Alexander Eliot

Form is not the all in art, as this introduction to masterpieces of Buddhist brush painting makes charmingly clear. The viewer who knows the legend behind the form finds keener rewards.

Now recognized as one of America’s foremost artists, Edward Hopper made his living as a mediocre illustrator and produced great art, particularly his etchings, on the side. Some of them, the author believes, are “the finest things ever created on American soil.” A few are reproduced on the following pages.

It is one of the most holy places in the world, sacred to three great religions, and it is here, the author argues, that one must look for the solution to the profound tensions in the Middle East.

Before Benjamin West and John Singleton Copley, the genre was dedicated to the good, the ideal; it now encompasses the bad and the beautiful.

“To put it bluntly, the fat old man who painted the great water-lily panels was very nearly blind at the time.”

“Guard your naïveté. It will be all you’ve got, someday.”