Pen Drawing and Pen Draughtsmen: A Classic Survey of the Medium and Its Masters (Dover Fine Art, History of Art)

This book is not for everyone. However, if you are attracted to, and want to understand more about, the drawings of such artists as Martin Rico, Joseph Pennell, and P. G. Jeanniot, then you must have this book. The featured drawings are large enough and reproduced with enough resolution to study. Mr. Pennell's critiques and observations are straightforward and pull no punches. I will highlight, underscore, and annotate my copy until it is worn out, I'm sure.

This is a good collection for your Kindle for under seven bucks. The scans are of acceptable resolution, and there is a lot of material. The writing is a bit stilted, but informative in places.

A great book if you are interested in the history of Pen and Ink drawing. Shows many drawings of different artists.And what you can do with this medium.

This is a good book for those interested in viewing and studying classic pen and ink drawings, mostly of the 19th century. There is a good number and variety of illustrators and their work represented here. On the downside, the drawings are not numbered nor captioned (with a few exceptions that are captioned but not numbered). One must look to the index of illustrations and page number to determine the artists and title (if any). Several full page drawings are inserted seemingly at random as extra unnumbered pages throughout (at least in my copy), printed on the recto side and blank on the back side. These are not included in the index of illustrations and it is a mystery as to where they belong and who drew them. Also none of the works are dated. This book was originally printed in 1920 and Mr. Penell was apparently on a personal mission of diatribe against all "modern" trends away from the traditional classic pen drawing methods of the 19th century. Please read the Preface in the "Look Inside" view to see the tone he sets because this is what you will encounter throughout the rest of the book. That said, if your main interest is in seeing and studying some great conventional pen and ink drawings, this is a very good source. I would give the illustrations four stars (five if they were properly captioned and referenced), but Mr Penell's ongoing rant is barely tolerable and deserves only one star at most.

Well illustrated review of the many ways draughtsmen have reproduced their subjects in fine detail. The most valuable pages of this book are in its last part in which advice is given to the would be pen and ink artist on how to proceed in the creation of a work.

Some of the material was collected from other books, quite pricey for Dover publication.

It's a art critique n survey written in 1920, a very straightforward one. He tells how draughtsmen should draw keeping in mind reproduction (in accordance to that time ).Explain how true line drawin shd be wh is a basic art,introduces known masters like Rico, whistler, Rembrandt, Lalanne, Durer n also many less known artists to us.Full book is filled with such great artist's work and his views and critique on them.His views on so called lsts and lsms r worth reading as he says van gogh, mattise, guguin the big names as duffers and many work by these as artless, states such lsts and lsms are made to hide their incompetence and to run away from difficulties;for that matter he shows few DRAWING of these men and asks reader to decide if it is art with true painstaking draughtsmenship n beauty.Says all these r failure's business n money making nexus n gimmicks.I think 1 has 2 read this 2 understand.will shake ur belief on many artists like for Franklin booth he says he wasted his time and energy though he made extraordinary n good pen drawing as d effect he achived would easily getable by scratch board.Overall great book with great pen drawings,and his urge for true art as he concludes we r learning only tricks but where is d art,n that too in 1920!!; and now today we r seeing tricks teaching courses,tutorials online n physical;worth of thousands of rs and dollars,and people are happy posting their works on soc media after giving many mechanical and computerised special effects.Pl note this is not tutorial type book,one has to see & understand.Note = printing of all illustrations r of good quality.

THIS IS MAINLY A BOOK ABOUT EARLY 20TH CENTURY ILLUSTRATORS AND DRAUGHTSMEN INCLUDING THE AUTHOR HIMSELF WHO WAS VERY ABLE AND WHO IS VERY CRITICAL ABOUT SUPPOSED MASTERS OF DRAWING LIKE MATISSE AND THE EXPRESSIONISTS.THERE ARE SEVERAL BRILLIANT DRAWINGS BY NOW LESSER KNOWN ARTISTS WHO WORKED ALL OVER EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES.THIS IS THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE AND PITHY SURVEY OF INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY DRAWING OF THE FIRST PART OF THE CENTURY.THIS IS NOT AN ANTHOLOGY OF GREAT MASTER PEN DRAWINGSBUT THE BEST ARE MENTIONED ARTISTS SUCH AS CLAUDE LORRAINE REMBRANDT LEONARDO DA VINCI AND SO ON.THE BOOK IS A LARGE REPRINT AND THE QUALITY OF THE PLATES IS GOOD BUT NOT THE SAME AS FACSIMILE REPRODUCTIONSIN THE LATEST MONOGRAPHS ON REMBRANDT ETCTHE AUTHOR WRITES WITH GREAT AUTHORITY AND EXPERIENCE .HIS PRINTS OF THE BUILDING OF THE PANAMA CANAL ARE WELL WORTH SEEKING OUT

One of the very best on this subject, Thankyou

The book is huge and full of pen and ink drawings, most of the drawings are big and clear,I was however disappointed that all the drawings are very finished, there are no sketches or preparatory drawings.The author says in the first few pages that he made the choice to include only finished drawings to show what skilled draughtsmen can/could do in the medium.If you want to study old master pen and ink drawings(Raphael, Rubens, Pontormo etc) this book probably isn't what you're looking for, it isn't a bad book but I find the type of drawings in the book dull, this is just my personal opinion and others may love the style of drawing that the book is full of.

Excellent book.