This fresh and engaging, illustrated history of art explains the fundamentals every art lover needs while presenting the development of different schools and styles as one continuous, astonishing timeline— from Giotto to Leonardo, Frida to Banksy.

When she became interested in painting, the author would visit museums and wonder about all the information she was missing. How did one style develop after another? What meanings were hidden in these works? What were these artists’ lives like? How did their works survive for so many years? She longed for the kind of essential knowledge that would enable her to decode a painting loaded with references. The result of her curiosity is a highly accessible and vividly illustrated book that brings together the fundamentals of eight centuries of art. It covers the basics about such topics as how museums are structured, how painters use proportion and perspective, the anatomy of a painting. Hardcover, 360 pages.