Book Review: “The Composition of Outdoor Painting,” by Edgar Payne

by Dennis Babbit

When listening to the judges at most painting competitions or judged events, the top two points mentioned are usually overall composition of the work and its value structure.

Composition and the ability to structure your work on a flat surface takes time and practice to learn and understand. There are many good books on the market today that can help you build your painting composition skills. Here is one that was recommended to me several years ago.

Composition of Outdoor Painting, by Edgar Payne, was first printed in 1941, with the current edition printed in 2005 by DeRu's Fine Art in Bellflower California. Unfortunately, DeRu's is no longer in business, but this edition is available on the secondary market through a used bookstore or online.

Edgar Payne writes in his Notes on the Second Edition (1957)

“...Composition of Outdoor Painting was not presented as a treatise on Art, but is rather a short and concise handbook on the essentials of outdoor painting for the practical student.”

However, this 7th edition is really more than just words from that small paragraph. 170 pages more. Payne begins with his thoughts concerning an artist’s approach to art espousing the “love of beauty and enjoyment in its translation”. And he continues through several pages speaking of what should be known as the Approach to Art. While all of this is good information, due to Paynes style of writing it does seem to drag just a bit.

The most important parts of the book come in Chapters 2 and 3 as the author breaks down the basics of composition into Selection and Composition and then Types of Composition.

An example of the line thumbnail sketches showing different compositional structures

Using illustrations of paintings by various historical artists, the Selection and Composition section of the book delves into a breakdown and understanding of the use of balance, arrangement, natural composition, value ranges and other principles of composition. The use of grey scale illustrations and his notes and descriptions of these paintings helps the reader to understand the use of values in compositional development. This section is the meat and bones of the book and contains excellent viewpoints and instruction. Payne also makes use of many thumbnail sketches line drawn from paintings by many other artists to show examples of composition that he develops further in the chapter. This is one of the most useful aspects to this book and helps to make this subject understandable to artists of all skills.

The 3rd and final chapter is a study of the different types of composition. Payne breaks down the composition of a painting into what he describes as the “mechanical stem” or “iron pipe structure”, in other words the simplest structure. These designs are shown as “O” ,“S”, Triangular, Radiating Line, Group Mass etc. and Payne uses the same thumbnail sketches to illustrate the various styles available to the artist. These types of composition are what really stick in your mind as you design a painting in real life.

To complete this particular edition of Payne's book, his daughter Evelyn Payne Hatcher has written an excellent Addenda sharing additional information from her father’s notes and other writings. This part of the book is illustrated with black and white as well as color images of her fathers and mother’s paintings.

This use of thumbnail reference sketches throughout the book are what make this book a handbook versus a textbook. The artist can refer to it often for clarity and understanding. This is one of those books that the highlighter and pencil notes in the middle of a page come in handy for future reference. I highly recommend that you pick up a copy for yourself.