Learning to Look

GINO BALLANTYNE a Scottish artist born in Malta, he studied at Glasgow School of Art. His work focuses on the human condition to compel understanding of both humanity and civilisation, exploring narratives of the ordinary and the terrible. Gino has exhibited nationally and internationally, Gino and Robert have worked closely together for many years.

• PrefaceForewordEarly YearsFirst tastes of aesthetic experienceLearning to lookThe PaintingsIntroductionVelázquez Las Meninas (Madrid, Prado)Fra Angelico The Cortona Altarpiece (Cortona, Museo Diocesano)Canaletto The Arrival of the French Ambassador in Venice (St Petersburg, Hermitage)Jackson Pollock One: Number 31, 1950 (New York, MoMA)Thanks and Acknowledgements

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