"Conversational...expansive...a masterclass."--Publishers Weekly

Learn to see art as an artist does. As the mysteries of techniques and styles are revealed, viewing paintings and sculptures becomes a more powerfully enriching experience that will stay in your mind long after you've left a museum.

A visit to a museum can be overwhelming, exhausting, and unrewarding. Lincoln Perry wants to change that. In sixteen essays--each framed around a specific theme--he provides new ways of seeing and appreciating art. As Perry says, "I'll try to evoke what I've come to love not because I believe it's what you should love, but, rather, because I hope my enthusiasm might inspire you to find what you love."

Perry is a disarmingly charming tour guide to museums large or small and artists from Bruegal to Pollock. Along the way, he weaves in personal stories from his own artistic journey including the nights he slept in his beaten-up VW Bus in the Louvre's parking lot. Drawing heavily on examples from the European tradition of art, the author aims to overturn assumptions and cause the reader to re-think artistic prejudices while rebuilding new preferences. As Lincoln Perry writes, "I'll try to evoke what I've come to love not because I believe it's what you should love, but, rather, because I hope my enthusiasm might inspire you to find what you love."

This is a must-read to gain a deeper experience as a viewer of art.