Every time I go to the National Art Gallery I come across something new (which is actually old) like this. (Georges Michel - 'Stormy Landscape with Ruins on a Plain', after 1830.)
Last week I picked this book up for 30 quid in a second hand store:
Amazon product ASIN 0847846598
I thought I'd wasted my money a bit until last night, when having smoked a joint I leafed happily through it for hours and hours. The reproductions are often quite large, and of such high quality that you can see the brushstrokes/texture. (I know I sound a bit like someone talking about their HD TV here, but a) that can't be helped and b) I love HD TVs.) It's also great because the explanatory notes are segregated from the pictures, so that you can really look at the pictures without worrying about what this bit represents, what school this painter belonged to, etc. And really looking is the hardest part of all AFAIC (just as really listening can be with music, when you're a music nerd.)
Anyway, factors like this allowed me to become really absorbed in the pictures, like when I was a kid looking at a picture book.
I'm in mortal peril now of spending all my money on massive art books that you could conceivably bludgeon a man to death with.
Definitely want to see that Hockney exhibition before it closes. I've never had the religious experience in front of a Rothko that others describe, but I probably haven't been trying hard enough. A little philistine that lives in my head keeps whispering 'it's just some colourful rectangles' in my mind's ear.