The complete guide to looking at a work of art and knowing how to talk about it.
As a gift. enter the recipient’s email address at checkout.
Learning to look: reading a painting, subjects and symbols, techniques. Then the history of painting, from icons to the Renaissance, from the Baroque to the 19th century, from Manet to contemporary art. Finally, profiles to recognise every great painter, and the art world: museums, the market, collecting, and the art of talking about it.
A PDF sent by email within a minute of payment. It is yours forever, on all your screens, and it prints beautifully.
Enter the recipient’s email address at checkout, or simply forward them your confirmation email.
Learning to look
From icons to the Renaissance
From the Baroque to the 19th century
The modern revolution
Recognising a painter
The art world
« A real favourite. I used to get bored in museums; now I spend hours in front of a single painting. I recommend it to everyone. »
107 pages · Secure payment
Je n’avais jamais osé dire que je ne comprenais rien à l’art. Ce guide m’a donné les clés sans jamais me faire la leçon.
I always felt a bit lost in museums. After the chapter on light I spent a whole hour in front of one Rembrandt at the Met. My husband had to come and find me.
The painter profiles are brilliant. I can finally tell a Vermeer from a de Hooch, which comes up at the National Gallery more than you’d think.
Mon fils de 15 ans me l’a emprunté et me pose maintenant des questions sur le Caravage. Rien que pour ça, merci.
Read it on the flight to Paris. We did the Louvre the way the guide suggests, fewer rooms and more time, and it was the best museum day we’ve ever had.
Je l’ai lu avant un voyage à Florence. Pour la première fois, j’ai su quoi regarder aux Offices.
Bought it for my mum’s 70th. She’s already planned three museum trips and keeps texting me facts about Caravaggio.
Clair, beau, bien construit. Les fiches peintres sont devenues mon pense-bête au musée.
J’avais toujours peur de dire une bêtise devant un tableau. Maintenant je sais au moins par où commencer.
Not an art person at all, my girlfriend is. Picked this up so I could keep up. I now have opinions about Turner, which nobody saw coming.
A painting can be read like a page.
Every chapter slips in a story that brings the works to life.
On 21 August 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian glazier who had worked at the Louvre, took the Mona Lisa off the wall and walked out with it hidden under his smock. For more than two years the painting could not be found, and crowds came to stare at the empty space where it had hung.
Before the theft, the Mona Lisa was one masterpiece among many. Afterwards, it became the most famous painting in the world.
Part 2, From icons to the Renaissance
Yes. The first part teaches you how to look, before any names or dates.
Yes, with reproductions of the great paintings and photographs of museums.
By email, within a minute: a PDF you can read on your phone, tablet and computer.
Yes. Enter the recipient’s email address at checkout.
The complete guide to looking at a work of art and knowing how to talk about it
The complete guide to watching a film and knowing how to talk about it
