What Painting Is

I was hoping for an interesting discussion of the physical, psychological and perceptual nature of painting. Instead Prof. Elkins' book is a dense, turgid, self-indulgent deep dive into his personal model of painting as alchemy, with alchemy defined as nothing remotely like the generally understood definition. You're going very far down the rabbit hole with this book.Not remotely useful for practicing painters. Probably helpful if you're trying to write a post-doc paper in critical theory and want to cadge a few notes on how to mimic the form.

This is an advanced academic text consisting of seven essays through which the author attempts to "communicate the experience of painting beyond the traditional vocabulary of art history" using historical descriptions of alchemy as an allegorical "magical language" for exploring his subject. Huh? Elkins leads the reader on imaginary journeys through the heads of painters as they paint, alchemists as they conjure and tinker, and what sensations abound in an art studio. I hope Elkins had fun doing that because I didn't have fun trying to read this. You don't need to read a dense and opaque 246 page textbook to gain mystical insights into the experience of painting. Buy some art supplies instead and do some painting for yourself.

We get it, you exhaustively linked painting to alchemy. Do yourself a favor and do not spend money on this book and certainly do not waste your time reading it.

The binding of this book is shockingly bad. Pages started to fall apart just from flipping them, which is unacceptable for a book that costs 60$.

Very good essay on what makes a great painting beyond the image. The parallel between Alchemy and Painting makes you understand the search , trudging through materials a painter goes through in order to produce the miracle of a good painting.Particularly interesting for painters