Robert Cumming has spent his life encouraging people to look closely at works of art and experience them directly. In theory, looking at paintings is easy, but looking intensely and documenting the experience is not much done, or regarded as important, by art historians, nor is it encouraged by museums. This book is a primer in how to look - how to allow looking to develop by doing it with intensity and total concentration and not accepting what one is told by art historians. I strongly recommend it. - Charles Saumarez Smith
former Director, National Gallery (London)


Robert Cumming is a wonderfully intelligent, civilised and illuminating guide to the adventure of looking at paintings. He trains a perceptive gaze on to old masters; and his bold analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of 20th century art is particularly refreshing and timely. - Philip Hook, author of Breakfast at Sotheby's

Robert Cumming begins in compelling autobiographical vein, and then moves on to examine the four paintings whose scrutiny forms the heart of this book. He is in the business of making us look far more carefully than we usually do, but also wants to make us think very hard. He is triumphantly successful on both fronts, and it is arguably an even greater tribute to say that - for all that I sometimes found myself unable to agree with certain of his ideas - I never stopped wanting to turn the page. - David Ekserdjian, Emeritus Professor of History of Art and Film, University of Leicester