To me, the worst thing about writing a blog is that my audience is invisible, largely silent and possibly non-existent. As I sit here and bang out the words, my sense as to whom I’m writing is vague at best. Therefore, it is difficult for me to aim my thoughts or to respond to a specific point of view. Worse, my proclivity, based upon my own learning-to-paint experience, is to probe the insight of someone like Meyer Shapiro (big name scholar! “credited with fundamentally changing the course of the art historical discipline”) who said that the longer he looked at the work of Manet and the Impressionists the more he understood that their accomplishment was “to preserve painting –as a practice, a set of possibilities, a dream of freedom.”

detail of a painting by Monet

Okay, yes, that’s a mouthful to be sure. But hang in there for a moment. I say that my proclivity is “worse” because most of the students who find their way to Lake Como for their “painting holiday” actually do have the concept holiday foremost in their mind. They want to relax and learn a little bit about painting and that often means, as they tell me, something akin to learning new techniques. I inform them, at least from my point of view, that learning to paint has less to do with learning new techniques than it does with learning new ways to be free. For some, a jarring thought; after all, it’s only Sunday evening. It’s the welcoming reception after all. What’s with the freedom talk, their eyes implore. I didn’t sign up for no re-education. I just want to paint a freaking painting.

Alas, my cross to carry. I suppose the inference might be that if one must learn new ways of being free, one is not sufficiently free already. Indeed. But I as I try to make clear, this freedom talk has to do with feeling larger, more powerful. Don’t think re-education, think Bacchus as in how Beethoven believed his music would impact future generations: “Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken.” You see, this greater freedom is regenerative. Apart from the possible hangover, it’s quite a pleasant thing.

And, I must confess, this getting free business isn’t quite like putting on a pair of virtual reality goggles either. As Robert Henri reminds us, “To be free, … can only be attained through sacrifice of many common but overestimated things.” Did you catch the word sacrifice? So stop clinging to some of the pillars of thought that define your existence! Okay. I lied. There is a tiny bit of re-education going on here. But you like wine, don’t you?

Last comforting thought: The Impressionists didn’t just go off and paint more freely. Their world was, as they say understatedly, in turmoil. New ways of being and living were being wheeled into place; and for painters new ways of seeing and feeling. The Impressionists, perhaps like Bacchus and Beethoven, were communicating a larger spirituality, a new sense of joy. Not so easy to step across that threshold. The times they were a changing.

I promise: next blog will be fun. It will be called Tips and Tricks!