Recommended Reading

Below is a list of many of the great books that artists and thinkers have written over the years, books that have influenced our thinking about how we draw and paint.

Drawing

  • Harold Speed. The Practice and Science of Drawing. Dover, 1972
  • Gerald Ackerman. Charles Bargue and Jean-Leon Gerome: Drawing Course, ACR, 2007
  • Robert B. Hale. Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters. Watson-Guptill,1964
  • Rex Vicat Cole. Perspective for the Artist. Dover, 1976
  • LeCoq de Boisbaudran. Training the Memory in Art. Macmillan,1911
  • John Vanderpoel. The Human Figure.  Dover, 1958

Painting

  • Ralph Mayer.  The Artist’s Handbook. New York: Viking Penguin, 1991.
  • Charles Eastlake. Methods and Materials of Painting of the Great Schools and Masters. Dover, 1960.
  • Massey, Robert.  Formulas for Painters. New York: Watson-Guptill, 1988.

Figure & Portrait Painting

  • Harold Speed. Oil Painting Techniques and Materials. New York: Dover, 1987.
  • Solomon R. Solomon. The Practice of Oil Painting.  London:  Seeley, 1911.
  • John Collier.  A Manual of Oil Painting. Lulu.com, 2006
  • Nicholas Beer. Sight-size Portraiture. Crowood Press 2010
  • Schmid, Richard. Alla Prima.  South Burlington, VT: Stove Praire Press, 1998 .

Still Life Painting

  • Marianne Roland Michel. Chardin.  Abrams, 1996.
  • Quiet Magic: The Still Lives of Emil Carlsen.  Vance Jordan Fine Art, 1999.
  • Norbert Schneider. Still Life. Taschen, 2003.
  • Gretchen Hirschauer. Luis Melendez: Master of the Spanish Still Life . Yale, 2009.
  • David Leffel.  An Artist Teaches- Reflections on the Art of Painting.  Bright Light, 2003.
  • Alan Chong. Still-Life Paintings from the Netherlands, 1550-1720.  Waanders Publishers, 1999.
  • Edward Lucie-Smith.  Fantin-Latour.  Phaidon, 1977.

Anatomy & Écorché

  • Paul Richer. Artistic Anatomy (R. Hale. Trans.) Watson-Guptill, 1971
  • Stephen R. Peck.  Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist. New York: Oxford, 1982
  • Eliot Goldfinger. Human Anatomy for Artists: The Elements of Form. Oxford, 1991
  • Victor Perard. Anatomy and Drawing. Dover, 2004
  • Edward Lanteri. Modelling and Sculpting the Human Figure. Dover, 1985

Humanities

  • Joshua Reynolds. Discourses on Art. Yale University Press, 1997
  • Robert Henri.  The Art Spirit.  Basic Books, 200
  • Hans Georg Gadamer. The Relevance of the Beautiful, Cambridge, 2007
  • Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns eds. The Collected Dialogues of Plato.  Princeton, 2005.
  • Dante Alighieri.  The Divine Comedy. Trans. Sinclair.  Oxford, 1961.
  • David Bevington ed.  The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.  Longman, 2008.

Landscape Painting

  • Edgar Payne. The Composition of Outdoor Painting. Bellflower, CA.: DeRu’s Fine Arts, 2006.
  • John F. Carlson.  Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting.  Dover, 1973.
  • Birge Harrison. Landscape Painting. New York: Scribners, 1909.
  • Rex Vicat Cole.  The Artistic Anatomy of Trees.  Dover, 1965.
  • F. J. Glass.  Sketching from Nature.  B. T. Batsford, 1926.
  • Peter Galassi. Corot in Italy: Open-Air Painting & the Classical-Landscape Tradition. Yale, 1996.
  • Averil King.  Isaak Levitan: The Lyrical Landscapes. Philip Wilson Publisher, 2004.
  • Ralph Sessions ed. The Poetic Vision: American Tonalism.  Spanierman Gallery, 2006
  • Geoffrey Smith.  Arthur Streeton 1867-1943.  National Gallery of Victoria, 1995.
  • Ruth Westphal ed.  Plein Air Painers of California: The North.  Westphal, 1998.
  • Ruth Westphal ed.  Plein Air Painers of California: The Southland.  Westphal, 1998.

Composition

  • Cyril Pearce. Composition: An Analysis of the Principles of Pictorial Design.  Barsford, 1927
  • Henry R. Poore. Pictorial Composition & the Critical Judgement of Pictures. Putnam, 1903
  • Edgar Payne. The Composition of Outdoor Painting. DeRu’s Fine Arts, 2006
  • Charles Blanc. The Grammar of Painting and Engraving. Trans. Kate Doggett. Griggs, 1879
  • Arthur W. Dow. Pictorial Composition. University of California Press, 1997
  • Albert Boime. The Academy and French Painting in the 19th Century. Phaidon, 1971
  • Fritz Henning.  Concept and Composition.  North Light, 1983
  • Andrew Loomis.  Creative Illustration. Titan Books, 1947

Art History

  • R. A. M. Stevenson. Velasquez. George Bell and Sons, 1899
  • Kenyon Cox.  The Classic Point of View.  The Classical America Series.  W. W. Norton, 1980.
  • Evan Charteriers. John Sargent. Scribners, 1927
  • Ernst van de Wetering. Rembrandt: The Painter at Work. Amsterdam University Press, 1997
  • Arthur K. Wheelock. Vermeer and the Art of Painting. Yale, 1995
  • Damien Bartoli with Fred Ross. Catalogue Raisonné on William Bouguereau (1825-1905). Art Renewal Center, 2010.
  • Weinberg, Barbara. The Lure of Paris.   Abbeville, 1991.
  • Elizabeth G. Holt ed.  From the Classicists to the Impressionists.  Yale, 1966.
  •  Jonathan Brown.  Velasquez: The Techniques of Genius. Yale, 1998
  • William Rothenstein.  Men and Memories: Recollections, 1872-1938. U of Missouri, 1978

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