'If you are someone who revels in the deliciousness of oil paintings, who looks at them and wants to eat them ‘as if they were ice cream or something’, in Damien Hirst’s phrase, then Martin Gayford’s latest book will be a banquet' - The Spectator

'Succeeds in providing keys to unlocking the puzzles of painting … Erudite and insightful, art writer and critic Martin Gayford wears his knowledge lightly and manages to carry his considerable and weighty connections with ease … Reading this richly illustrated book takes you on a ride from inspiration to execution, from pigments to feelings and meanings' - The Irish Times

'One of the most original books about art history there has ever been ... Martin is a writer who has interviewed almost anyone alive who matters in the field of art and who can explain the creative process not by giving you his own informed account, but by distilling the artists’ own thoughts' - Artbookreview

'Discover Vincent van Gogh’s responses to the work of Rembrandt, and John Constable’s to Titian, whose painting, he claimed, was orchestrated like a symphony. Artists from the past come alive in this book' - Art Society Magazine

'As though watching a working artist in slow motion, we are led from the preparation of a surface to mixing the paint, through colour, gesture, content and choosing a title. Along the way, ideas of finish and resolution, beauty and ugliness, judgement and intuition emerge as products of material decisions rather than externally imposed concepts. Each of these steps is accompanied by examples across time and place, from Helen Frankenthaler to Diego Velázquez, Paula Rego to Nicolas Poussin' - TLS

'A fascinating exploration of how and why paintings come into being' - Country & Town House

'A stunningly illustrated story of painters - what they do, and why. Art historian and critic Martin Gayford, dubbed a modern-day Vasari, has interviewed many of the most famous painters of our times. Drawing on these conversations he offers an incisive examination of painting and its importance, linking today’s practitioners to the great masters of previous ages' - The Herald

'A celebration of the painters who go into battle against the blank canvas. In this wide-ranging book, Gayford draws on art history and his experience of interviewing artists. It roams from the first cave paintings to the hottest contemporary names. Rather than a chronological trot through eras and styles, the approach is discursive, digressive and surprising, so that you encounter Edgar Degas set against one of this year’s Turner prize nominees, Claudette Johnson' - Laura Freeman, Art Books of the Year, The Times

'Contemporaries and modernists fill the pages – Gillian Ayres, David Hockney, R. B. Kitaj, Bridget Riley, Luc Tuymans – and rub shoulders with the greats of the past: Rembrandt, Titian, Van Gogh and Saenredam. Their histories show how they first came to art and then what they did next. Looking at art becomes a way of thinking, and Gayford shows us how we can think more deeply' - Church Times