In The laughter of art Carlos Reyero proposes an unexpected and stimulating look at a territory often forgotten in the history of art: humor. The book traces the presence of laughter in Western art—especially painting—from the Renaissance to the early 20th century, revealing how the comic not only coexists with the solemnity of museums, but also acts as a mechanism of social criticism, parody, political satire, and cultural play. Through a wide range of examples, Reyero shows that laughter is ephemeral and paradoxical, but capable of revealing cultural tensions, subverting norms and generating complicity between artists and spectators. An invitation to understand humor as a historical axis of art that illuminates the complexities of the human experience.
The laughter of art
Author: Carlos Reyero Hermosilla
Publisher: Ediciones Cátedra
Art Collection Great themes
Year: 2026
Pages: 288 pp.
Price: €18.95
www.catedra.com
Stopping before a painting can be more than an aesthetic exercise. In Healthy art. How to look at art to understand your emotionsPablo Ortiz de Zárate—journalist specialized in art—proposes converting contemplation into a tool of self-knowledge.
The volume is articulated in two clear parts. The first proposes a method to train the gaze based on specific elements: objects as anchors to the present; eyes and hands as a way to exercise empathy; light, space and color in search of balance and serenity. The second transfers this practice to recognizable life experiences—depression, heartbreak, grief, anxiety or fear of making decisions—suggesting works that dialogue with each emotional state. With a didactic and close approach, Ortiz de Zárate transfers his disseminating vocation to the book and places the history of art in the field of everyday experience, building a bridge between images and the viewer’s inner life.
Healthy art. How to look at art to understand your emotions
Author: Pablo Ortiz de Zárate
Publisher: Destino Editions
Year: 2026
Pages: 256 pp.
Price: €21.75
www.planetadelibros.com
Juan Uslé. Grades It brings together more than 200 watercolor sketches by the Cantabrian painter, made over decades between Cantabria and New York. Each stroke works as an emotional record of the passage of time and the constant dialogue between landscape, city and visual thought. Central figure of contemporary Spanish abstraction, Uslé builds his practice from repetition, chromatic pulsation and the tension between abstraction and figuration, and in Grades That intimate universe comes to life through notebooks and papers that reflect his vision and his travels.
The launch coincides with the retrospective “Juan Uslé. That ship in the mountain”, which can currently be seen at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (until April 2026), an excellent opportunity to explore his work from the intimacy of his notes to the breadth of his public painting.
Juan Uslé. Grades
Author: Juan Uslé
Publisher: La Fábrica
Year: 2026
Pages: 304 pp.
Price: €42
store.lafabrica.com
