This work sets out to draw us into the storied world of pictures and paintings. Taking a handful of images, the author explores how each one attempts to tell a story that we, the viewer, must decipher or invent: from the secret canvases of the Renaissance artist to Picasso's Weeping Woman. The author does not attempt to devise a systematic method for reading pictures such as those proposed by great art historians, he seeks to reclaim for common viewers the right to read images.