Introduction 10
Part I Starting, Finishing, and Carrying On
Chapter 1 Starting 22
Chapter 2 The will to paint 37
Chapter 3 Singing better 46
Chapter 4 Good and bad - and how and why 57
Chapter 5 It's so hard to finish 66
Part II Material Matters
Chapter 6 Underneath the paint 82
Chapter 7 Rubens's recipes 94
Chapter 8 The brush dipping in the paint 108
Chapter 9 Marks of the hand 122
Chapter 10 Flesh and meat 135
Part III The Continent of Colour
Chapter 11 The red studio 146
Chapter 12 Engulfed in colour 155
Chapter 13 Painting in the key of D 165
Chapter 14 Drawing in colour 178
Chapter 15 Reimagining the body 192
Part IV Travelling in Time and Space
Chapter 16 Crossing continents, painting maps 210
Chapter 17 El Greco travels through time 224
Chapter 18 Making space 236
Chapter 19 Painting history 246
Chapter 20 Taking flight with Miró 260
Part V The Camera, the Stage, and the Screen
Chapter 21 The brush and the lens 274
Chapter 22 Staging a painting 287
Chapter 23 Painting a collage 299
Chapter 24 Whose hand makes the mark? 312
Part VI Feelings and Meanings
Chapter 25 Good, bad, ugly 320
Chapter 26 What does a Rothko mean? 331
Chapter 27 Beyond anything for feeling 340
Chapter 28 Is the clue in the title? 350
Epilogue The world in a picture, a painting as a world 362
Acknowledgments 369
Notes to the Text 370
Further Reading 373
Picture Credits 376
Index 379