There’s always a story behind the story. We love reading a good book, but it’s also fascinating to read about the author themselves, the era in which they wrote in, the ideas and historical events that caused them to write the book in a certain way. It’s why we study literature. Paintings create the same fervor of the how and why, and there is something so exciting about learning the techniques, genres and methods that go into a great painting. The great painters will tell you that layering a narrative and a technique on a work is part of the fun, and to learn to read a painting is the part of the puzzle that the viewer participates with in…