The Bottom Line
Reading this book from cover to cover would be like doing an Introduction to Painting or Art 101 course, it's got that much information between the covers. It'll take you some time too, running as it does to 272 pages with a color photo of a painting on practically every page to study.
Fortunately the way it's organized means it's a book you can pick up and put down as time allows, dipping in to read just a section or to work your way through it. It's written in an accessible style, aimed as it is at 'ordinary' people interesting in learning more about what makes a good painting not academics accustomed to art jargon.
Pros
- Explains how paintings work, from composition basics to subjects and styles.
- Written for 'ordinary' art lovers, not aimed at academic scholars.
- Easy-to-understand style and approach, illustrated with clear examples.
- Packed with photos of paintings, from museums across Europe and USA.
Cons
- A lot of information to absorb, so keep it to hand to dip into it regularly.
- No quick-reference glossary to art terms, you have to use the index to find an explanation.
Description
- Tall format paperback book, cover with flaps. ISBN 9780550101228. 272 pages, full color throughout.
- Author Nadeije Laneyrie-Dagen is an art lecturer in Paris, specializing in the 14th to 16th centuries.
- Seven sections: Identification, Subject, Composition, Line and Colour, The Human Figure, Styles, 20th Century Figurative Art.
- Identification section includes: signing and dating of paintings, titles, supports, and dimensions.
- Subject section includes: history painting, portraiture, landscape, genre, and still life.
- Composition section includes: context, organizing of the interior of a painting, perspective.
- Line and Colour section includes: drawing, rivalry between line and colour, the filter of science, history of colours.
- Human Figure section includes: invention of the human body, movements of the soul, codification of beauty.
- Styles section includes: Gothic, Renaissance, Mannerism, Caravaggism, Rococo, Romanticism, Realism, Post-Modernism, Fauvism.
- Final section deals with the challenge to figurative art in the 20th century, to the rise of Pop Art. Index. Bibliography.
Guide Review - How to Read Paintings by Nadeije Laneyrie-Dagen
How to Read Paintings is a book about how to understand what's going on in a painting, what elements go into making a masterpiece (or ruin it), particular styles and subjects, as well as an artist's creative processes and choices. This will not only enhance your enjoyment of other people's paintings and enable you assess better what you like about them (or not), but also provide you with useful knowledge to apply to your own paintings.
The book is organized into seven sections, working its way systematically from the physical way paintings are made (invention of colors, how paintings are signed, what surfaces are painted on, etc.), to different subjects and how these are approached (landscape, portraits, etc.), to various styles and what these entail (Classicism, Realism, Impressionism, etc.).
Each of these sections is further divided under sub-headings, making it easy to get to grips with a fairly narrow topic rather than being overwhelmed with a vast subject. The comprehensive contents and index make it easy to find something specific too, though a quick-reference glossary would have made it easier to look up terms that are new to a reader as you encounter them.
With a copy of How to Read Paintings there's no more wishing you'd done Art 101 at college because if you took one sub-section a week, it'll be a 40-week art course. And it has the distinct advantage that you'll never have to get up before dawn to get to an early morning lecture. It's a book I wish I'd had way back when, because it makes so much useful, fascinating, and relevant information readily accessible.
