The Museum Educator’s Manual ed. by Mary Lou Kelly (review)

Books 151 Opaque Watercolor. Wallace E. Turner. North Light Publishers, Westport, Ct., 1980. 127 pp.. illus. €14.95. ISBN: 0-89134-033-5. A D i r e c t Approach to Painting. Alfred C. Chadbourn, N. A. North Light Publishers, Westport, Ct., 1980. 128 pp., illus. €13.45. The Painterly Print: Monotypes from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century. Sue Welsh Reed et al. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1980. 261 pp.. illus. $37.50. Reviewed by James W. Davis* Turner and Chadbourn have each written how-to-do-it (or perhaps more accurately ‘how-I-do-it’) texts designed for the painting novice. Both books introduce the student to materials, composition, color mixing, paint application and the use of various traditional subjects. Turner stresses the importance of the actual experience of painting as a learning device, rather than a particular theory or aesthetic persuasion. Yet, perhaps without intending to do so, the author does represent a point of view, one, in fact, that is both narrow and conventional. The premise is based on the 19th-century plein-air tradition of the artist primarily involved with painting what he/she sees, rather than what is thought, felt or sensed. In an attempt to simplify content for the beginner, Turner occasionally makes faulty generalizationsthat belie his true preferences: “The greatest influence on color in painting by any group of painters was undoubtedly that of the French Impressionists” (p. 24). What of the Venetians, the Fauves or the Color Field painters? The illustrations in Opaque Watercolor lack the variety of compositional and color alternatives that would broadly introduce the student to such matters. There is an exaggerated stress on outdoor subjects and the use of extremely neutral colors such as drab greens and browns, even though the author urges the reader “to learn to see,to feel, to relax and enjoy what you are doing and have the courage to experiment”. A glossary of terms would help clarifythe technical concerns in books such as this. Many terms are not explained or clearly defined. While Turner is largely concerned with paint application, Chadbourn puts greater emphasis on composition. As such, A Direct Approach to Painting seems more suitable for the beginner in terms of the importance of the totality of the painting. Yet a section on ‘experimental’painting is very disappointing and little more than a token consideration of a few mundane tricks, such as pouring paint on limp canvas and letting it run into chance configurations. Chadbourn advocates learning from various artists, particularly a number of Old Masters, but underestimates the importance of encountering such works firsthand rather than through reproductions. As in Turner’s book, the problems of using illustrations limited to the work of one artist is evident. The author/artist refers several times to various properties of oil paint, such as blending, but the illustrations simply do not reflect the potentials of such painting methods. The brief section on mixing neutral grays with colors other than black and white is very clear and to the point. Other commentson color do not coincide with the illustrations, such asthejuxtaposingof admonitionsto ‘clean the brushes’ in order to obtain vivid colors with reproductions of murky colors! The Painterly Print is a catalogue to the first exhibition on the development of monotype prints. The show appeared at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (1980) and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (1981). The book contains essays by specialists in the field of printmaking. The essays trace the 17th-century origins of monotypes in the work of Rembrandt and Giovanni Castiglione to the present. In the broadest sense, a monotype is a printed painting, a one-of-akind work of art, involving the direct application and manipulation of media (usually ink or paint) on a surfacewhich isthen printed once.The painterly approach is thus distinguishable from other, more linear, forms of printmaking involving numerous complex steps, such as etching, dry point, mezzotint or woodcut. The spontaneity afforded by monotypes has been particularly important to artists working in an expressive or direct manner, such as Degas, Gauguin, John Sloan, Picasso, Matisse, Dubuffet, Chagall, Adolph Gottlieb and Jasper Johns. Variations on the technique...