NONFICTION - May 19, 1991

100 DETAILS FROM PICTURES IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY by Kenneth Clark (Harvard University Press: $34.95 , cloth ; $19.95 , paper; 109 pp.). If God truly is in the details, this book by the esteemed art historian, first published in 1938 and long out of print, is definitely on the side of the angels. Clark takes us through London’s National, pointing out wonderful things a less artful eye would have missed, for instance an especially envious Envy (above) from an otherwise blissful “Allegory With Venus and Cupid” or an inside joke in Bassano’s “The Purification of the Temple,” where the notoriously avaricious Titian is portrayed as one of the money changers. Those wondering what the entire paintings look like can find them in the back in humble black and white.