This important addition to our understanding of art history's masterworks puts some of the world's most famous paintings under a magnifying glass to uncover their most small and subtle elements and all they reveal about a bygone time, place, and culture. Guiding our eye to the minutiae of subject and symbolism, authors Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen allow even the most familiar of pictures to come alive anew through their intricacies and intrigues. Is the bride pregnant? Why does the man wear a beret? How does the shadow of war hang over a scene of dancing? Along the way, we travel from Ancient Egypt through to modern Europe, from the Renaissance to the Roaring Twenties. We meet Greek heroes and poor German poets and roam from cathedrals to cabaret bars, from the Garden of Eden to a Garden Bench in rural France. As we pick apart each painting and then reassemble it like a giant jigsaw puzzle, these celebrated canvases captivate not only in their sheer wealth of details but also in the witness they bear to the fashions and trends, people and politics, loves and lifestyles of their time.

新娘怀孕了吗？这个男人为什么戴贝雷帽？战争的阴影如何笼着一个跳舞的场景？一路上，我们从古埃及一直走到现代欧洲，从文艺复兴时期走到“咆哮的二十年代”。我们遇到希腊英雄和贫穷的德国诗人，从大教堂到漫游到歌舞表演酒吧，从伊甸园漫游到法国乡村的花园长椅。当我们将每幅画拆开，然后像一个巨大的拼图游戏一样把它重新组装起来时，这些**的油画不仅因其丰富的细节，而且还因为它们见证了它们那个时代的时尚和潮流，人物和政治，爱情和生活方式而引人入胜。