The Sight of Death

". . . as compelling as a thriller...Clark shows that this [book] really is the merest doorway to what is ultimately a truly sublime mystery."—John McEwan, The Tablet

"What holds the reader is a vivid immersion in the author's process of discovery. His blend of thinking and noticing grips us as details are revealed in the room's ever-shifting light. . . . Numerous color plates, first of the paintings in full, then of enlarged details, train our new eyes."—Nina C. Ayoub, Chronicle of Higher Education

"Provocative, insightful and . . . useful."—Edward J. Sozanski, Philadelphia Inquirer

"The Sight of Death is a delight for the level of the writing, the quality of the observation, and the attention it lavishes on looking—an activity most of us take for granted."—The Bloomsbury Review

"The Sight of Death is a tour de force of looking. . . . Clark helps us see why it is so rewarding, indeed even necessary, to go back again and again to look at the same painting. He puts into words, better than anyone else I have read, why paintings can never be completely fixed in memory, but rather appear different each time we go back and see them again. . . . A deeply personal and passionate book about art, art history, and politics."—Donna Gustafson, Commonweal

"Clark remains, as he has always been, an imaginative and challenging writer whose thought . . . demands serious and rigorous attention. There is no question that he renders these two painting by Poussin extraordinarily vivid and rich, prompting something akin to the intense pleasure and excitement, sudden ideas and insights that can be produced by immersion in the galleries of a first-rate museum. He is his own best example of an author who changes the way we look at a given picture via his or her exquisite immanent analysis."—James A. van Dyke, Oxford Art Journal