The Pursuit of Painting - Stephen McKenna

This book looks at the work of twenty-six European painters working this century, from modern masters to contemporary artists. The emphasis is on individual paintings rather than the artists themselves, and the works illustrated exemplify what the author considers to be the central purpose of painting: to make reality visible by presenting objects, figures and spaces on a canvas. The challenge for twentieth-century painters is to acknowledge the framework set up by the history of painting, but to work in ways which will validate the painter's own vision for the time in which he lives.