The Pleasures of Bewilderment -- Vermeer’s Annunciation -- The Man with the Red Crayon -- Ghosts at the Table -- Narratives in the Body: Goya’s Los Caprichos -- More Goya: “There Are No Rules in Painting” -- Giorgio Morandi: Not Just Bottles -- Joan Mitchell: Remembering in Color -- Gerhard Richter: Why Paint?.

In Mysteries of the Rectangle, Hustvedt concentrates her narrative gifts on the works of such masters as Francisco Goya, Jan Vermeer, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Gerhard Richter, and Joan Mitchell. Through her own personal experiences, Hustvedt is able to reveal things until now hidden in plain sight: an egglike detail in Vermeer's Woman with a Pearl Necklace and the many hidden self-portraits in Goya's series of drawings, Los Caprichos, as well as in his infamous painting The Third of May. Most importantly, these essays exhibit the passion, thrill, and sheer pleasure of bewilderment a work of art can produce—if you simply take the time to look.