The type of personality that flourishes as a painter at any given time is the product of many different factors. There must be skill, determination, and inspiration, but those essential qualities are never enough in themselves. It is a simple truth that most artists reflect their own times but no more, whereas the outstanding artist has the ability to capture the imagination of future generations and say something of direct relevance to them. It is a rare occurence and is possible only if the artist is working out of the deepest personal conviction with a wish to reveal something more than skill and with the intention to do more than impress or please an individual patron or a specific artist. The timelessness and universality of the work of a great artist exists because he or she has something exceptional to say, and because for such artists painting is not an end in itself but a means of trying to reach a fundamental human truth. This book is one of the annotated guides series. It shows a work or two from fifty great artists spanning the history of art. It is filled with large reproductions of the art which is the best part about the book. The annotations attempt to tell the story of each artist and the piece displayed. The book highlights artists and works that had an impact on other artists.
The art is wonderful, but I got annoyed with the annotations. With a dozen or more annotation boxes on each page, it was very difficult to pull the story of each piece together. Many of the annotations were insightful and pointed specifically to aspects of the piece that one may not have readily observed. There is no flow to the book, however, and the reader will be forced to jump around from historical facts, to details about style and composition. I wanted to like this book, and did at times, but it got laborious and I found myself wishing all the annotations were simply put into a coherent text.
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