Online Mini Art Lesson 15
Museum Copying
(Article below
by me on EzineArticles.com reprinted below)
Oil Painting Art Course: Learn to Paint Copying Paintings
in Museums or Home, Michelangelo Did
By Barry Waldman
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni's father sent him for formal
schooling, but Michelangelo preferred copying paintings in churches. He
later befriended arts and studied with some of the great painter and
sculptors of his time. But he thought that he could learn more by copying
the masters.
In museums around the world, you can see artists creating copies paintings.
In Louvre in Paris, you can see a stream of artists copying their great
paintings. Copying masterpieces has been a cornerstone of traditional art
education for a long time. In fact, one art course you can take at The New
York Academy of Art in New York City, NY, USA consists of students walking a
few blocks to The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA) and copying paintings.
That is the course!
I have done copies of paintings at MMA New York City of oil paintings by
Theodore Gericault (French Romantic Painter, 1791-1824) and Diego Rodriguez
de Silva y Velazquez (Spanish Baroque Era Painter, 1599 - 1660).
Artists at MMA who want to make copies make a request to MMA's Education
Department. The Museum allows artists to get exclusive use for a month to
one room or gallery in the museum to do a copy of a specific painting. The
public still has access, but only one artist is allowed to copy in that
gallery. I highly recommend your doing the same.
Museums vary in permitting artists to do copies. In New York City, USA, the
MMA does, but the Frick Collection and the Museum of Modern Art do not.
Check with your museum.
How it works varies from museum to museum, but generally, you apply, get
permission and follow that museum's rules. For example, in the Louvre, and
other museums, painters are not supposed to use the same size canvas as the
original. You can't eat or drink in the museum, must use a canvas drop cloth
on the floor where you paint on an easel and you must clean up thoroughly
after every session. Some museums offer copyists locker space to leave their
paintings and gear at the museum instead of bringing everything back and
forth each day you want to copy during your month access to a painting
gallery.
If you can't afford to go to an art school because of time and/or money,
learn from the masters. If you can't get to a museum, copy the great
paintings from reproductions. If you can't get reproductions, you can find
them in library books or on the web.
What you can learn from copying the masters? Everyone is different in their
ability to extract information from art instruction textbooks, videos or art
classes. By copying a masterwork, you can learn something about the artist's
technique, handling of paint, use of color, composition, form, drawing and
so on.
Can you learn from copying great paintings? Michelangelo thought so.
The author has painted and taught for 50 years and has had over 30 art
exhibits of his paintings. My USA based online art school has students in 19
countries. I have taught art classes at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and
Manhattan, USA, Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut, Famous
Artists Schools in Westport, Connecticut, USA. I have also lectured on
various art subjects all over the USA and in Holland, Belgium, France, South
Africa and Australia.
My online interactive art school is at:
http://www.interactiveartschool.com
Links to
people, images mentioned in article are at:
http://www.interactiveartschool.com/linksEzine.html
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Barry_Waldman
http://EzineArticles.com/?Oil-Painting-Art-Course---Learn-to-Paint-by-Copying-Paintings-in-Museums-Or-Home---Michelangelo-Did&id=2472926
(Above is the title
of an article by me
by me will be
published on
www.EzineArticles.com
...following images are related to the
article, but are not part of the
published article on EzineArticles
Just below: My copy
done
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York City, USA of an oil
painting by Theodore Gericault
(French Romantic Painter, 1791-1824)
Just below: My
copy
done in
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York City, USA of an oil painting by
Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez
(Spanish Baroque Era Painter, 1599 - 1660).
The portrait by Velazquez is of his
apprentice is titled "Juan de Pereja"
Great story that goes with my copy of "Juan de
Pareja" ...I was copying it in the Metropolitan Museum, when a woman and
her daughter (about 9 or 10)
entered the room. The little girl walked up next to me and watched me
paint, her jaw dropped open as she looked from me to the painting to the
Velazquez to her mom seated nearby
...after a few of these look-arounds, she tugged at my sleeve and said
"yours is better".
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