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French Atelier

The current Atelier Method is a form of fine art instruction often modeled after the private art studio schools of 15th to 19th century Europe. Taking its name from the French word for "artist's studio," an Atelier consists of an artist, usually a professional painter, working with a small number of students to train them in art. Atelier schools can be found around the world, particularly in North America and Western Europe.

Although the methods vary, most Atelier’s train students in the skills and techniques associated with creating some form of representational art, the making of two-dimensional images that appear real to the viewer. They traditionally include sessions for drawing or painting a nude model.

Methods

Sight-Size

File:Mimsariadnecast.jpg

Student sight-size Cast Drawing after Ariadne.

Sight-Size is a method of drawing and painting an object exactly as it appears to the artist on a one to one scale. The artist first sets a vantage point where the subject and the drawing surface appear to be the same size. Then, using a variety of measuring tools -- which can include strings, sticks, mirrors, levels, and plumb-bobs -- the artist draws the subject so that, when viewed from the set vantage point, the drawing and the subject have exactly the same dimensions. When properly done, sight-size drawing can result in extremely accurate and realistic drawings. It can also be used to draw the exact dimensions for a subject in preparation for a painting.

Apollo Belvedere, 350-325BC,Vatican Museums

The Rape of the Sabine Women by Nicolas Poussin, 1637, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Before The Bath (1900) by Bouguereau

Ateliers following the sight-size method generally agree that the practice of careful drawing is the basis of painting, teaching a form of realism based upon careful observations of nature with attention to detail. Using the sight-size method, students progress through a series of tasks such as cast drawing, cast painting, drawing and painting from the live model, and still life. Students must complete each task to the instructor's satisfaction before progressing to the next. This system is referred to as "systematic progression" or "systematic teaching and learning." Atelier students often begin this progression by drawing plaster casts. These casts are usually faces, hands, or other parts of the human anatomy. Plaster casts provide some of the benefits of live, human models, such as the presence of natural shadows. They also have their own distinct advantages: they remain perfectly still and their white color allows the student to focus on the pure, grayscale tones of shadows. This is the method that contemporary painter Jacob Collins pursues at his schools, the Water Street Atelier and the Grand Central Academy.

One goal for sight-size students is to gain enough skill to transfer an accurate image to the paper or canvas without the aid of a mechanical device. Contemporary realist painter Adrian Gottlieb notes that "while professional painters pursuing a full-time career will develop an 'eye' that precludes the need for measuring devices and plumb lines (tools necessary during the training period), the observation method itself is not abandoned - instead it becomes second nature. Sight-size can be taught and applied in conjunction with a particular sensitivity to gesture to create life-like imagery; especially when applied to portraiture and figurative works." Darren R. Rousar, former student of Richard Lack and Charles Cecil as well as the author of Cast Drawing Using the Sight-Size Approach, agrees and defines measuring in broad terms. He says that "a fully trained artist who uses Sight-size might never use a plumb line or even consciously think about literal measuring. He or she will strive toward achieving the same retinal impression in the painting as is seen in nature."

Charles H. Cecil, founder of Charles H. Cecil Studios, an atelier located in Florence Italy writes:

Fundamental to the teaching is the practice of drawing and painting from life with no recourse to photography. The sight-size technique is taught at Charles H. Cecil Studios whereby subject and image are depicted to scale as seen from a given distance. When properly understood, sight-size is not a mere measuring technique, but a philosophy of seeing. The method was used by many of the finest painters in oil since the seventeenth century, including Reynolds, Lawrence and Sargent.

In reviving the atelier tradition, R. H. Ives Gammell (1893-1981) adopted sight-size as the basis of his teaching method. He founded his studio on the precedent of private ateliers, such as those of Carolus-Duran and Léon Bonnat. These French masters were accomplished sight-size portraitists who conveyed to their pupils a devotion to the art of Velázquez. It should be noted that Sargent was trained by both painters and that, in turn, his use of sight-size had a major influence in Great Britain and America.

Charles Cecil is committed to the belief that the atelier tradition is invaluable for a renewal in figurative art...

Art resulting from the use of the sight-size method is often reminiscent of Greek and Roman sculpture from classical antiquity or it may contain visual imagery similar to that of the Neoclassical paintings of the mid 18th to 19th century. The sight-size method also lends itself to portraiture in which the artists desires an accurate, natural, true to life or even near photographic image of the sitter.

Comparative Measurement

The comparative measurement method requires proportional accuracy, but allows the artist to vary the size of the image created. This technique broadly encompasses any method of drawing that involves making accurate measurements primarily using the naked eye. In the early training period students may be aided by a pencil, brush or plumb line to make comparisons, but there is no transfer of 1:1 measurements from subject directly to paper.

In his essay, The Sight-size Method and its Disadvantages, the painter and instructor Hans-Peter Szameit, of the Swedish Academy of Realist Art discusses the disadvantageous of sight-size, describing it as essentially the making of a mechanically produced image limited to one size, the "sight size."

Mr. Szameit also convincingly demonstrates that the sight-size method does not have deep historical roots. He explains that those claiming past masters used the sight-size method are incorrect, basing their claims on a misunderstanding of the definition of the sight-size method.

Titian (1516–1518)

The modiste

Illusion

Another traditional Atelier method incorporates the use of illusions that fool the viewer into believing an image is accurate. This method is most often taught in conjunction with advanced compositional theory. Since it is not necessary to copy the subject accurately to achieve a successful illusion, this method allows the artist to experiment with many options while retaining what appears to be a realistic image.

In one example, the Study for Mercury Descending by Peter Paul Rubens, Rubens has obscured the point where the legs attach to the torso. This is one factor that contributes to the ease in which he is able to successfully experiment with a variety of dramatically different leg placements. At least three sets of feet are visible. The viewer is not disturbed by an illogical attachment if the attachment is not visible and the resulting two-dimensional image is pleasing to the eye. This allows the artist to choose from a great number of very different alternatives, making his selection based on personal preference or aesthetics rather than accuracy. In this case, experimenting with numerous manipulations regarding the size and placement of each part of the body while at the same time using a collection of two-dimensional foreshortening illusions to retain the appearance of realism.

In addition to parts of the body, artists may rely on the manipulation of many other elements to achieve a successful illusion. These can include, the manipulation of color, value, edge characteristics, overlapping shapes and a number of different types of paint applications such as glazing and scumbling. Work developed this way would not begin with a drawing, but rather the placement of all relevant elements necessary for the success of the illusions as well as the composition as a whole. Many of the illusions designed to mimic reality also speed the painting process, allowing artists more time to design and complete complex large scale works.

Individual students of this method study a diverse selection of old masters, although many begin their studies with the High Renaissance, Mannerist or Baroque painters, including Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Rubens and El Greco. However, because the emphasis is on creativity, it is often the design of the composition and the application and use of materials that is studied with less focus on reproducing a particular style or subject.

Students of these ateliers exhibit a wide range of personal styles and increasing amounts of creative experimentation. The result is a group whose art is highly individualized with each student pursuing their own individual interests. For example, notice the great diversity found at the Atelier of Léon Bonnat (1846-1855). Bonnat "was a liberal teacher who stressed simplicity in art above high academic finish, as well as overall effect rather than detail." Some of Bonnat's more notable students include: Gustave Caillebotte, Suzor-Coté, [[Georges Braque, Thomas Eakins, Raoul Dufy, Marius Vasselon, Fred Barnard, Aloysius O'Kelly, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and John Singer Sargent.

As with sight-size and the comparative measurement, this method requires the artist to constantly back up to view the work. The reason for this is demonstrated by a very successful illusion image created to look like Marilyn Monroe from a distance and Albert Einstein up close. Since images look entirely different at different distances, the artists backs up to view the work at the distance where the final picture will be viewed. If the work is large, artists are required to constantly pace back to a distance relatively far from the painting.

See also

• Art Students League of New York
• New York Academy of Art
• National Academy of Design

External links to sight-size Ateliers endorsed by the Art Renewal Center

• Georgetown Atelier of Drawing and Painting, Seattle -- traditional Atelier and mini Atelier offered
• Gage Academy of Art, Seattle -- traditional Atelier programs offered
• Mims Studios School of Fine Art
• Atelier de Bresoles, Montreal
• The Ashland Academy of Art
• The Swedish Academy of Realist Art -- Fine art school
• Giust Gallery - Caproni Museum Reproductions
• The New School of Classical Art
• Adrian Gottlieb Studio & Atelier -- a traditional, intimate Atelier program
• Charles H. Cecil Studios -- a traditional Atelier
• The Florence Academy of Art, a larger academy styled program
• Liberal Academy of Fine Arts
• The London Atelier of Representational Art
• Studio Incamminati
• The Art Students League of New York -- a larger school consisting of independent classes
• The National Art School, Sydney
• The Atelier Studio Program of Fine Art
• The School of Representational Art -- Founded and run by students of Richard Lack
• Sight-Size.com -- a site dedicated to Sight-size and naturalistic seeing
• The Grand Central Academy of Art
• Atelier Sonorense
• Lafayette Atelier, Lafayette Indiana -- traditional Atelier programs offered