Great history in six small volumes on very high-quality, glossy paper so the repros really look good. Great way to learn about many of the important paintings in Western art, although there is one volume covering Chinese and Japanese painters, so artists like Hokusai get covered. I loved these books because each painting has its own page with the article on it opposite, so you can just flip through the book and read what you want, or go through it step by step. The volume with G.C. Argan's comments, on the early and high Renaissance period, is especially good. These little gems were $1.45 each when I bought them 25 years ago. I have the entire set and it's been extremely useful in gaining a quick understanding of many different paintings and artists.

I am fascinated by modern painting. There is an anecdote about the father of all modern painters, Picasso. When somebody asked him about his twoheaded ugly women, he answered that it is art, because he can se the world this way. This way too, because he could see it in the conventional way too. And he then did draw a very classical act. I think that this anecdote is fictional because you can't to draw classically to be a modern painter. This wonderful, insightful and easy to understand book explains what is modern and what is esthetic in Piet Mondrian's abstract squares of colors and what differentiates them from the similarly fanciful work of a house painter.

This book superbly portrays Picasso as a man: his joie de vivre his love of women, his love of life, his guttural grasping at the meaning of life, love and beauty in its modern, cruel guise. Throughout the author refers to to real people: people who exist - people like you, and people like me: people who go down to the mall, people who eat ham and cheese baguettes, people who delve into the deeper things.... the ntherworld of life: love: the internet: humour; bullfighting, his mother his love , his daughter.