>>> Seminars on Observing and Studying Art
Lecture
For many people, knowing how to draw and paint means knowing how to see. Yet learning to observe requires training both intellect and body to turn towards the world of things. Looking, therefore, is not merely a biological and natural act: it is intentional, an act in which consciousness directs itself towards discovering what it does not know or only intuits. Knowing how to observe means, first of all, understanding ourselves and using our body as an instrument of investigation. Perception is usually guided by the recognition of elements needed for biological and social survival, whereas observation in art is activated by other needs, not strictly related to survival. For this reason, artists develop their senses in breadth and depth. This lecture reclaims the ability to observe with all the senses—with the ears, nose, heart, stomach and so on. This new, integrated way of perceiving is a characteristic of the discipline of Transcendental Art, which calls this mode of sensing subtle perception. The lecture will examine the structural characteristics of this way of observing reality.
Seminar
The seminar puts different ways of observing into practice, allowing participants to experience how the whole body, and therefore all the senses rather than sight alone, is activated in perception. We will carry out various exercises in perception and in translating what we discover through subtle perception into painting, integrating and expanding our ordinary way of seeing. Ultimately, the aim is to discover new worlds in places we have always looked at without noticing the infinite reality hidden behind every thing.
Seminar topics
Who can attend
For painters and draughtspeople. Maximum 12 participants.
Duration
The seminar comprises 16 hours over 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
Vedere con il corpo
In recent decades, much attention has been devoted to the organ of sight and to the brain’s role in decoding light signals. This has essentially led us to understand that vision is far more complex than the mechanics of the eye, which are more or less similar to those of a photographic camera.
What the physiology and neurology of vision cannot explain are all the phenomena of active participation in constructing the reality we observe. A classic example is perception in altered states of consciousness under the influence of strong emotions, when the world and the spaces around us appear unusual. We must therefore distinguish sensation—the data reaching the senses—from perception, which is the particular way consciousness structures these data. In a state of confusion or danger, we notice elements that we would not see during ordinary daily activities. These shared observations show us that the perceptual system par excellence is not the senses themselves, but consciousness and the brain that processes their signals. Seeing with the body means including the sensations of all the other senses in vision. Figuratively speaking, this means taking account even of a stomach ache, for example, and of all the factors that act simultaneously upon what we see.
Having established this inseparable relationship between observation, the overall state of the body and the state of consciousness, we must ask which psychophysical condition is the most open and profound for observing the world with an artistic gaze. How does the painter’s or draughtsperson’s way of looking at the world differ from ordinary seeing?
These differences can be studied and expanded through exercises in perception. We call the exercises we propose subtle perception because they aim to grasp nuances and elements that are usually overlooked in the act of looking.