The Painted Picture traces the changing technology of picture-making from the Renaissance to the present, focusing on the vital role of images in multiple copies. From woodblocks to modern color photographs, from engravings to bar codes, from daguerreotypes to today's digital wonders, the book succinctly examines the full range of pictorial processes. Exploring how pictures look by describing how they are made, author Richard Benson reaches fresh conclusions about what pictures can mean. Presented as a series of one-page essays opposite the pictures they examine, the book retains the engaging, informal style of Benson's celebrated seminars at Yale University.