British artist, designer, and critic Simon Morley applies an explanatory grid to the enigmatic, shifting, and multifaceted world of contemporary art, combining elements of rigorous systematicity with childish play. The work of twenty classic and luminary modernists and postmodernists, from Henri Matisse to Bill Viola, is examined from seven perspectives simultaneously: each artist becomes both the subject of intense and reverent attention and the target of skeptical criticism. A fascinating introduction to the analysis of artistic experience, 'Seven Keys to Contemporary Art' also serves as a kind of vaccine against blind idol worship.