What Makes a Bruegel a Bruegel?; What Makes a Degas a Degas?; What Makes a Monet a Monet?; What Makes a Raphael a Raphael?; What Makes a Rembrandt a Rembrandt?; What Makes a Van Gogh a Van Gogh?

Our response to a great work of art is often spontaneous and purely subjective, and many of us don't get further than an initial gut reaction. Richard Muhlberger, a former vice-president for education at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, has written a series of books which cannot fail to enhance the enjoyment and understanding of young people who may be encountering an artist's work for the first time.

The framework for each title is the same - twelve masterpieces are analysed in order to show how the artist's own recognisable style evolved. However the paintings are not discussed in isolation but throughout a text which effortlessly blends biographical details with information about what the artist was trying to achieve, the techniques he employed and the ways in which other artists influenced him.

The author's sureness of touch reveals itself further in the intimate and personal details he manages to include - such as Degas' apparent reluctance to enter a Parisian hat shop until Mary Cassatt agreed to accomany him. 'Many paintings of millinery shops followed.'

Indeed the whole concept and production of these titles cannot be faulted - from the high quality reproductions to the user-friendly format with its attractively designed layout.