The Arts
As we noted in our overview, what is referred to as "modern" art - which, of course, no longer is modern in any sense - was a bizarre abberation imposed upon Western culture by the CIA and the aesthetically illiterate - but deep-pocketed and politically influential - Rockefeller family. We're not alone in our wholesale rejection of it: even at its cold war peak, a number of artists world-wide wanted nothing to do with it, and the public simply rejected it outright.
More recently, however, Fred Ross of the Art Renewal Center, and the atelier movement more generally, has gone some way toward undoing the damage done by American fascism. Ross has commented:
The atelier approach to art education has its roots in the guilds of the early Renaissance. For more than five hundred years, master artists transmitted a system of knowledge to their students. This tradition reached its zenith in the second half of the nineteenth century, when ateliers prepared thousands of accomplished artists to paint in dozens of different styles on countless subjects. Skill-based teaching in the nineteenth century was centered on observation of nature, sound artistic principles, and universal themes. Aspiring artists obtained the technical ability, personal commitment, and philosophical views needed to create great art. The impact of Enlightenment thinking, with its respect for human rights and equality before the law, allowed art to expose the evils of slavery and child labor as well as to promote women's rights and other social issues. This new democratic way of thinking, in conjunction with unparalled classical training, ignited the greatest period of creativity that the fine arts had ever seen.*
We agree. Since Enlightenment and democratic ways of thinking are anathema to fascism and corporatism, it was inevitable that humanistic art would find itself in the Rockefeller and CIA cross-hairs. (With Trump, the Bushes, and their billionaire backers, democracy itself has been the crosshairs for some years now).
However, as astonishing as the achievements of the nineteenth century were, the 21st century has the potential to outshine them. Numerous computer, camera, and film-based tools have thrown open the door in a myriad of ways that can be utilized by contemporary artists in unprecedented and highly valuable ways.
The one area that has still not kept up, however, is that of the philosophy of art, or aesthetics. For all of its technical competence, contemporary philosophy nevertheless languishes in the ditch. The shadows of the confused and abberant school of postmodernism still hangs like a pall over many endeavers; and aesthetics, in particular, is still suffering from the elementary philosophical errors of Arthur C. Danto and others. To remedy this, we've provided an essay in aesthetics to help further clear the way for a 21st century Renaissance.
To create great art what is needed most fundamentally is a clearly focused mission. No matter how great the technical facility, no matter how powerful the tools, no matter how prodigious the creativity of the individual artist, or how superbly analytical his or her eye may be, great art will remain rare and largely accidental while artists remain confused about what it is that they are up to. Unfortunately, nearly all artists are, today, seriously confused about their most basic mission.
Most fundamentally, artists are teachers of human sensibilities and awareness. This supremely important aim cannot be carried out by textbook or lecture. It is the great task of art to tell us what it means to be human - and indeed even what it could and should mean. If what artists have to tell us is trivial, their art will also, inevitably, be trivial - just as even the most gifted teacher will be reduced to ineffectuality if he or she is deficient in a deep understanding of their subject matter. At bottom this is why "modern art" is almost invariably lousy art: it has very little indeed to tell us. No matter how original, no matter how daring, it is nevertheless vapid and trivial. When you've seen one Rothko or Pollock you've more or less seen them all. The viewer comes away from the experience untouched and unchanged. If modern art was soup, it would be a kettle of water with a grain or two of salt - and perhaps even a grain or two of arsenic.
The most basic fine arts skill is drawing. A few good books and videos are available for the teaching of technical mastery. There are also magazines that teach various techniques. However, because the philosophy of art has not kept pace with other developments, what is invariably missing is the broader conceptual framework. Fortunately, this framework is present to a far greater degree than is usual in two books by Juliette Aristides: Classical Drawing Atelier: A Contemporary Guide to Traditional Studio Practice and Lessons in Classical Drawing: Essential Techniques from Inside the Atelier.
Aristides knows masterful drawing when she sees it, and Classical Drawing Atelier, in particular provides wonderful aspirational examples for the fine arts student. One reason that America lagged so far behind Europe in its earlier years was that students simply didn't experience the inspiration provided by really great art. To this day, most American art museums are filled with strange assortments of crafts, historical artifacts, and awful, minimalist art. The result is anything but inspirational. Even when the visitor turns to the museum art store, s/he typically encounters a few collections of bland works by impressionists, or peculiar exercises by the foolish and incapable. Classical Drawing Atelier makes up for this deficiency by providing its own museum in small compass. It also fills in the historical background to atelier practice.
Lessons in Classical Drawing is far more didactic and instructional, and is printed in a smaller format, but it too provides some examples of excellent drawing. Of the two, however, it does far more to actually teach drawing. The book includes a companion DVD, which helps fill in the gaps that printed instruction alone cannot address.
A third book by Aristides, Classical Painting Atelier, moves on from drawing to painting, where issues of color come in for the first time. She outdoes herself here in providing a really finely curated gallery of exemplary images (including two by Odd Nerdum, whom we rate as the greatest painter of all time, but who is unfortunately little known in the US).
More advanced instruction, and enormously inspirational examples, will be found in Virgil Elliott's Traditional Oil Painting, perhaps the single best one-volume compendium of fine arts instruction currently available.
We will review all of these books in greater depth in the near future, as well as advice on setting up an atelier at home. We commend them even to film makers and choreographers as film and dance are, or can be, fine arts images extended in time - and an analytical eye is needed in these cases, too. Even composers can benefit, to some degree, by a reading of these books, as the fundamental aims remain the same throughout all of the arts.
Our essay on aesthetics may be found here.
* Fred Ross, foreward to Classical Painting Atelier, by Juliette Aristides
Art Renewal Center URL: https://www.artrenewal.com
Artists will find there this link to ARC-approved teaching ateliers if they wish to undertake formal training. The present author has had some training of this nature, and strongly commends it for all aspiring artists. There is much that simply cannot be taught in any other way than through personal interaction and insightful critique.
