10 FEBRUARY 1855, Page 31

BARNARD ON LANDSCAPE-PAINTING IN WATER-COLOURS.*

This work cppeared in numbers, the first of which we noticed at the time of its publication. 'We then expressed distrust of all the stereotyped attempts to teach art by theories or precepts. The artist is the man who finds these out for himself, or practises them even perhaps unconsciously ; and the man who does not will scarcely produce anything to justify the elaborate teaching he may have received. Nature and Practice constitute the true firm for teaching landscape-painting ; critical or theoretical works on the subject being interesting to those who understand it, but not very effective for tutoring beginners. Waiving this general ob- jection, one may commend Mr. Barnard's book as the result of long practice and teaching, easily written, and replete with matter. Where it deals with strictly technical points, which it often does—as, for instance, in specifying the particular pigments to be used for rendering particular objects or effects—it comes to the legitimate range of artistic precepts, and the objection we have stated does not apply. The work is prettily got up : it is illustrated with plates printed in colour, and with wood-cuts ; the former, clever fee-similes of water-colour paintings, and possessing in other respects a facility and telling skill which will atone to most eyes for a want of the severer qualities of a designer. Altogether the book presents so much attraction as to be tolerably certain of a success.

• The Theory and Practice of Landscape-Painting in Water-Colours. Illustrated by a series of twenty-four Designs, coloured Diagrams, sad numerous Wood-cuts ; with two extra Prints on Simultaneous Contrasts. By George Barnard, Professor of Drawing at Rugby School ; Author of " Handbook of Foliage and Foreground Drawing," &c. Leighton Brothers' Chromatic Process. Published by Orr and CO.