Alla Prima by Al Gury - Book Review by Aidan Hickey

Proverbially, to judge a book by its cover is a bad idea. Not so with Alla Prima. The textured jacket is beautifully printed, with a still-life by Arthur DeCosta on the front... and an interior by Jon Redmond on the back.                                          

All expectations created by this were, for me, satisfied by the contents.

The author, Al Gury,  is Head of the Painting Department of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. In his Introduction he defines alla prima as “direct painting”... where... “the artist works with a great deal of improvisation ... on a single, continuous layer of paint, usually applied opaquely without the use of glazes, scumbling or other layering effects...”    

The book offers a series of lessons exploring this process as it is applied to the genres of Portraiture, Figure-painting, Still Life and Landscape. There is also a thorough survey of Materials... of Colour... and of Technique.   In each area the approach is practical...  Every painter must study tradition... and discover what’s available now... Then, after the obligatory phase of trial-and-error, he/she must decide what’s best for his/her purposes.

Throughout... the explanations are detailed and the illustrations copious. Experienced practitioners of alla prima painting will find much that is of interest here... but, I suspect, no great revelations. Oddly, it is us “indirect” painters who are most likely to benefit from Gury’s teaching. His approach to the alla prima concept is not doctrinaire. He stresses the fact that many of the greatest alla prima painters did not (and do not) complete their work in one, wet-on-wet session. Expanding on the earlier definition, he describes processes that involve considerable reworking of the image... and may even include glazing or scumbling. Working thus, a painter can retain considerable control of the concept, while achieving liberated, painterly effects. This may be no more than a statement of the glaringly obvious... It is, after all, how Rembrandt, Rubens, Velasquez and many of the greatest Masters worked.   But, as described by Gury, it seems like a viable option for ordinary mortals.

One of the bonuses of Alla Prima is its ancillary material... on the teaching tradition of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art... and on painters associated with that tradition. If the book had no other claim-to-fame, I’d remember it as the place where I first saw reproductions of work by Jon Redmond, Carolyn Pyfrom and Alex Kanevsky.  And... a 6 page Foreword by Malcolm Richards, offers a more complete account of the history of “direct painting” than some authors achieve in 100 pages. 

Finally, there’s wise advice on how to use Museums.  The only thing I’m dubious about is Gury’s claim that his book is... “to be used as a general studio manual for the student and the practicing artist.” 

Well... I like it far too much to risk taking it down from the shelf while I’m painting. Many excellent books I do like to consult have ended up spattered and stained. I intend to protect Alla Prima from that sad fate.