BookOtheDay’s Reviews > What Great Paintings Say > Status Update

It is also not very clear why these particular pieces were chosen. There does not seem to be a connecting theme. We are not doing a general survey of art, not even Euro art. Most of these paintings are not famous. We are tightly focused, mostly, on a specific timeframe. Some of the history behind the paintings interacts, but not directly and it isn't pointed out. The same history lesson is repeated in both pieces.

The authors are also not particularly great at identifying what questions readers might actually have. Like with The Knight, The Maiden and Death, how common were portrayals of heroic non-white knights? Why is it called the Feast of the Bean king? Sometimes they make seemingly wild leaps in interpretation, like in The Burgher of Delft and His Daughter. Are, are we sure a vase of flowers mean the mom died? 100%?

Be prepared for European attitudes. For example, after we have learned about how the Durer work (p.178 in my edition) is vaguely anti-semitic and how violently anti-semitic Durer's time and place was violently anti-semitic and how his work has been taken up by anti-semitic groups, the author confidently states that there is no evidence that Durer himself was anti-semitic. Well.

Not actually what the title says. This is not art interpretation or understanding, at least not much. It is an explanation of the history that surfaces in paintings (most of them less than famous). Which is fine. While we start off with a global selection, prepare to settle into the 1500s-1600s in Europe. Paintings are in chron. order. Hilariously, the Bayeux Tapestry is included. Which, to be fair, is not a tapestry