Publisher's Synopsis
Anything that this author has to say on the subject of outdoor sketching will command the attention of all those familiar with his distinguished work in this field, and there can be no doubt that the book is one of the most valuable that have yet appeared on this branch of art. From the pen of a man like the late F. Hopkinson Smith we would expect, however, more than a merely academic treatment of the methods and problems of the worker in water-colors and charcoal, and it is a fact that the boundless enthusiasm of these pages arouses latent sensibilities in the reader, and renders intelligible to the layman, as almost nothing else could, the vivid fascination and significance of all art. It is for this quality that the volume is most to be treasured.
The treatment of outdoor sketching is here so free from technicalities as to make itself absolutely clear to the most untutored reader, while the beauty of the style lifts the book out of the class of manuals into the realm of creative literature. Then, too, the author regards his subject in the light of a sport as much as of an art or study. Everywhere we run up against the irresistible fun and rapture of the thing.
Among the works which stimulate in the ordinary man a healthy understanding of art, works which educate us in the joy of it, the librarian will surely give this "Outdoor Sketching" a high place.
-The Book Buyer, Vol. 39
