PREFACE THE difficulty that has beset me throughout the writing of this book is the obvious one of selection from a field so vast and so eternally alluring. This has applied both to matter and to illustration. I have felt that every choice and every allocation of space must be open to many criticisms. My purpose is essentially practical, and this fact has guided my decisions. The book is an attempt to help children, and perhaps others, over the initial dificuIties of art which is not of their own day. It is addressed to a stage of development at which the picture, as an illustration, makes an appeal which the picture as a work of technical skill cannot. Hence I have made no attempt to hold the balance fairly between painters who had remarkable lives and those who had not, or between pictures which portray interesting legends and those which are great feats of technique. At the same time I have sought to indicate certain great phases in the history of art, and have therefore chosen mrks typical of important classes, even at the expense of due representation of individual masters. My endeavour has been to open up as many vistas of interest as possible. These are my grounds for much that could be justly condemned from other points of view, and if, for example, I have sinned agait Titian and Rubens it is in an attempt to suit the peculiar nccds and the varying ages of those for whom I hope as readers. My thanks are due to two friends who read my manuscript, and gave me helpful criticisms...