- My Rembrandt copy, 4 weeks in
As part of my summer improvement, I took a course at Laguna Gloria Art School, “How to Paint like the Old Masters – Made Easy!” Paint a Rembrandt in only 4 weeks, said the description! What they don’t mention is that it’ll take at least a year or two of diligent painting to finish your shoddy imitation Rembrandt, but it only took one class for my mind to see the numerous possibilities created by knowing this technique.
For one thing, it’s totally abstract. With each pass (you only do one color at a time, darks, lights, or mids, and wait a week for it to dry before the next), the portrait is broken down into the shapes created by the light, not a nose, eye, chin. The process is more like sculpting, really, as color barely comes into it and each coat is a thin layer that is mostly taken back off, so as not to leave a single brush stroke or glob. The thought was that through prolonged time and work, the artist would be able to bring out the light of God in their subject.
What really got me thinking during the process what how much PROCESS is involved. Not to discount the artistry that separates Rembrandt (or Jesus, Vermeer, the other guy I’m hopelessly trying to copy) from his unremembered peers, but that an accountant, an engineer, a housewife can take this course and get anywhere close to a 17th century painting just by showing up every week is somehow comforting. The myth I carry around about modern painting is that there have to be constant jolts of insight, moments of clarity when the artist knows exactly what to do and it all falls together in a few perfect strokes. This is a lot like beginning meditation and hoping for that one moment of enlightenment. While that moment will come, it’s impermanent, unsustainable, and can become the bar for every meditation after. The real transformation comes with sustained effort – not sexy, not mythical, just plain old hard work with focused attention.
This is not to say I’ve thrown my modern painting out the window – I love working for those moments of clarity when everything is finally just easy and right, but it’s good to have a back-up plan for the days when they muses are on holiday.
The class, by the way, is offered regularly at Laguna Gloria and taught by Katherine Turner Mays. Her website is here.