Drawing on the National Gallery's comprehensive collection of religious images, A Closer Look: Saints explains the importance of saints and their role in the history of European painting.

Erika Langmuir underlines the fundamental importance of saints in many of the National Gallery's paintings and, using examples of works by Raphael, Durer, and Crivelli, among others, explains the sometimes puzzling conventions for identifying saints by their attributes. She also describes how saints became part of the institutions of the Christian church, the different types of saints, and the increasing importance of saintly relics in the Middle Ages. And she provides an introduction to a wide variety of personalities, from the ambiguous penitent Mary Magdalen to such revered figures as Saint Jerome and Saint Francis of Assisi.