THE CRAFT OF THE PAINTER

Practical Problems of the Portrait Painter, by Janet Robertson (Darton, Longman & Todd, 25s.) is NOT a book on how IL to paint", say the publishers, but it is a book from which something of the craft of the portraitpainter may be learned.
Among the plates arc five photographs of watercolour portraits by the author, and they show great skill and patience in the handling of this intractable and (for portraits) not. altogether suitable medium, though in a somewhat tight and laboured style. This need not deter students with a different approach; the hook applies to portraiture in general, irrespective of medium, even to portrait photography: but it is more for the painter whose primary aim is to produce an acceptable cornmissioned portrait. and whose models will be such as Edward Halliday, James Gunn and Sir Gerald Kelly, than for those who merely use the model as a theme and who will look rather to Cazanne and van Gogh.
The author presents the results of her long experience on such subjects as pose and viewpoint. lighting, dress, backgrounds and the use of photographs (which she does not favour). This is the lore which in olden days would have been absorbed by the apprentice in the studio of the master, but which today the student must pick up where and when he can.