Soft skills are an incredibly popular topic right now, but they have always been necessary for everyone, even when they were not talked about so much. No artist could have achieved success simply by honing the ability to apply paint to canvas. Bosch was helped by the ability to tell a story (storytelling), Van Gogh was inspired by Japanese art (cross-cultural communication), and Dali skillfully created a personal brand.

Art critic Zarina Asfari suggests learning skills by observing great artists. You must admit, it is much more pleasant to develop customer focus in yourself, knowing how it helped Raphael win a place in the sun from Michelangelo and Leonardo. And it is much more exciting to practice creativity using the methods of the surrealists.

“You can be taught to prime a canvas, cast bronze sculptures, fly an airplane and read by someone who has mastered these skills themselves, and there are also instructions and textbooks. The skills of the future are more complicated: they cannot be taught on the principle of "repeat after me."

"The purpose of this book is to prove that studying the history of art can bring practical benefits even to those whose professional activity is far from high spheres. In the era of vast amounts of information that pours on us from books, social networks, blogs, the media and a great many lecture halls, the main resources are time and attention, and it is quite natural to direct these resources to something that not only raises the general level of erudition, but also brings some benefit."