We are invited to study in detail four small areas from the larger whole of familiar artworks. Each is given a full treatment to do with history, background, characters, power and wealth, religion and symbolism, demons and the inquisition, patrons, the artist and the animal, death, classical figures, heroes and saints, church and palaces, lords and kings, trickery and forgeries. Enjoy in detail Christ Among The Doctors by Dürer, The Marriage at Cana, Hunters in the Snow (Bruegel), The Massacre of the Triumvirate (Caron), The Origin of the Milky Way (Tintoretto), Judith and Her Maia (Gentileschi), The Love Garden (Rubens) to The Balcony (Manet) and Female Textile Workers, 1927 (Deineka). This important addition to our understanding of art history's masterworks puts some of the world's most famous paintings under a magnifying glass to uncover their most small and subtle elements and all they reveal about a bygone time, place and culture. Guiding our eye to the minutiae of subject and symbolism, the authors allow even the most familiar of pictures to come alive anew through their intricacies and intrigues. Is the bride pregnant? Why does the man wear a beret? How does the shadow of war hang over a scene of dancing? Along the way, we travel in the art world from Ancient Egypt through to modern Europe, from the Renaissance to the Roaring Twenties as we witness the fashions and trends, people and politics, loves and lifestyles of their time. 14 x 19.5cm, 664 pages. New from Taschen.
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