Means and ends - reflections on the history of fresco painting; evolution in the arts - the altar painting, its ancestry and progeny; supply and demand in the evolution of styles - the example of international Gothic; pictures for the home; sculptures for outdoors; the dream of reason -symbolism of the French Revolution; magic, myth and metaphor - reflections on pictorial satire; pleasures of boredom - four centuries of doodles; pictorial instructions; what art tells us; styles of art and styles of life.