List of illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- The pleasures of bewilderment -- Vermeer's annunciation -- The man with the red crayon -- Ghosts at the table -- Narratives in the body : Goya's Los Caprichos -- More Goya : "There are no rules in painting" -- Giorgio Morandi : Not just bottles -- Joan Mitchell : Remembering in color -- Gerhard Richter : Why paint? -- Notes -- Illustration credits.