How To Look At Modern Art

For those of you interested in how to look at art, particularly modern art, with a Catholic perspective might be interested in a lecture/guided museum experience I will be doing on the 23rd and 25th of this month. While the lecture will be at St. Margaret Mary's in Oakland, and the museum experience will be at the Oakland Museum of California, out of towners will be able to get the lecture, with links and bibliographic suggestions, via webcast probably available from the 20th on.

We will be discussing the problems of the definition of style, the problems of relying excessively on theories of art, we will touch on a philosophy of art, and we will take a close look at four paintings from the Oakland Museum's permanent collection. While the discussion will be geared to those with no arts background, even artists and art historians might be interested, because I take a radically different approach to looking at paintings than the standard orthodoxies of art history.

For those wanting to get a head start, I will provide a suggested reading list this weekend.

I have not finalized the paintings we will look at, but I am toying with:

1. A Thomas Hill painting of Yosemite from the late 19th century.
2. A Society of Six painting
3. Nell Sinton's Yukata
4. Richard Diebenkorn's Ocean Park #107.

First I need to make a preliminary trip to make sure that the selected works are currently on display (they generally are, but you never know when a curator will get the itch to do a cleaning or a rehang), but if you want to sneak a peak, these are what I am thinking of.

The lecture will be in the evening, and the museum experience will be in the morning, with discussion continuing through lunch (bring your own or get one at the good museum cafe), and possibly meandering into the afternoon, if people are interested and have the time. There is no charge for the lecture or to go on the trip, but you will have to take care of your own museum admission.

The material is geared towards adults, but any teenager/advanced pre-teen with an interest in the material and a good attention span should have no problem.

Also, particularly for teenagers, but adults are welcome, I am teaching a beginning drawing class in March. Details later, but the course will pretty much follow a classical model, with 1, 2 and multi-point perspective, use of basic drawing media, modeling by shading, and will culminate with a landscape drawing field trip. Motivated 10-12 year olds will be allowed to take the class as well as teenagers and adults. I will try to keep the equipment list to a minimum to economize.

Why learn to draw? First, it is fun and rewarding. With basic drawing skills you will be surprised at how far you can get. Second, I am convinced that having some basic drawing skills is essential to really understanding art.

But wait, you say, I have no talent for art! I believe that any reasonably intelligent person with reasonably functioning eyes and normal eye-hand coordination can be taught to draw. I cannot guarantee that anyone can be a great artist, and painting is a skill that takes years to master and is generally self-taught, even with the assistance of teachers. However, with some basic training, anyone should be able to convey the illusion of depth and to capture the basic contours of an object.

Both classes/events are under the auspices of the St. Anthony of Padua Institute.

If you want any more information feel free to email me at EKeilholtz [at] aol [dot] com or to call me at 510.261.9596.

Posted by erik at February 3, 2006 12:04 AM