Independent

Written like a textbook with a casual tone, this book makes one feel as if one is reading a monologue written by an art teacher, who is teaching you how to properly look at paintings and appreciate the smaller aspects of the artwork. Mary Acton breaks down the paintings to the basic buildings blocks of composition, space, tone, form, color and subject matter and gives innumerable examples of the effects of the discrete applications and different perspectives of looking at these basic structures with a new insight into the painting.