Saturday, March 16th Live on Zoom
10am Los Angeles and Phoenix, 1pm NY & Toronto, 6pm London, 7pm Florence
Daniel Graves(American, b 1949) is a painter of figures, still lifes, and landscapes, an etcher, and the Founder of The Florence Academy of Art. Graves lives and works in Florence, Italy, his permanent home since 1978. He has posed the question: “What is the relevance of realist art in the 21st century?” and explores those answers at his academy in Florence. He notes that “Artists and teachers often talk of the masters who have inspired and influenced our work, and the classical ideals that have taught us to look equally at the great art of the past and to the real world of the present.” Daniel Graves believes that art based on classical tradition does not result in an imitation of nature but that the imitation of nature is a first step to making art – imitation, that is, in the sense of representing the world around us. The classically-trained artist strives to create beauty so that their art might achieve a universal significance. He asks, “When we stand looking into the eyes of a Rembrandt self-portrait, how much closer can we get to knowing the soul of another marvelous human being? Rembrandt’s hands mixed the paint we see, but what is actually before us is a blend of his image with ours and that of every human. There is no substitute for this experience.” In this Studiolo talk, Daniel Graves will speak with us of how he and his students in his Art Atelier explore beauty, craft, feelings, and ideas through their realist painting.
Graves graduated from the Maryland Art Institute and continued his studies at the Villa Schifanoia Graduate School of Fine Art in Florence; he later apprenticed under Nerina Simi who maintained a classical nineteenth-century studio there. With such a rich background of training, Graves has evolved a personal style of oil painting that adroitly fuses the classical heritage of Old Masters’ achievements with his own contemporary point of view.
To RSVP: Paola50122@gmail.com
Minimum suggested donation: $20
This talk is free for Friends of Paola's Studiolo!
Look forward to seeing you on Zoom!
Warmest regards,
Paola
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