>>> Artistic Techniques Seminars
Lecture
Over the centuries, painting techniques and forms of expression have expanded considerably in variety and complexity. In the twentieth century, painting freed itself from exclusively figurative requirements, and some artists developed what is commonly called abstraction. Even today, figurative and abstract art are often set against each other as though separated by an unbridgeable divide. This lecture will show that the two forms are only apparently opposed. We will document how abstraction has always existed throughout art history: it was not introduced in the twentieth century. Rather, a change in attitudes toward abstract forms allowed abstraction to gain recognition as a distinct artistic genre alongside figurative painting. By surveying different modes of expression, we will seek the deeper elements shared by these apparently opposite genres, which are closely connected.
Seminar
The seminar consists of a sequence of exercises, one for each expressive form identified in our morphological studies. These exercises help participants broaden their expressive vocabulary and discover which forms suit them best and which deserve further investigation and experimentation. The aim is to provide a wider and more complete range of expressive means, without judging one form better or worse, suitable or unsuitable, and without steering participants toward either figurative or abstract painting. Traditional art education rarely values all forms of expression equally: it usually favours certain approaches over others and thus directs students toward their teachers’ personal tastes.
Seminar topics
Who can attend
For anyone who wishes to explore the different expressive approaches available in painting. Maximum participation: 15 people.
Duration
The seminar lasts 16 hours across Saturday and Sunday, plus a two-hour lecture on Friday evening.
Fee
The fee for each seminar is agreed upon with those interested.
Download workshop information sheet (PDF, Italian)
Lecture preview
Le forme espressive come traduzione delle energie vitali
If we consider the variety of impulses received through the external and internal senses (including coenaesthesia and kinaesthesia), we find that although all of them take the form of electrochemical stimuli registered in the peripheral nervous system and encoded in the central nervous system, and may be experienced as bodily vital energy, we still need to identify their sources with some precision. Visual, auditory, positional, movement-related and thermal stimuli, among others, give rise to different kinds of images, not only visual ones.
This interpretation of how consciousness internally represents sensory stimuli derives from the studies carried out by Silo and his collaborators from the 1960s onwards, described in his works on Humanist Psychology.
Using this psychological and existential understanding of the workings of the human psyche, we have studied the different forms of pictorial representation in relation to stimuli and their visual expression in painting.
These studies have helped us identify what different forms of expression have in common. We have distinguished nine broad types. Understanding the differences between their expressive and inner functions allows us to appreciate both their shared and distinctive qualities, with the aim of experimenting with and using as many artistic “languages” as possible.
An artist who can use these forms more consciously is better equipped to adapt their work to communicative and expressive purposes, because they possess a broader and more deliberate command of pictorial means. Like an actor, a painter who has studied these forms can draw freely on the tones and nuances of formal and chromatic language, without becoming trapped in a single style through an inability to manage its various aspects.