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 painting. She discusses its evolution from the trompe l'oeil wall paintings of antiquity, through its revival in the age of Caravaggio and Velazquez, and again in the works of Cezanne and Picasso. Originally published as Pocket Guide Still Life, this eloquent survey benefits from a wider format, new reproductions, and updated references. Published by National Gallery Company/Distributed by Yale University Press

Landscape is probably the most popular type of painting, but anyone who has ever been disappointed by vacation photographs knows how difficult it is to turn a view into a picture. This book shows how artists in past centuries translated outdoor space and light into paint, and how landscape imagery evolved from mere ornament into a visual metaphor of the human condition. The story is told from its beginnings in Roman mural decoration, through the Renaissance transformation of landscape into a vehicle for feelings and ideas, to the Impressionist revolution and beyond. The continuing relevance of art to how we see the world, and our place in it, is demonstrated through a practical discussion of optics of real and painted landscape, illustrated with works from the National Gallery, London. Published by National Gallery, London/Distributed by Yale University Press

Painters in the past and commercial artists in our own day have relied on allegory to create "message pictures." Once thought to rival literary works or political oratory in influence and prestige, such paintings, with their references to ancient myth, the Bible, or medieval astrology, all too often puzzle modern viewers. This Closer Look guide illustrates and explains the main types of visual allegory in Western art and the contexts in which they were originally created and viewed. Published by the National Gallery Company/Distributed by Yale University Press

The images of children that abound in Western art do not simply mirror reality; they are imaginative constructs, representing childhood as a special stage of human life, or emblematic of the human condition itself. In a compelling book ranging widely across time, national boundaries, and genres from ancient Egyptian amulets to Picasso's "Guernica," Erika Langmuir demonstrates that no historic period has a monopoly on the 'discovery of childhood'. Famous pictures by great artists, as well as barely known anonymous artefacts, illustrate not only Western society's perennially ambivalent attitudes to children, but also the many and varied functions that works of art have played throughout its history.

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 saints in many of the National Gallery's paintings and, using examples of works by Raphael, Durer, and Crivelli, among others, explains the sometimes puzzling conventions for identifying saints by their attributes. She also describes how saints became part of the institutions of the Christian church, the different types of saints, and the increasing importance of saintly relics in the Middle Ages. And she provides an introduction to a wide variety of personalities, from the ambiguous penitent Mary Magdalen to such revered figures as Saint Jerome and Saint Francis of Assisi. Published by National Gallery Company/Distributed by Yale University Press