I spend a great deal of my spare time dawdling around art galleries. Every time I wish I knew more about the paintings. As I stand there, appreciating the works, I am aware that I am looking at complicated ideas and histories but not really seeing or understanding the concepts.

Laurence King Publishing has brought out a new series called This is…

I have read This is Goya, This is Monet and This is Kandinsky, by different authors. These books are well presented, with clear and understandable text, accompanied by the artists’ paintings, as well as especially commissioned illustrations.

Let’s take Goya by Wendy Bird with illustrations by Sarah Maycock. Did you know that Francisco de Goya y Lucientes was the first artist deliberately to pursue creating works of art for their own sake? I didn’t.

Monet I knew was a leading member of the French Impressionists.

I was looking at one of his many paintings of haystacks in the National gallery, the other day, (He painted the same haystacks but followed the play of sunlight on them throughout the day). Go and have a look. He never rested, evolving his art way into his eighties. Learn more from Sara Pappworth with illustrations by Aude Van Ryn.

 

Kandinsky looks more like a clerk, or bank manager, than a painter.

He seems almost a cypher, but inside this misleading façade lived a sensitive artist who produced forceful genre defying work. I knew little about his work and am not sure I particularly like it, but this book by Annabel Howard with illustrations by Adam Simpson has created an interest. This in itself is a virtue.

A truly lovely series.