Albus's subjects are the inventors of easel painting in oils, the van Eyck brothers and their followers. It was the birth and triumph of oil painting in the 15th and 16th centuries in Northern Europe that radically changed the way we perceived the world. The ear, though which we had previously received all knowledge and the word of God, was replaced in importance by the eye. A painter of distinction herself, Albus creates this revolutionary time in all its intricacies, familiarity and absolute peculiarity.

It is thus both a dazzling cultural history and the story of two explosive inventions -- the creation of the so-called Third Dimension of deep space through perspective, and of shockingly vivid, never-seen-before color through suspension of mineral pigments in oils. Taken together, these two breakthroughs not only created a new art; they altered forever our perception of the world, and adjusted the relationship between heaven and earth.

An ambitious achievement by a exceptionally gifted scholar.