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This informative guide helps readers identify saints and their significance in a painting - be it from the National Gallery or from other collections. Formerly part of the popular "Pocket Guides" series, "Saints" is published in a new edition as "A Closer Look", with a wealth of beautiful reproductions. This book explains, through the National Gallery's collection of religious images, the significance of saints and their role in the history of European painting as well as different types of saints, and the importance of saintly relics in the Middle Ages. It provides an introduction to a wide variety of personalities, from the ambiguous penitent Mary Magdalen and the obscure martyrs venerated only by the cities of which they were protectors, to internationally celebrated figures whose sermons and deeds are well documented, such as Saint Jerome or Saint Francis of Assisi. "Saints" may be familiar figures in religious paintings, even to non-Christians, but this guide explains in an authoritative yet accessible style the many ways in which they once played a part in religious practice and in the lives of individuals and communities.
