LOOK!

Wolfe, head of education at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, uses 18 paintings to hone observation skills and teach art history. Each double-page spread discusses one painting that appears in its entirety and also in one or more close-up details. The text offers information about the painting—its content, the artist, and his or her intention. Questions seek to engage the reader in a closer examination of each work. Some of the questions miss the mark, however, either by being too leading or irrelevant. About Georges Schreiber’s Three Clowns in a Ring, Wolfe asks, “Do you think these clowns are clumsy, or are they really very skilled?” while for Frederick George Cotman’s One of the Family, she refers to the grandmother slicing bread and asks, “How do you do it in your family?” Meanwhile, aspects of paintings that are sure to raise the curiosity of a young person are not commented upon, for example, the child named Thomas in William Hogarth’s The Graham Children, who is wearing an elaborate dress. Similarly, suggestions for projects seem oddly inadequate for being put to actual use: the directions for making a flip book, for example, are too sketchy for someone who has never made one and redundant for anyone who has. There is plenty of interesting information here: for example, that the 19th-century animal portrait painter Sir Edwin Landseer dissected animals to improve his skill at painting them. However, material that undoubtedly works well in the give and take of a gallery talk does not necessarily translate well into book form. Brief biographies of each artist follow the body of the text. (Nonfiction. 8-12)