mere ornament into a visual metaphor of the human condition. The story is told from its beginnings in Roman mural decoration, through the Renaissance transformation of landscape into a vehicle for feelings and ideas, to the Impressionist revolution and beyond. The continuing relevance of art to how we see the world, and our place in it, is demonstrated through a practical discussion of optics of real and painted landscape, illustrated with works from the National Gallery, London. >Published by National Gallery, London/Distributed by Yale University Press