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 Out
of a major art academy in California and into the light of Aix-en-Provence
and the Atelier Marchutz, one art student found a new path that
took her back to her beloved homeland in New Mexico. She now works
there
as
an artist and art therapist. Hundreds of alumni have taken this same
voyage over the last three decades. Why do they continue to speak
so fondly of their year in Aix ? What did they find that opened new
paths ? A technique to paint like Paul Cézanne ? A nostalgic
return to nature ? A following in the footsteps of any particular
master ? No, none of these. She found a way to open her eyes
to the present moment, and to connect her new vision to the art of
the past. Indeed, this combination of present and past, the contemporary
and the traditional, has always revealed new directions to individuals
who have wished to make a painting. |
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| Streets of Aix |
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Sunset in Provence |
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Saint Jean de Malte,
Aix-en-Provence |
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| François de Asis
- "Saint Jean de Malte, Aix" 1995 |
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| Paul
Cézanne - "Bibémus" |
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Cézanne
himself noted that, "one does not put oneself
in place of the past one only adds a new link".
And what better place to open ones eyes than Aix-en-Provence
?
At
the Marchutz School students are asked to perceive as
much as they possibly can from masterworks of the past,
to discuss these perceptions in an open forum, and then,
paradoxically, to let go of this knowledge during the
act of looking and painting. Instructors impress upon
their students that painting and drawing can become a
daily process of seeing the world anew. |
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fundamental principle of the Marchutz School is simple
: the synthesis of sight (a perception of the world)
and insight (a perception of art) can be the precursor
to fresh, original painting. It can be the springboard
to a new concept. However, simple isn't easy. For instance,
one must know Cézanne before one can synthesize
and then, let go of Cézanne. |
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| Thus
students at the Marchutz School begin. They draw and paint
- everyday if possible. They work from models, children,
musicians, dancers. They draw and paint in the fields of
Beaurecueil, from the architecture in Aix, from inside the
trains. |
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They
draw from sculpture in the Cathédral Saint-Sauveur,
the boule players in the parks, the Celto-Ligurian sculptures
in the Musée Granet. They paint from reproductions
of master works. They paint portraits of each other as well
as their host families. They paint from their memories. They
always use their imagination. During this process students
may search for a formula - "une belle formule". |
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Their
instructors gently inform them that no formula exists. Students
are asked to work directly from nature and to work quickly,
letting spontaneity, imagination, and their direct sensations
form their images. Soon the young artists discover, among
other things, that trees are not green and faces are not
pink. |
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world is made from red and green, blue and orange, yellow and
violet, together fused. Students become what writer Annie
Dillard calls unscrupulous observers : "There is
a kind of seeing that involves a letting go. When I see this
way I sway transfixed and emptied... my own shutter opens,
and the moment's light prints on my own silver gut. When I
see this way I am above all an unscrupulous observer".
Little by little, the students' painting and drawing discipline
becomes the center of their lives. When this happens they discover
that painting is not dead. They discover new ways to speak
about the old truths which have touched them most in the already
existing art that they admire. As well as painting every day
Marchutz students take long looks at slide comparisons of works
from different centuries and cultures in a weekly seminar.
They are asked to read and compare the writings of artists,
critics, and art historians. They are asked to share, through
dialogue, their impressions, and to analyze works of art from
all centuries. What do these works share in common? How are
they different? What might they mean to us? Leo Marchutz believed
that through such comparison, "students begin to experience
each work of the past as a member of a great family and by
doing this one gets a kind of knowledge of how to do it (draw)
or how not to do it". |
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| Claude Monet, "La pie" 1868-69,
Paris,Orsay. |
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| Every
November, with this great family in mind, the Marchutz
School moves out of the light of Provence and into the
museums of Paris.
Instructors coax students into stopping for long sessions
in front of only a few works in each museum instead of
walking endlessly through every great hall. Stopping
and actually looking - this is no easy task, especially
when surrounded by the wealth of art that exists in,
for example, the Louvre.
But students do stop, and together they may spend two
hours in front of Rembrandt's Bathsheba or perhaps an Assyrian
bas-relief. After a while the group begins to see into
the work rather
than simply glance at it. It is as if they enter into
an intimate dialogue with the artist who created the
work.. They begin to understand the artistic decisions
of the particular artist through direct contact with
the work. In the museums, Marchutz School students develop
what T. S. Elliot calls
an historical sense : |
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| "This historical sense, which
is a sense of the timeless as well as the temporal is what
makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what
makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time,
of his contemporaneity". Museum experience changes students'
capacity to see and always affects positively their attempts
to create art when they return to Aix. |
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Light,
clarity, structure - Aix-en-Provence reveals these qualities
to the students at the Marchutz School in myriad ways. But
what of movement, reflection, the effernescent ? |
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| Halle aux grains, Aix-en-Provence |
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John with friends,
Piazza San Marco |
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Alan Roberts, "La Salute",
1999 |
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 In
the spring the Marchutz School takes a ten day painting
excursion to Venice. Here students find a new set of
inspirations as well as problems, not the least being
that no other place in the world has been painted,
photographed, printed or filmed more than Venice.
What
can one do ? One can paint quickly, breathing in not
the conventional image of this most mysterious city but
its essence. Students at the Marchutz School return from
Venice imbued with a deeper connection to their particular
and unique world view. The light, color and atmosphere
in the Mediterranean bassin have been an inspiration
to artists throughout the centuries. The Marchutz School
offers students a unique opportunity to study in the
rich artistic environment of Aix-en-Provence - land of
Paul Cézanne. And yet, the school is not based
simply on place, nor personality nor one culture. Founded
in 1972 by a group of international artists, the Marchutz
School's core curriculum has evolved out of these artists'
astonishment - astonishment at the intriguing beauty
of the visible world and astonishment at the innovative
freshness that can appear in a student's work after one
long look at an African mask, an ancient Greek vase,
or a Constable sketch painting. |
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| The
town of Aix-en-Provence, the educational legacy of Leo Marchutz,
the present faculty's 25-year collaboration in the studio and landscape,
as well as their profound experiences in the museums of Europe, are
the invaluable assets that help inspire art students to reach beyond
their normal expectations and find a new path toward self discovery. |
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