This is not a conventional course about art history. It is not about art ‘movements’ or ‘isms’. It is not about subject matter. It is not about composition, nor is it about the artists and their lives or their patrons.
It is about technique. It is about noting and sharing the thrill of the artist’s experience, his or her sheer concentrated excitement at the moment of creation as a single brushstroke of paint arrives on an expanse of canvas.
Even if you are not an artist you may have experienced painting a wall. You may be familiar with the viscosity of paint: load a brush with paint, wipe away the surplus, catch the drips before they fall, allow the bristles to grasp the thick oozy liquid. Draw the brush across a canvas or a prepared board, across paper, metal or wall, and these surfaces will be transformed, forever. Now, vary even one factor in your stroke: be it the colour, the direction you take, your pressure on the brush, etc., etc., and a profound transmutation occurs. Each action of a brushstroke whether humble, cautious, or bold is capable of producing a vast panoply of possibilities for the painter to follow! Through all levels of consciousness, from the most impulsive gesture to the most constrained motion, each stroke can transmit a mighty range of emotions- from love to hate, from gentle acceptance to burning resentment, from rigid fear to grateful surrender, from passion to chilly indifference, from deepest sorrow to bright joy.
All these actions, positions, qualities and emotions can be expressed by the brushstroke, without it ever representing a single thought or object from the world as we know it. It is that distinct autonomy of the brushstroke, a world unto itself in individuality, this truly alive and expressive nature of a brushstroke, which this course will examine.
In Part I of this course, 8 February-16 March 2023, we followed the development of the visible brushstroke in the hands of Titian, then Rubens, through to Delacroix and Courbet. We saw how the active and visible brushstroke could overturn academic expectations. We examined the ways the individual and the collective brushstroke draw us directly into the creative process.
In this second part of ‘Strokes of Genius’ for summer 2023, we experience even greater thrill as we watch how artists from the Impressionists to the Abstract Expressionists infinitely varied a wider choice of brushes and made strokes sing for their supper. Whether presenting water, skies, topography, skin, costume, light, space, colour, the perceptible effect of the strokes themselves independent of ‘subject’, is one of direct energetic force.
We begin Part II with Manet and the Impressionists in the late 19c Industrial Age, whose new perceptions and consequent practice accompanied a technological revolution of the flat ferrule brush in the late 18c Industrial Age. Rectangular strokes, rather than rounded, were now possible. Monet painted even the surface of water with a series of rectangular strokes, almost as if he were building a brick wall. It is not just effects of light or bright colours that give Impressionism its power and popularity – it is the very juxtaposition of energetic, kinetic brushstrokes, sometimes deliberately clashing against one another, that reverberate in the brain and enhance our experience of the work at hand or eye. That energy was then further transformed and enhanced by Van Gogh, Cezanne, German Expressionists, and ‘Les Fauves’ (the wild beasts) Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck and Braque in their utter refusal to be tied to conventions of colour or its treatment. The timid saw them as ‘savage’ in their colour and stroke; theirs is the brushstroke that wouldn’t lie down.
Meanwhile, the slashing brushstroke served quite other purposes. In making the portraits of Madame X and Mrs Colin Campbell, late 19c women who refused to be contained by expectations of domestic bondage and Victorian modesty, Sargent and Boldini saw that only the visible brushstroke could serve their purposes. Meanwhile, in Spain, Joaquin Sorolla, the newly acclaimed Spanish Impressionist, transmuted his passion into a particular preoccupation with the effects of light, represented in great swirls, as if he had also seen what the scientists discovered, that light does indeed move in waves.
We will explore the times, such as the years in the wake of World War II, when minute and constrained strokes of the brush were seen as wholly inadequate for expressing the depths of pain and loss. Then only the broad, visible and passionately-made stroke will answer the call. This is how later expressionism of the 1950s emerged, whether the artists of CoBRA using it to link to the unbridled passions of children’s art or Franz Kline using it to echo the force of mighty black girders in his native Pittsburgh.
In the work of the Americans: the genius Elaine De Kooning, the gutsy Lee Krasner, the bold Grace Hartigan, the privileged but fierce Joan Mitchell and the revolutionary Helen Frankenthaler, only the great stroke would serve their need for dynamic expressions of liberation as artists, as women. Their ever-changing mindscapes and complex emotions in the face of great male resistance to their art and craft drove a potent physicality in their every brushstroke and composition. In Britain, Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff seem almost to have lost themselves in the extreme half-inch thickness of their impasto brushstrokes before rescuing a recognisable face from a magnificent morass of paint.
This course takes us deep into a world where the handling of paint is the meaning of art. We hope you will join us there.
Booking Information:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
This online course via Zoom has been developed by Louise Friend and Nicholas Friend. It will be presented by Nicholas Friend, Co-Founder of Inscape. It is held on Tuesdays beginning on Tuesday 11 July 2023 at 5 pm and ending on Tuesday 5 September 2023 at 5 pm. Please note the time of 5 pm: Nicholas will be lecturing from California (at 9 am his time) for the duration of this course.
You may choose to attend individual sessions or all nine. If you would like to attend but cannot manage a particular date, then be assured we will be sending recordings of sessions to all participants. Each session meets from 20 minutes before the advertised time of the lecture, and each lasts roughly one hour with 15 minutes discussion.
Cost: £405 members or £495 non-members for the course of 9 sessions or £45 members or £55 non-members per individual session. All sessions are limited to 21 participants to permit an after-lecture discussion session.
Due to the coronavirus cheques are not a viable option at this time. Instead, please make your payment to Friend&Friend Ltd by bank transfer to our account with Metrobank, bank sort code 23-05-80, account number 13291721 or via PayPal to nicholas@inscapetours.co.uk, or credit/debit card by phone to Henrietta on 07940 719397. She is available Tuesdays 10-12 and 2-5 pm or Thursdays 10-12 and 2-5 pm. Do get in touch if you would like extra support learning how to use Zoom.
How to Set Up a PayPal account::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
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Click “Agree and create account” and your PayPal account will be created.
How to Connect your Bank Account to your PayPal account:::::::::::::::::::::::
Log on to your account and click the “Wallet” option in the menu bar running along the top of the screen.
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Enter the card information you wish to link to your PayPal account and click “Link card” for debit card.
How to Send Money::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
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Type in the amount you wish to send, click continue then press ‘Send Money Now’.
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