Front Matter

About this Book

I N his Child's Garden of Verses a great writer, Robert Louis Stevenson, once told the children for whom he wrote that:

There are indeed all kinds of interesting and beautiful things in the world to delight us, and we need never go far to find them. There are the poems and stories of great writers, for instance. What a perfect treasure of happiness can be found between the pages of a book! But to understand and appreciate the loveliness of the poem or the grandeur of the story it is often necessary for us to learn the language in which the poem or story is written, and this may be a difficult task. So the wide world Kingdom of full of delight as it is, is fenced round with difficulties for those who know no language but their own.

There is, howerer, anothff magic kiredom of delight which needs no knowledge of foriegn tongues to open wide its gates to us, and that is the Kingdom of Art, about which this book will tell you.

We do not need to understand Italian to have our hearts touched by the beauty of a Madonna and Child by Botticelli, or Spanish to be impressed by the dignity and splendour of the figure of a Spanish king painted by Velasquez. Art, like music, speaks a universal language; to appreciate its loveliness we have only to use our eyes.

But our eyes need to be trained, and the best way of training the eye to see and understand beauty is to put constantly before it beautiful things to look upon. In this book you will find reproductions of some of the most beautiful paintings in the world, and my hope is that, living in company with these beautiful paintings, and studying them carefully from time to time, you may learn by degrees to unlock the secret of their loveliness and delight.

Side by side with the pictures you will find the stories of the men who painted them. for it is well for us to know what manner of men these painters were, how and when they lived, and what it was that made them great. They are among the world's best benefactors. They have shown us "the beauty and the wonder and the power, the shape of things, their colour, lights, and shades, changes, surprises," and we owe to them more than we can ever pay, in gratitude and love, for the great heritage they have left us.