Like many things, art is much more fun if you know something about it and how it works. Maybe you have been to an art gallery and thought, ”Boy, there are a lot of pictures.” But why do people paint pictures? What do they want you to see? If you are threatened with going to a gallery and want to really enjoy it, or if you like making art yourself, this is a good book for finding out about paintings and painters. It looks at lots of different kinds of paintings, from bible illustrations and pictures of kings to weird geometric shapes, and explains what's going on in them, and why the artist painted them that way and not, say, from another angle or using wild flourescent colors. It also lets you in on fun secrets, like the little mice in the corner, or that all the angels have the same face, because the artist was using his son as a model. And how did he get that pineapple to balance on top of a delicate flower? He didn't! He made it up in his head, because when you are a painter, you can do that.