Another Canvas.
I was very fortunate to have parents that encouraged my artistic skills.
When I was just a preen I joined the local art league who every month had a guest “painter” to demonstrate their particular painting skills. Now you have to realize, this was back in the days when painters were “schooled” in painting, unlike today, when anyone with a set of paints, canvas and brush thinks they are a painter.
After I received my BA I attended a master’s program in painting at Otis Art Institute. The instructors at Otis were all amazed at my painting skills. “Very painterly, you should be teaching this class…” they would say, and “where did you learn that?”
It’s not unlike someone wanting to become a concert pianist studying with a professional concert pianist. Unlike so many other “arts” today, you can’t just buy a piano and expect to play at Carnegie Hall.
But I was trained, and as such I consider myself to be a competent painter. I am “painterly”, as I like to say. I have learned many painting techniques that, from what I can tell, have not been taught to a great extent anymore.
Way back when, artists apprenticed to a “master” who taught them their art and technique. Michelangelo didn’t paint the Sistine Chapel alone, much of the work was done by apprentices. Sorry to be the one to tell you!
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. There are many types of artists. I would like to think that all are born with talent, and by chance, because of a parent or teacher who recognized it, nurtured that talent and made them great. Take Mozart, for example. He was writing music at the age of six! His father was a very talented composer (who was quickly overshadowed by his son), who gave Wolfgang Amadeus the proper support and education to develop his skills as both a composer and concert pianist.
Unfortunately, Mozart didn’t have a manager, publicist or an agent to properly exploit him, like so many, not so talented people do today.
It used to be that the arts were supported by heads of state (kings, queens, the church or wealthy merchants, and so on) who not only felt an obligation to make sure that these talents were recognized, but supported as well. And they commissioned works from these artists, and hung them where they could admire and appreciate them.
If you research any number of “the masters”, be it artists, composers, musicians or to a lesser degree writers (after all, have you ever had to deal with a writer?) you’ll find that up to the late 19th century, almost all were supported by the wealthy elite, who relied on who they trained with and their own talent. And they didn’t invest in the artists because they thought that the art was an asset, they did so for the aesthetic value of the work.
Picasso was a classically trained painter. Once he knew the rules, he then broke them. He is one of a number of artists that came from the school of knowing the rules and then breaking them to explore their own vision of what the world had become. He was probably the first to “get” the modern idea of using the mass media to exploit his work, and have representation in retail art galleries across Europe and ultimately abroad.
It was Andy Warhol who really figured it out. He made an art factory. Borrowing on the masters of the past, he had a warehouse of artisans, craftsmen and technicians who executed his ideas in mass quantities appealing to a hungry largely uneducated in art masses who would buy his work in mass quantity and lesser quality not because they liked the work, but saw it as an investment. And so the mold of modern art has forever been cast.
And so it goes for all but a few who manage, despite the challenges of the mass muddled mess of the media and hype, who do actually rise to the surface because of their true talent, not because some P.R. firm has said so, but because they are truly talented, and make it in the world.
But, we can only wonder if there is another Mozart out there, who has been born into our moronic school system that has to put everyone into the same test score box, because it’s not designed to recognize a child’s talent, simply that child’s ability to remember the rules, how is he/she ever going to be discovered?
We can only hope, is there still new thought out there that can learn the rules and figure out how to break them?
I was very fortunate to have parents that encouraged my artistic skills.
When I was just a preen I joined the local art league who every month had a guest “painter” to demonstrate their particular painting skills. Now you have to realize, this was back in the days when painters were “schooled” in painting, unlike today, when anyone with a set of paints, canvas and brush thinks they are a painter.
After I received my BA I attended a master’s program in painting at Otis Art Institute. The instructors at Otis were all amazed at my painting skills. “Very painterly, you should be teaching this class…” they would say, and “where did you learn that?”
It’s not unlike someone wanting to become a concert pianist studying with a professional concert pianist. Unlike so many other “arts” today, you can’t just buy a piano and expect to play at Carnegie Hall.
But I was trained, and as such I consider myself to be a competent painter. I am “painterly”, as I like to say. I have learned many painting techniques that, from what I can tell, have not been taught to a great extent anymore.
Way back when, artists apprenticed to a “master” who taught them their art and technique. Michelangelo didn’t paint the Sistine Chapel alone, much of the work was done by apprentices. Sorry to be the one to tell you!
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. There are many types of artists. I would like to think that all are born with talent, and by chance, because of a parent or teacher who recognized it, nurtured that talent and made them great. Take Mozart, for example. He was writing music at the age of six! His father was a very talented composer (who was quickly overshadowed by his son), who gave Wolfgang Amadeus the proper support and education to develop his skills as both a composer and concert pianist.
Unfortunately, Mozart didn’t have a manager, publicist or an agent to properly exploit him, like so many, not so talented people do today.
It used to be that the arts were supported by heads of state (kings, queens, the church or wealthy merchants, and so on) who not only felt an obligation to make sure that these talents were recognized, but supported as well. And they commissioned works from these artists, and hung them where they could admire and appreciate them.
If you research any number of “the masters”, be it artists, composers, musicians or to a lesser degree writers (after all, have you ever had to deal with a writer?) you’ll find that up to the late 19th century, almost all were supported by the wealthy elite, who relied on who they trained with and their own talent. And they didn’t invest in the artists because they thought that the art was an asset, they did so for the aesthetic value of the work.
Picasso was a classically trained painter. Once he knew the rules, he then broke them. He is one of a number of artists that came from the school of knowing the rules and then breaking them to explore their own vision of what the world had become. He was probably the first to “get” the modern idea of using the mass media to exploit his work, and have representation in retail art galleries across Europe and ultimately abroad.
It was Andy Warhol who really figured it out. He made an art factory. Borrowing on the masters of the past, he had a warehouse of artisans, craftsmen and technicians who executed his ideas in mass quantities appealing to a hungry largely uneducated in art masses who would buy his work in mass quantity and lesser quality not because they liked the work, but saw it as an investment. And so the mold of modern art has forever been cast.
And so it goes for all but a few who manage, despite the challenges of the mass muddled mess of the media and hype, who do actually rise to the surface because of their true talent, not because some P.R. firm has said so, but because they are truly talented, and make it in the world.
But, we can only wonder if there is another Mozart out there, who has been born into our moronic school system that has to put everyone into the same test score box, because it’s not designed to recognize a child’s talent, simply that child’s ability to remember the rules, how is he/she ever going to be discovered?
We can only hope, is there still new thought out there that can learn the rules and figure out how to break them?
