Book Review: Classical Painting Atelier.

In all honesty, Aristides' Classical Painting Atelier was a let down.  The book's discussion of the formal elements of painting were extremely elementary and lacked substance.  For example, the book's color section only discusses Newton's color wheel and amateur color theory, unlike  Elliot's Traditional Oil Painting's section on color which provides a much more in depth discussion of color systems and harmony.  The only section really worth reading is the chapter devoted to composition.  The author compares the design of visual composition to simple music theory.  The author analyzes several masters' compositions using the armature of the rectangle including Vermeer, Velazquez, Ribera, Rubens, Titian, Caravaggio, and a few others.  I learned a great deal about the geometry and theory composition, though the other chapters of the book were not up to par.  While the reproductions of master works in the book are of superb quality, too often they are irrelevant to the author's text.  In short, I'd recommend you stray away from this book and instead read Virgil Elliot's excellent Traditional Oil Painting.