THE LOUVRE IN CLOSE-UP

Less a museum tour than an exercise in looking closely at art, this oversized gallery presents 34 works—all, with two exceptions, by European artists—from the Louvre, each bordered by a dozen or so enlarged details that viewers are invited to spot in the originals. At the end, brief, but dense essays on each piece's medium and meaning accompany visual keys that appear beneath flaps. Despite a closing note on the museum's history, readers won't come away with a clear picture of the Louvre's scope or design, nor is this likely to attract fans of Walter Wick's "I Spy" series and the like. Still, Eurocentrism aside, it should have some use in arts education, alongside Lucy Micklethwait's primers. (Nonfiction. 8-10)