One of the best books on painting. Not just landscape painting, although that is all this book is about. You can tell this is a book written by an educator with 20+ years of experience, he is able to distill fairly complex ideas into understandable concepts. Chapter One sets the tone for the book. Simplification of Massing. Selection and Composition. Light and Color. This chapter gives a brief overview of where he is going. For those of you who are intermediate to advanced painters, you will find yourself alternately confirming long held unspoken thoughts and finding practical solutions to the unique problems presented by painting the landscape subject. For beginners, this is a book you will read many times and continue to gain insight as you gain experience. For painting is, in essence, an experiential process that needs an anchor of clear thought. This book is not only a how to (step one, step two, etc.) but a why do. How to books are easy to write as an artist, just photograph your work as you produce it. The why is much harder to write. For one thing it requires a lot more literary effort. ie. you need to have read a fair amount. There is no question that he he has been influenced by Carlson, Payne, etc. The book is filled with quotes from Hofmann, Monet, Maisel,...great example: "All color is no color"-Kenneth Clark. That is a perfect example of how this book is written for the intermediate to advanced painter. There is no way that would have made any sense to me as a beginner. It is only understanding composition and how color can be manipulated to move others through a painting. Know the importance of graying colors with complements to accentuate other colors. And the primary importance of value over color. (It took me ten years to learn that!!) You get the idea. Physically the book is beautiful. In an act of humility, his examples in the book are mostly from 36 other artist, many of whom are new to me. (I look forward to finding out more about some of these artist.) We see Chatham and Shils, a couple of modern day masters as well as Payne and Pinkham. Fantastic selection. We also get a nice selection of Mitchell's paintings, which are wonderful. The reproductions are top notch. This book is physically quite similar to Classical Painting Atelier by Aristides. Well thought out and well presented. It has been quite a while since I have seen such a book full of so much. Maybe Richard Schmid's was the last I found of such strong material.
Addendum: It has been mentioned that this is a book for beginners. That being the case, if one were to understand and implement successful all that is in this book, you would be well beyond a beginner.