Old Masters & Current Teachers

It is absolutely impossible for me to separate out contemporary art  from the work of the old masters, as I am viewing these historical relics from the viewpoint of a member of Generation X in current times. These  works are still as inspirational within the modern Digital Age as they were when they were originally created.

It was love at first sight when I first gazed upon  this piece at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas on a field-trip in junior high school. I was so taken aback by the work, all noise in the room fell silent and my soul literally stumbled in recognition of a this great master, even though I never heard of him prior to our chance meeting. I remember lagging behind my group just so I could stay with the piece as long as possible and placing my nose so close to the canvas I could see each literally see each individual stroke the brush had made.

El Greco, Christuskopf

In high school I had studied the French Language quite rigorously and was delighted to learn, upon transferring to a new school in a more rural setting, that their third level coursework consisted of exclusively exploring the art history of France. It was at this time I became familiar with Manet and Van Gogh whom I love for their bold use of color and ingenious mastery over material. I began to also see the genius of Toulouse Lautrec's simplicity and came to admire his ability to transform his talent into a means to support himself through commercial advertising, much like Warhol did years later.

In college, again kismet intervened when I found myself in Michael Fenton's Art II class at Front Range Community College. He introduced me to Caravaggio, Bernini, Klimt, Schiele and Sargent and the love affair that began so many years ago only grew deeper.

Last year one of my best friends, Rachael Browning, and I took a trip to London and Paris with the sole purpose of looking at art under the guise of becoming more familiar with graduate school opportunities abroad. This  adventure proved to be one of my most profound. While I have always looked at most of the historical iconic images either through a slide presentation of a reprint in a dusty schoolbook, I was profoundly struck by how the paintings and sculptures I visited had an energy and presence all their own. One which was untranslatable unless you stood with them in their space waiting for them to speak to you on a level so deep it could only be understood by the soul. It was then and there that my mind was made, on attending the Courtauld Institute of Art, the best part being that I could visit their prestigious gallery as well as the National Gallery at any time, free of charge.

One of my favorite television programs  EVER is Simon Schama's series on the BBC, The Power of Art's examining the life and work of the original (and my personal favorite) bad-boy artist Caravaggio: