Customer Reviews

Composing Your Paintings (How to Do it)

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I love this little book. I agree that the illustrations are smallish and less colourful than many one finds in glossier tomes, but the information within the pages of this book is priceless. I learned more about composition from this man than I had learned in 5 years at art school and many, many books since. His analysis of a Turner image opened my eyes, and left me reeling to think I had been taught nothing over all those years, about this subject. I think the book is a little gem and would recommend it highly. As a tutor of many years standing now I will say this however. Learning to paint is a slow process, and learning about composition and good design an important part of the process. You may be ready for some of the information; you may not - you cannot rush the learning process, and sometimes, what you learn is impossible to put into practice ...until suddenly one day the penny drops. One thing is for sure...every word written by this superb painter is worthwhile listening to, he is, after all, a Royal Academician, and that accolade is not given to Sunday painters!

Some information on the book: It's a small 6"x9" text with 95 illustrations - four of which are in color. Contents are 1) Can composition be learned. 2) Some Aspects of composition - The Linear framework, Tonal Structure and pattern, Colour, Rythms and movement, Curved movements, Repetition 3) Composition and Observation - Working from nature, Respect for the subject 4) How a composition can grow 5) Some different kinds of composition 6) A note on perspective

Images are small and come from three sources - the author's paintings, sketches explicitly made for the book, and a few paintings from better known works. The author does reference the figures frequently and discusses many points about them and their composition.

I simply didn't care for the book. There's more actual discussion of composition than I see in a lot of today's books on the subject, but the quality of the discussion and the images lead me to give it a thumbs down. I'd recommend either a recent book or one of the more highly regarded and recommended books of the time (or earlier).