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| How to Paint Like the Old Masters: Watson-Guptill 25th Anniversary Edition | 
 enlarge | Author: Joseph Sheppard
Publisher: Watson-Guptill
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $14.06
You Save: $10.89 (44%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (25 reviews)
Sales Rank: 113429
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 144
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 11.9 x 9 x 0.6
ISBN: 082302671X
Dewey Decimal Number: 751.45
EAN: 9780823026715
ASIN: 082302671X
Publication Date: September 1, 1983
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
25th Anniversary Edition!
* Classic painting book reveals the techniques of the Old Masters
* Packed with full-color demonstrations of 16th- and 17th-century oil painting techniques
Generations of artists have learned from How to Paint Like the Old Masters, the classic volume that explores the techniques used by the great artists of the 16th and 17th centuries. Now Watson-Guptill proudly presents the 25th Anniversary Edition. Each chapter is devoted to a different Old Master--Durer, Titian, Veronese, Caravaggio, Vermeer, Hals, Rubens, and Rembrandt--and is divided into two sections. The first part describes the artist’s techniques and discusses how artists can incorporate these methods within their own personal style. The second part is a full-color demonstration. Author Joseph Sheppard traces the artist’s working sequence, colors and mediums, surfaces and tools, as he creates a new painting. With today’s resurgence of interest in Old Master techniques, this unique, practical, and inspiring book is sure to teach countless artists exactly How to Paint Like the Old Masters.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 20 more reviews...
 Interesting, to a point March 31, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The book first goes into an in-depth discussion of the various mediums, varnishes, and colors used by Titian, Rubens, Durer, Veronese, Hals and Rembrandt. The author advises us to use Lead white, and to also make our own mediums using a messy boiling method. Several "examples" follow to fill out the book, where he does several paintings, in phases, to suggest perhaps how the old masters painted. It is a unique book, because there is a dearth of books out there on what techniques and materials the old masters really used. And Shepherd is a decent draftsman, as witnessed by his several excellent figure drawing books. However, I only recommend buying or borrowing this book if you are completely clueless on the topics of grisailles, glazes, lead white, and how blues and grays can be used in underpainting to bring out realistic flesh tones later when lighter
glazes or scumbles are applied. It is an introductory book only.
The big problem is that there is virtually nothing really written down by the old masters on what their techniques really were, other than anecdotal evidence. So the author is really guessing, and certainly says nothing about how these artists set up their compositions, or their use of models. Shepherd talks only about the mixtures and drying times. Watteau was said to have worked very quickly, finishing a painting in a day-- with a very dirty palette with lots of turps dripping all over--yet his paintings are gorgeous. Rubens, besides having assistants, apparently had some original ideas on how to paint "transparent" shadows, which gives his work a special glow. Titian said that he used "20 to 30" glazes (it's important to realize that the famous Venetian colorists always painted grisailles first). Certainly, the color mixtures that Shepherd employs should be taken with a grain of salt, because a sense of color is an intuitive, naturally-developed thing, and so it is only useful to know that they MAY have used madder and ocher to get a sort of flesh tone-we don't KNOW that they did.
The part about boiling mediums is too labor-intensive, expensive to order, and impractical to experiment with, and worse, there is no evidence that boiling your own mediums, mixing your own paint, or esp. using white lead will make your paintings "glow" like the old masters!
I used Titanium white and it is fine--Lead white is chalky and hard to mix without lots of medium, too much of which can make your work too wet
or sticky. It is also poisonous, and can seep into your skin. It's covering power and mixability is in no way superior to Titanium white, in my view (but better than other whites). Shepherd does, however, mention Maroger medium (Neo Megilp is the modern alternative), which is a sort of varnish-smelling "jelly" which allows a certain mixture and buildup of effects very attractive to certain artists who want their work to look like Rembrandt's. But Velazquez worked very thinly, using no such jelly at all, if you see his work close up (The Technique of Genius book).
In general, I give this book a low rating, because it is less helpful than simply LOOKING at close-ups of old master works. By looking at the surface of great paintings, you can discover many tricks, see how loose, crafty and bold they were, and then go back to your studio and try to keep that in mind when you paint. I certainly do not recommend seriously following Shepherd's step-by-step methods! which I think could actually be discouraging and harm your art, being so dogmatic and narrow. But as a book to simply peruse and familiarize yourself with perhaps how some of these old masters painted, it is fine.
A useful overview December 26, 2007
I bought this book based on the reviews here and I wasn't disappointed.
What was really good about the book was that the images shown are of a reasonable size. In many books the images are too small to really see the painting technique clearly. Each painting is also shown in quite a few stages of completion so you can really clearly understand the painting process being demonstrated. The descriptions given of each technique were also very clear and well written.
What I most disliked about the book was that many of the paintings in the book were done in the 1970s and so looked quite dated.
This is a great book, but I wouldn't recommend it for beginners - you need to know the basics of painting and colour mixing etc. first.
It doesn't give the final word on painting like the masters, I'm still interested in reading more about it, but this book was a great starting point and well worth buying.
 Wonderful 'how to' book on painting December 19, 2007
This is the only book I've every come across that completely demonstrates the techniques of several masters. The graphics are amazing and I like the fact that there are several sequential illustrations for each painting. Wonderful 'how to' book on painting like the masters.
 Shepard's Old Masters came from the 1970s March 17, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Joseph Sheppard's How to Paint Like the Old Masters is a good visual reference book especially for procedural figure painting techniques used by historical painters. The book explains how to start from a tinted or warm background, and the correct layering of highlights and colors, etc. Unfortunately, the author's illustrative examples are mostly of 1970-esque nudes that give little inspiration for painters to aspire toward.
Excellent but might not be the whole story December 6, 2006
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
The first thing that struck me as I browsed the book is the woeful quality of many of the images, with some being out of focus. This problem is also apparent in the other two books by Watson Guptill that I think compliment this one well. Kreutz "Problem Solving for Beginners" and Cateura "Oil Painting Secrets from a Master". If you are looking to paint in a realistic style in the vein of Caravaggio, Rembrandt etc. then you will find plenty of information in these three books.
However all three deal with technique and for me the ability to discern the brushstrokes is a critical part of the learning exercise i.e. is the artist using impasto or thinned paint? With these images it's impossible to tell. Hopefully WG will revisit each of these books and bring the images up to scratch.
Joseph Sheppard provides "how to's" allowing the reader to emulate the techniques of: Durer, Titian, Veronese, Caravaggio, Rubens, Hals, Rembrandt and Vermeer. Information on how to create specific paint mediums used by that particular artist, mixing paints, painting surfaces etc. He makes no claims that any of the information offered is absolute. As well as conducting his own studies on how to achieve a certain painterly effect he has also drawn on technical information published by the various "art experts" (listed in the bibliography).
Results of recent studies of old master paintings indicating that the current thinking on techniques might be wrong. The old masters would typically have a team of apprentices working alongside them, mixing paint, painting parts of the painting that the master was probably too bored to bother with (as well as good training for the apprentice) etc. The Master/Apprentice setup allowed for a continuous stream of knowledge being passed along the generations. However as oil paint technology advanced, in particular the ability to buy premixed paints off the shelf, the painter no longer needed a team of apprentices. He could pretty much get by on his own. Hence there was no longer anyone for the painter to pass on his knowledge to. This resulted in a considerable amount of technical knowledge being lost. (A good example is the recent theory promulgated by David Hockney that the old masters were able to paint such realistic paintings as they used rudimentary projection techniques to place a guide image on the canvas, overwhich they painted. No one knows if he is right or wrong).
From the 1800's on, technical experts such as Charles Eastlake ("Methods and Materials of Painting") and Max Doerner ("The Materials of the Artist") began to impart their wisdom on how the old master paintings were created. But the techniques thay had available were very rudimentary, more often than not being a case of the expert trying to reproduce a certain style and looking at the painting surface close up. The experts proferred their theories and techniques, often with much aplomb leaving no room for doubt. Unfortunately they were often quite off the mark - they could emulate a style somewhat but never 100%. There are too many variables involved even for a discerning eye. It has only been with recent advances in scientific analysis, chemical and visual, that a truer understanding of the old master technique is finally being determined. Van Wettering's excellent "Rembrandt - the painter at work" book details the findings of extensive research carried out on a number of paintings considered to have been painted by Rembrandt. The book is 340 pages, and they still haven't got all the answers. But what they have done is to throw in to doubt the theories and techniques of the 19th/20th C experts.
There is a welter of information in this book, but if you are trying to perfectly replicate a certain old master painterly technique, and failing to do so, then be warned the experts might not be such experts afterall.
All said and done, I do recommend this book for the wealth of information it contains. Numerous recipes for mediums, varnishes, mixing paints, painting surface etc., along with a well presented demonstration of each painters technique. This book might not quite get you to a 100% replication of the desired technique but it will certainly get you close. And as science uncovers more knowledge about the "real" techniques they can be applied here accordingly.
It is not a book for beginners - a rudimentary understanding of the oil painting process is reqd at minimum. Beginners might want to check out Brian Gorst's "The Complete Oil Painters" also.
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