视觉艺术以多种方式丰富了我们的生活：带来了创新的理念以及美和情感的享受，但它们也会让人感到困惑。《如何解读艺术》分解了艺术和雕塑的要素，方便观众欣赏和进一步研究艺术，从而提高观众的体验。

通过全球各地100个视觉案例，强调如何客观评价艺术，这是艺术学生、博物馆游客、文化爱好者需要掌握的关键技能。杰内塔·里博尔德·本顿（Janetta Rebold Benton）引导读者通过从“我对艺术了解不多，但我知道我喜欢什么”，转向知道“我为什么喜欢它”，来重新评估看艺术的经验。

书中讨论了材料和技术如素描、绘画、印刷、摄影、雕塑、装饰艺术，让大家能够评估在某些媒体中可以（和不能）做什么。本书还有一节专门介绍对艺术史有特别显著和创新影响的六位艺术家。达芬奇、伦勃朗·凡·赖恩、文森特·凡·高、弗里达·卡洛、巴勃罗·毕加索和安迪·沃霍尔。这本指南对学生和普通读者来说是必读之作，鼓励他们提出问题并讨论，特别是围绕阶级、民族、性别、种族展开的辩论。

The visual arts enrich our lives in many ways: bringing innovative ideas and the pleasures of beauty and emotion, but they can also confound. How To Understand Art sets out to enhance the viewer’s experience by breaking down the elements of art and sculpture to provide a firm basis for simple enjoyment as well as further investigation.

With 100 visual examples drawn from across the globe, the stress is on how to assess art objectively –

a key skill for any art student, museum visitor or cultural enthusiast. Janetta Rebold Benton guides the reader to re-

evaluate their experiences of looking at art by learning to move beyond ‘I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like,’ and shift towards an understanding of ‘why I like it’.

Materials and techniques are discussed – drawing, painting, printing, photography, sculpture and decorative art –

making it possible to assess what can (and cannot) be done in certain media. The book also features a section devoted to six key artists who have had a particularly notable and innovative influence on the history of art: Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt van Rijn, Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol. Perfectly aimed at students and the general reader, this indispensable guide to the subject is well-

placed to encourage questions and discussion, especially in the light of current debates surrounding class, ethnicity, gender and race.