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Adult Program

Oh my Gouache! with Jessica Stammen
Painter Charles Hawthorne wrote, "It is beautifully simple, painting – all we have to do is to get the color notes in their proper relation." Oh my gouache, Mr. Hawthorne, really? In this 5-week class instructor Jessica Stammen and her students will endeavor to see the truth contained in this statement. Working with gouache – a water-based medium heavier and more opaque than watercolor, with great color saturation, suitable for quick ideation or finished works – the class will observe and record color phenomenon to create a series of engaging postcard-size compositions.  Each class will begin with a sequencing warm-up. Some color theory and general painting technique will be covered.
 
Figure Drawing with Martha Miller
In this 8-week course, students will focus on drawing the human form from direct observation of a live model. Working from the model and using a variety of exercises, students will develop new ways of seeing. They will experiment with various media including ink, charcoal, pastels, collage and oil wash. Intense periods of drawing will be followed by lively class critiques. This class is appropriate for students with some drawing experience who are interested in developing their understanding of the figure and drawing materials.
 
Art Along the Silk Road: Trade Goods from India, China and Japan
The Body Abject: The Death and Rebirth of Beauty

During the “culture wars” in America of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the very words “beauty” and “the beautiful” were banned in certain academic and cultural circles. To some, those words were no longer relevant to the highly politicized period the country was experiencing, and they did not in any way describe the art that was being produced. This lecture will examine the work of artists Kiki Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andres Serrano and others who were at the center of controversies about the anti-aesthetic in art. Finally, the current state of affairs regarding the arts and the beautiful will be discussed with an eye toward the future of beauty in America.

Beauty Comes from Use: The Art of Asia and Africa

Western theories of beauty are not universal; over time, other cultures and civilizations independently developed their own unique ideas about beauty. This lecture will survey theories of beauty from select countries as diverse as India, China, Japan and Africa. The bronze gods and goddesses of Gupta India, towering landscape paintings of Sung China, lopsided tea cups demonstrating wabi sabi from Muromachi, Japan, and seventy-five- pound wooden masks from West Africa will be discussed from the point of view of indigenous ideas about beauty. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Western artists discovered the art from these faraway places and began to reconsider their own ideas of beauty.  

The Body Perfect: The Greek and Roman Ideals of Beauty
On Beauty and Beyond: The Concept of the Beautiful in the World of Art
SERIES OVERVIEW: This three-part series conducted by Farnsworth Director of Education Roger Dell examines the idea of beauty throughout the ages in Western Europe and America, as well as in Asia, Africa, and Oceania. Using images from museums abroad and in this country, including works from the Farnsworth collection, Dell will trace the idea of what was considered beautiful in early Greek and Roman society to the different theories of beauty in other countries and finally to the current controversies about beauty in today’s art world.

November 4
Cultivating a Taste for the Picturesque Landscape
Andrew Jackson Downing, Frederick Law Olmsted and the Rise of the Public Park Movement in America

How did the American public come to understand and appreciate picturesque aesthetics in both domestic and public landscapes? Andrew Jackson Downing, horticulturalist, landscape designer and tastemaker, exerted his influence on American landscape culture from the middle- class suburbanite who followed Downing’s published plans for villas, cottages and gardens, to the urban dwellers who experienced Downing’s ideas as they were translated by Frederick Law Olmsted in his design for New York City’s Central Park.
 
Artists at Home in the Landscape: Thomas Cole and Frederic Church as Painters, Architects and Garden Designers
In addition to creating landscapes on canvas, both Thomas Cole and Frederic Church actively shaped the architectural and garden features of their respective home-studios in Catskill and Hudson, New York. The Italianate buildings Cole designed for Cedar Grove and the Persian- style house and picturesque paths and vistas Church created at Olana were based on their knowledge of landscape theory and their experience as landscape painters and as artist-tourists abroad.
 
SERIES OVERVIEW: This three-part series conducted by art historian, Julie Levin Caro, explores the various visual and cultural contexts surrounding the Hudson River school of landscape painting.
 
Location: Farnsworth auditorium
American Picturesque: American Landscape Culture in the Mid-Nineteenth Century: Painting, Literature and Tourism

Using well-known Hudson River school paintings by Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, Asher B. Durand and others as a point of departure, this lecture provides an introduction to the broad landscape culture of mid-nineteenth century America. The popularity of literary works by William Cullen Bryant and James Fenimore Copper as well as tourist destinations from the Catskills to Italy are examined for their influence on American painting, vernacular architecture and garden design.

SERIES OVERVIEW: This three-part series conducted by art historian, Julie Levin Caro, explores the various visual and cultural contexts surrounding the Hudson River school of landscape painting.