To be fair the actual title of the book after the colon is “Lessons in Interpreting Light and Color”, and the book does talk about light and color. However, a lesson is supposed to teach something and there are precious few conclusions offered up by the author. She relies primarily on block studies which are simply value/temperature exercises that have no special relevance to the impressionist landscape any more than they might have to still life or portraiture. Block studies are a traditional teaching tool employed by the academic art community going back to the 19th century. Additionally, the author uses an extended palette which, in my opinion, is an anathema to the Impressionists’ approach. There’s not much meat here and what is has very little to do with landscape painting. If you want to acquire the book for examples of a particular style, then it might be worth the expense and does provide useful models to emulate in your own work. But, if you want a treatise on how and why she painted the way she did, it just isn’t here. At one time Ms. Griffel was affiliated with the Cape Cod School of Art* and perhaps (and this is a big perhaps) one could have enrolled to learn her technique.

I can recommend five contemporary books in lieu of this one that, while not specific to impressionism, can teach you more about landscape painting in a few hours than this one could in a lifetime. I would suggest “Landscape Painting” by Mitchell Abala, “Oil Painting for the Serious Beginner” by Steve Allrich, “Landscape” by Richard McDaniel, “Landscape Painting Inside and Out” by Kevin Macpherson, or “The Painterly Approach” by Bob Rohm. All have an instructional orientation, provide numerous demos, and advocate a basic palette. While they are in many ways different, they’re compatible and leave the reader with a strong sense of the fundamentals in approaching a landscape project. In a word they’re complimentary rather than contradictory and, in my opinion, each represents a significant step up from the material contained in this book.

* The Cape Cod School of Art had a long and rich history as an art colony and teaching academy going back to 1899 when it was founded by Charles Hawthorne. Upon his death in 1930 a student, Henry Hensche, acquired the site, re-named it “The Cape School of Art in Provincetown”, and operated it as an art training center until 1987 when he sold the buildings to Lois Griffel who subsequently re-opened the center under it’s original name. However, the facilities soon fell into disrepair and Griffel sold the structures and closed the center in 1993. Interested groups have tried to reestablish the school over the years, but have thus far failed. There was some hope that a former student group was being formed and planned on offering some type of curriculum in 2011, but I can find no record of that plan succeeding. It’s my understanding that Griffel had no involvement with the school after 1993 and currently conducts workshops at various locations.