Ernest Govett

Ernest Govett was an early 20th-century writer on art whose best-known book is Art Principles with Special Reference to Painting (1919). In that study, he set out ideas about painting, beauty, and visual illusion in a serious but accessible way, aiming to explain how people respond to works of art.

The preface to Art Principles also points to an earlier book, The Position of Landscape in Art, which Govett says had been published under a nom de plume. That detail suggests he was developing his views on art over a period of years rather than in a single volume.

Library and museum records also connect him with catalogues produced for the Canessa antiquarians in 1919 and 1924, where he is credited with descriptive material on Greek and Roman objects. Little confirmed biographical information about his personal life appears to be widely available, but his surviving publications show a writer deeply engaged with painting, aesthetics, and the interpretation of art objects.