Seeing the Getty Collections at the Getty Center

Featuring art from the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center, this small book is sure to provoke the surprise and delight of discovering similarities among works in different media and from different periods. Illustrated with details of artworks from the collection, one pairing juxtaposes a woman's up-raised hands from an illuminated manuscript, while the facing page shows a close-up from a black-and-white photograph of the hands of a woman clutching her chest. In another a painting of two women sitting on a red and gold daybed is shown next to a similar piece of furniture in the Museum's galleries. Drawn from every curatorial department represented at the Center--Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture and Decorative Arts, Manuscripts, and Photography--the works included here span hundreds of years of art history.
The reader will enjoy leafing through this virtual tour and may notice familiar works that can be examined anew, and all readers will enjoy this compact and thought- provoking gem of a book.

David Bomford is associate director of Collections at the J. Paul Getty Museum.