Written from the perspective of a painter-turned-art historian, this anniversary edition includes a new introduction and preface by Elkins in which he further reflects on the experience of painting and its role in the study of art today.

Preface Introduction to the 20th Anniversary editionIntroduction A Short Course in Forgetting Chemistry How to Count in Oil and Stone The Mouldy Materia Prima How do Substances Occupy the Mind? Coagulating, cohobating, macerating, reverberating The Studio as a Kind of Psychosis Steplessness The Beautiful Reddish Light of the Philosopher’s Stone Last Words

"One of the few essential books on oil painting....In passages from which every critic should learn, Elkins tries to decode the exact physical gestures that produced what he sees....He makes readers feel they are truly tasting a viewpoint of reality alien to the modern scientific world view." --San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle"A truly original book. It will make you look at paintings differently and think about paint differently." -- Boston Globe"Wandering in the Metropolitan, needing a break from looking at art, I went to the shop, purchased What Painting Is, and sat down and started to read. When then I got up again, the art looked different. Elkins's best writing teaches you how to look more closely and see more."--David Carrier, Art Journal"What Painting Is succeeds very well in evoking the odors, stickiness, and intense attraction of the paint itself."--Katerina Duskova, The Art Bulletin