Classical Realism
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Classical Realism is an artistic movement in the late-20th and early 21st century in which
Origins
The term "Classical Realism" first appeared as a description of literary style, as in an 1882 criticism of Milton's poetry.[1] Its usage relating to the visual arts dates back to at least 1905 in a reference to Masaccio's paintings.[2] It originated as the title of a contemporary but traditional artistic movement with Richard Lack (1928–2009), who was a pupil of Boston artist R. H. Ives Gammell (1893–1981) during the early 1950s. Ives Gammell had studied with William McGregor Paxton (1869–1941) and Paxton had studied with 19th-century French artist, Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904). In 1967 Lack established Atelier Lack, a studio-school of fine art patterned after the ateliers of 19th-century Paris and the teaching of the Boston impressionists. By 1980 he had trained a significant group of young painters. In 1982, they organized a traveling exhibition of their work and that of other artists within the artistic tradition represented by Gammell, Lack and their students. Lack was asked by Vern Swanson, director of the Springville Museum of Art, Springville, Utah, (the exhibition's originating venue), to coin a term that would differentiate the realism of the heirs of the Boston tradition from that of other representational artists. Although he was reluctant to label this work, Lack chose the expression "Classical Realism." It was first used in the title of that exhibition: Classical Realism: The Other Twentieth Century. The term, "Classical Realism", was originally intended to describe work that combined the fine drawing and design of the European academic tradition as exemplified by Gérôme with the observed color values of the American Boston tradition as exemplified by Paxton.
In 1985 Atelier Lack began publishing the Classical Realism Quarterly, featuring articles written by Richard Lack and his students to educate and inform the public about traditional representational painting. In 1988 Lack and several associates founded The American Society of Classical Realism, a society organized to preserve and promote fine representational art. The ASCR functioned until 2005 and published the influential Classical Realism Journal and Classical Realism Newsletter.
In a separate vein, another major contributor to the revival of traditional drawing and painting knowledge is the painter and art instructor Ted Seth Jacobs (born 1927), who taught students at the Art Students League and the New York Academy of Art in New York City.[3] Their lineage is rooted in the Académie Julian, the Golden Age of Illustration in New York, and the School of Paris. In 1987 Ted Seth Jacobs created his own art school, L'Ecole Albert Defois in Les Cerqueux sous Passavant, France (49). Many of Jacobs' students such as Anthony Ryder and Jacob Collins became influential teachers and acquired their own student following.[4]
Style and philosophy
Classical Realism is characterized by love for the visible world and the great traditions of Western art, including
Classical Realist painters have attempted to restore curricula of training that develop a sensitive, artistic eye and methods of representing nature that pre-date
A central idea of Classical Realism is the belief that the
Like the 19th-century academic models from which it derives inspiration, the movement has drawn criticism for the premium placed upon technical performance, a tendency toward contrived and idealized depictions of the figure, and rhetorical overstatement when applied to epic narrative.
Schools
The Classical Realist movement is currently sustained through art schools based on the
Under the atelier model, art students study in the studio of an established master to learn how to draw and paint with realistic accuracy and an emphasis on rendering form convincingly. The foundation of these programs rests on an intensive study of the human figure, renderings of plaster casts of classical sculpture, and the emulation of their instructors. The goal is to make students adept at observation, theory, and craft while absorbing classical ideals of beauty.[9]
Atelier schools
Atelier schools founded in this tradition include (in chronological order of founding):
- Kraków Academy of Fine Arts, Krakow, Poland (1818)
- Laguna College of Art and Design, Laguna Beach, California (1961)
- Atelier Lack., Minneapolis, Minnesota, (1969)
- Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts, Old Lyme, Connecticut (1976)
- Charles H. Cecil Studios, Florence, Italy (1983)
- Gage Academy of Art, Seattle, Washington, (1989)
- The Florence Academy of Art, Florence, Italy and Jersey City, New Jersey (1991)
- Academy of Classical Design, Southern Pines, North Carolina, (2000)
- The Grand Central Atelier, Long Island City, New York (2006)
Notable artists
- William McGregor Paxton (1869-1941), painter
- R. H. Ives Gammell (1893-1981), painter, author
- Pietro Annigoni (1910–1988), painter
- Everett Raymond Kinstler(1926-2019), painter
- Richard F. Lack (1928-2009), painter, author
- Harvey Dinnerstein (1928-2022), painter
- Burton Silverman (born 1928), painter
- Richard Schmid (1934-2021), painter
- Samizu Matsuki (1936–2018), painter
- Nelson Shanks (1937–2015), painter
- Richard Whitney (born 1946), painter, author
- Ned Bittinger (born 1951), painter
- D. Jeffrey Mims (born 1954), painter
- Raymond Persinger (born 1959), sculptor
- Jacob Collins (born 1964), painter
- Igor Babailov (born 1965), painter
- Graydon Parrish (born 1970), painter
- Abbey Ryan (born 1979), painter
- Richard T. Scott (born 1980), painter
References
- ^ S. Birch, The Educational Times. Vol. 35, No. 249, January 1, 1882, page 294.
- ^ Mahler, Arthur; Blacker; Carlos; Slater, William Albert. Paintings of the Louvre, Italian and Spanish, Doubleday, 1905, page 26.
- ISBN 0-8230-2768-6.
- ISBN 0-8230-0303-5.
- ISBN 0-9636180-3-2.
- ^ a b Panero, James (September 2006). "The New Old School". The New Criterion. Vol. 25. p. 104.
- ^ Kimball, Roger: "Why the Art World Is a Disaster", The New Criterion, Volume 25, June 2007, page 4.
- New York Sun. Retrieved November 30, 2017.
- ^ ISBN 0-8230-0657-3
External links
- The Legacy of Richard Lack
- Slow Painting: A Deliberate Renaissance (Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, 2006)