Reviews for Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting

The average rating for Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-02-16 00:00:00 Bill Allen Regardless of whether or not you are painting landscapes , this is a good read for artistic advice and direction. His philosophy is that you can't teach "art", but that you can teach the technical skills intrinsic to all good art. "In painting we are apt to be very forgiving of poor technical performance" he says, "In good art, the results do not have to be 'explained.'" The fundamentals he proceeds to teach throughout the book are but the means to "the beauty that they are eventually to support." He proceeds to explain with very useful insight the aspects of design, light, perspective, color, composition, and other things. He describes not only the technical aspect, but the emotional and artistic dimensions as well. He talks about developing an "accumulation of emotions" that can help sort out the plethora of data nature throws at us to develop an idea or sense of the scene to paint. I was an art major in college, and I wish I would have had read this back in school. It has a lot of very helpful ways of thinking about one's painting. Quotes: "We must have design in a picture even at the expense of truth. You are using nature for your artistic needs." Aerial perspective: "It is the yellow that fades out of a landscape as it recedes from the foreground." "All things become cooler in color and lighter in value as they recede into the distance." Balloon Theory of drawing trees... "We must not train our brain to think with. Think of the bearing of such ranges of color and harmonies upon the main idea of our picture. Only, think with your heart!" (p85) "In order that we may appreciate the enlivening rhythm of a rhumba, it is not necessary to play a dirge in the next room." (p86) "I shall always hold that the mixing of color--its desired hue, shade or nuance--is the real thrill of painting." (p92) "His difficulty is that he has not visited the woods often enough to have acquired empirical knowledge or experience and the consequent accumulation of emotions." (p116) "Obviously enough, a "portrait" of the woods, a mere painted snapshot, is not wanted. A snapshot is not composed of accumulated emotions, but is a static statement of 1/100 of a second's duration. It is but one degree in the giant arc of eternity. Your picture must look like all the woods that ever grew, otherwise it is but a shell." (p116) "I call this striving and searching after something extraordinary to paint, the "tourist's idea" of painting. Do not be a tourist-painter." (p132) "If you must travel to paint, at least know that a work of art depends, not upon time nor place, but upon something that springs from the inner man." (p132) "When an artist singles out (from the heterogenous mass of nature's material) the subject he is going to paint, he does so by virtue of an instinct of knowledge he possesses as to that subject's pliability to his artistic needs. In other words, he brings an idea to the motif before him (or, you might say, the motif gives him an idea what his idea is). If you approach nature without some idea, she is merciless in the way in which she piles lumber in your way." (p133) "Truly, an artist's life is a responsible one, and one of sustained effort." (p133)

Review # 2 was written on 2011-04-04 00:00:00 Rg Allen Carlson just says it like it is. This is what art practice is all about; no happy mistakes; no fluffy remarks... just solid truths, knowledge and practice. A must for every artist's reference library.