PAINTING LANDSCAPES: A Grading System of Eighty-Two Criteria

Grady W. Amy is an artist whose interest is realistic landscapes. Early on, he found that information for developing a good landscape painting was sparse, imcomplete, disorganized, and scattered through many books and magazine articles. Most books were page after page of colored landscapes with very little detailed explanation for showing the pictures. He began to study prints of paintings that sold well. He also found common characteristics in paintings that sold above $10,000. It is almost as if a few artists had a formula for a successful painting. It is this formula, which he was determined to decipher and write down. He published his findings in this 71-page book. The book addresses 26 categories made up of 82 criteria. His objective is to explain these characteristics to the reader without the need for an expensive book of colored illustrations. The purpose of the grading system is to make more objective the decision making process of judging the quality of a painting.