From the publisher. [ A popular encyclopedia dedicated to European painting of the late 13-20 centuries, prepared by the staff of the Department of Foreign Art of the Research Institute of Theory and History of Fine Arts of the Russian Academy of Arts and is the first publication of this kind in our country. A wide range of readers , Interested in Art , and experts will find it quite complete , Related to the genre of encyclopedic dictionary information about European painters , since the last decades of the 13th century, When in Italy from the mass of unnamed masters stood out bright artistic personalities until our contemporaries of the late 20th century. The authors of the encyclopedia set themselves the task of combining the factual richness inherent in publications of this kind with a detailed characteristic of the work of the largest European masters, articles about which are approaching a monographic essay in their genre. Unlike previous domestic reference editions, the dictionary contains extensive, in some cases little-known to the reader material about European painters of the 20th century. A short bibliography is attached to most of the articles, including a fairly complete list of works in Russian and the most significant publications of foreign researchers.