Booker Prize winner Julian Barnes is one of the brightest and most original prose writers of modern Britain, the author of such international bestsellers as The Noise of Time, The Sense of the End, Arthur and George, A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters ", "Flaubert's Parrot" and many others. Julian Barnes calls his first experience in the genre of essays about art the chapter of the acclaimed dystopian novel "History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters" (1989), dedicated to Theodore Gericault's painting "The Raft of the Medusa" . That is why, already as an independent work, in the collection “Open Your Eyes” it turns out to be the first of seventeen fascinating short stories about artists and their works, inviting the reader to trace the path of fine art from the beginning of the 19th century to the present. These essays have everything that is traditionally inherent in Barnes's prose: a magnificent sense of style, a masterly balance of caustic irony and sophisticated lyricism, sarcasm bordering on cynicism and cheerful mischief. But this is also a collection of subtle, witty and sometimes unexpected observations that provide not only literary pleasure, but also rich food for the mind.