THE TIMELESS CIRCLE OF MASTERS
(of art)
Usually most people think of the great masters of the Renaissance when asked about their favourite artist. Others look more to the recent past or even to the present. But knowledge of art history is very sketchy among most people and even among many artists who have not gained from the vast amount of knowledge that art history contains. So, the solution is to study art history?
Well, yes, but no, not necessarily. You can subscribe to my blog and to my YouTube channel (www.YouTube.com/@FranciscoBravo Cabrera) and I think you will learn enough. That is if you are simply a lover of art. But if you are, or aspire to be, an artist, then you should study art history, as well as painting, drawing and other techniques. Education and preparation is essential for an artist.
So, let us look at what I am calling the “timeless circle of masters.” These are greats that not many dispute their inclusion in such a special group:
Leonardo da Vinci – mindful, experimental, the searcher
Michelangelo – impetuous, powerful, indefatigable worker, mystic
Rembrandt van Rijn – light and human truth.
Diego Velázquez – visionary, technical perfection, spiritual quest
Johannes Vermeer – seeking the light and its impact on the world and people
Francisco de Goya – painter of reason, nightmare and social criticism
Claude Monet – the birth of perception as art.
Vincent van Gogh – emotion as flame and colour as the medium
Pablo Picasso – inventing new ways to create, innovations, the search without end
I would say, unequivocally, that all of these, (whether I like them or not), redefined the meaning of a painting, or what painting was before them. They did not only work through their good taste and the search for beauty but of art being.
Here are some more that some art historians would probably add to the above “super” group:
• Caravaggio – light, darkness, and violence turned into revelation
• Frida Kahlo – capitalising on being a “martyr”
• Sandro Botticelli – a true maser of light, colour, image and greatness
• Salvador Dalí – self-agrandising, narcissist, non-genius who called himself a genius
And although these painters are now famous, some of them were not famous in their time, although some, like Velázquez and Goya excelled in the courts of kings and Michelangelo was commissioned by popes to decorate churches…
Some would say, and I would agree, that fame is only the faintest reflection of what truly matters in art…
Most of the “greats” did not live to chase recognition. On the contrary, their search, their quest was for truth, light, and the feeling of art, and used a canvas, or a wall, to find themselves within that search. Painting is seeing, and one must see with honesty and if you accomplish that, then you will walk the same path of the great ones even if only a few people know your name, or no one at all. As an artist you add colour to the world and things that did not exist before you picked up a brush, dipped it in paint and placed it on a surface. And that is no small thing. It is a search and it is the expression of what you found.
I have heard it say that, «Art is the quiet echo of the soul made visible. It asks nothing but attention, and in return, it teaches us how to see ourselves and the world anew.» I can subscribe to this statement only if I can add that art is also an academic/professional pursuit which demands of the student/artist education, preparation, discipline and good taste. And also the hunger to exhibit, sell and live off of his art. Art, can also, like a soft brushstroke across still water, stay with you if you let it…
So you, yes, you, what are you chasing in art?
CHEERS
JaZzArt en València 