This dictionary is compact, because our experience of the arts is gained in so many places – in exhibitions, in museums, touring with a guide book – and no one wants to tour with a reference library. It is also comprehensive, because neither in real life nor in books are the various arts neatly segregated. More than 2000 entries therefore define and explain terms from painting, sculpture, architecture, the decorative and applied arts…

With this dictionary at hand, the reader should be able to puzzle out any art text, however technical, and the collector or exhibition-goer should feel at ease with any auction or museum catalogue, no matter how recondite.