For 50 years Bridget Riley has been regarded as Britain's most important abstract painter, renowned for her large abstract paintings, with their complex, repetitive geometric shapes and undulating linear patterns. Given the graphic nature of these wo...

What is still life? We are familiar with the objects portrayed but have difficulty explaining the essence of this popular art form. Erika Langmuir examines the special fascination of still life, and what distinguishes it from other categories of pain...

Formerly part of the popular "Pocket Guides" series, "Frames" is published in a new edition as "A Closer Look", with a wealth of beautiful reproductions. This informative guide offers an insight into the various forms of frame housing some of the fin...

This beautiful book presents one hundred great works from the National Gallery Collection, each by a different artist. Arranged in chronological order and accompanied by Louise Govier's lively text, full-page reproductions of these selected highlight...

How do experts spot masterpieces? Paintings are not always signed or noted in historical records, so how can we tell an obscure gem from an altered image? Scientists, conservators and art historians use a range of methods to examine the physical natu...

Innovation is at the heart of the National Gallery's British collection. William Hogarth developed a fascinating new form of satirical narrative painting; George Stubbs turned horse painting into an epic art form; and, Joseph Wright captured the dram...

Formerly part of the popular "Pocket Guides" series, "Allegory" is published in a new edition as "A Closer Look", with a wealth of beautiful reproductions. This informative guide helps readers understand the language of allegory within Western painti...

Formerly part of the popular "Pocket Guides" series, "Angels" is published in a new edition as "A Closer Look", with a wealth of beautiful reproductions. This informative guide helps readers identify angels and their significance in a painting – be i...

Drawing on the National Gallery's comprehensive collection of religious images, "A Closer Look: Saints" explains the importance of saints and their role in the history of European painting. Erika Langmuir underlines the fundamental importance of sai...

Faces are everywhere in the National Gallery's collection: in portraits and narrative scenes, in allegories and paintings of everyday life. It is often the faces shown that communicate most directly in a picture; their expressions may reveal the dram...