TOPICS: IN-DEPTH TRADITIONAL PAINTING TECHNIQUES in Fall 2018 (AR3091)

This class is a complement to the course “AR1020, The Materials and Techniques of the Masters.” As the title suggests, this course offers a deeper approach to the main traditional techniques used for 2-dimensional representation in Western Art. This class will help students understand the possibilities and limitations of chosen techniques through exercises of reconstitution. Students will reproduce every different stage for the making of a piece of 2-dimensional art, from preparing the support to the last layers of paint. During the semester, she/he will have to use techniques and materials as similar as possible to those that were used in the original artworks that each student will study in the museum collections of Paris. This practical, in-depth approach to learning traditional painting techniques will allow students to better understand the constraints and needs of selected Western artists active during different time periods. Further, students will gain a better understanding of the qualities and weaknesses of the painted works that have been left to us.

Program:

Since Antiquity, the human figure is one of the most commonly used themes in art. Human bodies are as present on the walls of churches as they are on decorative panels or in private pictures. While working with this subject, students will use three of the major historical painting techniques found in Western Art: buon fresco on a wall, tempera on panel, and oil on canvas. They will have to prepare all the different materials needed for these three techniques and will learn the proper methods for sound painting practices. Students will see how to prepare different supports, how to prepare gesso or plaster, how to polish surfaces before painting, how to transfer drawings, how to grind colors and how to use various paints correctly. Methodologies will be studied through historic treatises on painting, by considering and discussing contemporary studies, and through analyses of paintings. Thanks to t