Masterpieces: The Best Loved Paintings From America's Museums

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Here, in one stunning volume, are thirty-three of America's most popular paintings, prominently displayed in a dynamic, interactive format filled with pullouts, die-cuts, and visual surprises. For "Masterpieces", prestigious museums across the country have chosen the paintings that are the perennial favorites in their collections. From The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City you'll see Rembrandt's "Aristotle with a Bust of Homer", and from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., you'll see Renoir's "A Girl with a Watering Can". You will also visit The Huntington Art Collections in California to see the most famous British painting of all time, Gainsborough's "The Blue Boy". Spanning centuries, continents, and various art movements, the diversity of the works represented here encompasses something for everyone.

Suffused with more than two hundred beautiful full-color photographs, "Masterpieces" contains some of the most famous artworks of all time, accompanied by text that is informative, interesting, and accessible. This is the ideal book for the serious art lover as well as for the novice.

Innovatively designed using a four-page gatefold layout, each unit is devoted to a single painting, featuring a full-page color reproduction of that work provided by the museum itself. In the text that accompanies the painting you will learn about the artist and the technique employed, the subject matter of the composition, and the journey the painting took from artist's easel to museum wall-- and discover some of the collectors, royals, and movie stars who once owned these precious artworks. Finally, up-to-date information is included about the museums themselves so that visits to them will be all the more rewarding. Interspersed throughout are innumerable color and black and white photographs, complementing the text and making "Masterpieces" one of the most visually exciting books you will own.