The Secrets of Painting: The Hidden Art of the Masterpiece from Prehistory to Today

When looking at a work of art, the first question that painter Lachlan Goudie considers is not why but how was it created?

Goudie knows from experience that masterpieces don’t simply emerge from an artist's studio. They are the result of a long tussle between dirty hands and crushed pigment, hog's-hair brushes and linseed oil, rabbit-­skin glue and pulverized chalk. Great paintings are the p...