Hawthorne on Painting

This is the painters bible. No matter how many times you reread this book, you will always find something poignant. I have been teaching painting for over 18 years on the college level and I have found this book to be the best. It is the only book you will ever need to understand light color and design in realistic figurative and landscape painting. Forget those expensive, glossy, overpriced edtions. Hawthorne was a master and you have his wisdom for only ($$$). I am on my fifth copy. The other four just wore out.

There are very few books to help painters (even fewer for sculptors) that are of any real use. This is the only book, of which I am aware, that sucessfully deals with the challenges of outdoor painting in an honest (i.e. non stylized in terms of hue and value) manner. Hawthorne encourages his students to de-emphasize drawing and focus on learning to see and mix colors of the proper hue, intensity and value. He insists that it takes very little drawing information to convey a figure or landscape (even the time of day and weather) if the relationships among the large regions of various colors are correct. Yes, Hawthorne does repeat himself regarding "the mechanics of putting one spot of color next to another - the fundamental thing". Obviously he considers this paramount, but there is so much more in this small, inexpensive book. Here are a few examples: "The only way to learn to paint is by painting. To really study, you must start out with large tubes of paint and large palette and not stint in any way as far as materials go" ... "Always be looking for the unexpected in nature" ... "Know when you are licked - start another. Be Alive, stop when your interest is lost" ... "Don't be too reasonable, get a little bit excited" ... "Put on one or two traces of pure color as pace setters" ... "hold up the black handle of your palette knife to compare it with the darks in the subject" ..."You are too careful-but, of course, you can never be too careful. I expect you were careful about the wrong thing." Bottom line, it's a great book packed with useful advice by a real painter/teacher. You will have to read it carefully, think, and be open to new ideas, in order to really learn from it, but you can't do better for advice on honest, representational, outdoor painting.

Having purchased Louis Griffel's "Painting the Impressionist Landscape," which illustrates Hawthorne's way of "seeing things", I was delighted to find this little gem which compiled Hawthorne's comments on painting. This small volume is packed full of wisdom. One can imagine sitting with Hawthorne as he describes the various paintings, their good and bad points. There are no illustrations in "Hawthorne on Painting" but Griffel's book provides ample opportunity to see what he was saying. The two together provide a wonderful look into Cape Cod Impressionism. Hawthorne models with paint instead of drawing with it on the canvas. Form is achieved through proper color value placed side by side. The book is truly inspiring for any painter.

I read the entire book in one sitting and was amazed at the content. I can only imagine what it would have been like to study with Hawthorne. This book has Hawthornes narratives as well as his critiques. I wish they had included pictures of the works being critiqued, that would be so much more useful. but as it stands it's still a great book. It's something you can read over and over. I was suprised how much of his advice applies to life in general, not necessarily painting.

Easily the best book ever written on painting from life. In addition to Hawthorne's excellent commentary on painting, the book contains comments that he made on his students' paintings. These works are not shown (only briefly described) but the notes offer tremendous insight into his teaching philosophy about the importance of color relationships in paintings. No other book I've ever read is as juicy as this one with pure painting common sense. An absolute must for a painter's library. In fact, order a dozen and give them to your artist-friends or students.