Pictures within pictures in the National Gallery of Art Cooke, Hereward Lester

Description

Westover Publishing Company [Published Date: 1970]. Hardcover, [60] pp (unpaginated). First Edition. Black and white reproductions. [From front jacket flap] The National Gallery of Art?s distinguished Curator of Painting has gathered together dividends of paintings. Those small masterpieces which lay unnoticed and the viewer might miss at first look. Dr. Cooke leads the reader as if on a treasure hunt, step by step, forward and back, leaving each of us to reflect inwardly perhaps with an expanded vision of what a work of art might mean. [From introduction] Those of us who work in art museums sometimes stir in our sleep and wonder if we are being fair to the artists who created the works in our charge or to the public who comes to see them. Most of the paintings we exhibit were never intended to be seen hanging in rows in brightly lighted galleries. They were intended to be seen by people kneeling in prayer in a church, or sitting in a library, or perhaps lying in bed. They were meant to be seen under changing lighting conditions, and to be seen day after day, year after year. Paintings that are good enough to hang in a great art gallery take a long time to appreciate. A great artist never puts all his cards on the table at once. First he hopes to attract and interest his viewer with bold design, striking color, and interesting subject matter. Once having captivated his viewer, he leads him into his picture by offering ever new and wonderful things to delight him – masterful brushwork, subtle refinements of design, intriguing arabesques of line, glimpses of heaven and corner’s of hell, or incidental detail and action within the context of the main composition. This booklet contains a few of the latter. The great majority of visitors never see these pictures within pictures, and this is their loss, for these are the dividends paid by the artist to the viewer who really looks.