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The Art of Faith 
 Exploring Sacred Images
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5 ~ Learn, Learn, Learn

8/16/2012

2 Comments

 
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Every painting is a voyage into a sacred harbour.
                                                                                                  --Giotto di Bondone

Giorgio Vasari, a Renaissance painter and historian, recalled how the painter Luca Signorelli advised his father.


“Antonio, have little Giorgio learn to draw at any rate so that he will not get even worse,” advised Signorelli. “This art, even if he applied himself to his literary studies, cannot fail to provide him with the same profit, honour, and delight it has provided to all worthy men.”

Then turning to the young Vasari, the old artist said, “Learn, little cousin, learn.”

As with all artists, young Renaissance painters studied technique through apprenticeships with older, experienced painters. They also learned by copying the great artists and reading a limited number of treatises written about art. For example, in the Middle Ages the monk Theophilus wrote On Divers Arts: The Foremost Medieval Treatise on Painting, Glassmaking, and Metalwork. During the Renaissance the painter Leon Battista Alberti wrote a manuscript, On Painting. As an adult, Vasari chronicled the lives of painters, sculptors, and architects, with insights to their working lives and methods.

With all the arts—painting, dancing, writing, weaving—successful practitioners begin with the basics. Devoting time and discipline to enduring techniques rewards later work. Skipping this step eventually degrades it.


2 Comments
Jeanette
8/21/2012 03:23:41 am

I love that learning, in great part, is practice--and in the arts, as in profession, learning and achieving is all about practice. Practicing seeing and hearing and experiencing and putting it on paper, or into whatever your medium. And I was thinking on that today when I read this and just before it something Leonard sweet observed that Jesus did: asking questions, twice as many (340) than the Gospels record him answering (183). Jesus, the great artist, practiced his art of listening and observing and seeing in order to give and restore and transform. I love that.

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Judith Couchman link
8/21/2012 07:21:32 am

Yes, I think we should always be learning, whether we're artists or not. The soul that doesn't learn and expand, withers.

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    Judith Couchman is an author, speaker, and college art-history instructor. Her recent book release is The Art of Faith: A Guide to Understanding Christian Images (Paraclete Press). Scroll down to view the book cover and video trailer.


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    The Art of Faith: A Guide to Understanding Christian Images by Judith Couchman. Click on the photo to purchase the book through Paraclete Press.
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    The Mystery of the Cross by Judith Couchman. Inspirational readings about images of Christ's cross and how early believers used and respected this sign. Click on the photo to purchase from InterVarsity Press.
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