"This is almost a how-to book on looking at and thinking about color methods, as it was employed in the Renaissance. She uncovered information for me that I had always suspected existed. There were four basic modes of coloring: Sfumato, Chiaroscuro (both are more commonly discussed), but the other two, Unione and Cangiantisimo, were not known to me until picking this us. I have a copy with me every time I paint."

"Pier Paolo Pasolini’s affection and compassion for Rome’s cafoni, or peasant, class shines through in what is perhaps the most accessible of all his films. Anna Magnani plays an ex-hooker trying to escape her past while raising her troubled teenage son. Pasolini sets Magnani loose as the indomitable salt-of-the-earth mother. Her range of emotion and expression is unbridled, exuberant, and overflowing—a force of nature. Pay attention to the wedding scene and you’ll see Pasolini’s love of Renaissance art on display as he re-creates Da Vinci’s Last Supper, casting the denizens of Rome’s slums as the apostles."