https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/william-kloss
Been listening to a great course in art while I was painting, I felt truly connected to the long history of creators, to the long history of artists that came before me.
I also accidentally saw something on YouTube and was amazed at all the ghastly paintings brimming with greens and oranges and all the most atrocious things I'm not going to call it art.
My course in art history actually was preceded by a course in Egyptian art and Egyptian history which was also marvelous. People that love the subjects that they teach shine that love onto the people that listen.
Again I'm going to emphasize the fact that I found on YouTube the most absolutely atrocious examples of Mark making I can possibly imagine so I'm trying to shake that ugliness out of my mind. I'm guaranteed not to go on YouTube anytime soon, I just wanted to find out how fast certain glazes dry and boy I ran into these absurd grotesque courses. I really don't understand. And all of a sudden it hit me of course Google has no taste, they're not Steve Jobs. Apple has taste on account of Steve Jobs so that culture kind of lingered behind him but Google will show anything for money.
Although I can't forgive Apple that their iPhones take yellow pictures. Okay sorry I couldn't help it. I'm ready to give advice to any head of state on any matter.
My advice in learning about art is stick to your old Masters, study their paintings stroke by stroke copy them look at them and then make something of your own, something original that no one has ever seen before.
Anyway I terribly digress.
I've been to Spain before to study the great masters of painting in person in the great museums of Madrid, the three museums that host seminal paintings in the history of Art, by the way the Spanish Kings were great patrons and had great taste. And before that I was in Spain to see Gaudi, but I didn't know that I had to go to the Spanish countryside rather than the museums to study the pictorial tradition of Spain.
As I walked on the Camino de Santiago all I could see around me were the paintings of Salvador Dali. Blue skies and then the browns, ochres and golds, wait until I got to Costa Brava, the Mediterranean towns of Cadaques and Port Ligat. After I finished my Camino de Santiago I headed for the land, for the hometown and home actual house of Salvador Dali on the other end of Spain.
This was one of the most dramatic experiences of my life as I had seen a lot of Art, I had seen all the great art of the world in person from The Vatican, to the Uffizi to the Louvre, to the national Gallery, to the worlds and paintings of Rembrandt and Vermeer in Amsterdam, Van Gogh, the impressionists and so forth. I see and I've seen a lot of Art in New York, constantly.
But nothing had prepared me for the art, the massive museum, the house and the world of Salvador Dali. Every single square inch of this man's art was marvelous original beautiful and made with superb taste for shape and color.
People want to look at paintings because they want to look at something and oftentimes people rely on textures and thick paint to give people something to look at but this is only because of a failure at the disegno stage
Salvador Dali is superb both in the shapes and the colors, he referred to himself as colorist.
When I got to Cadaques and Port Ligat I discovered that all these landscapes were in all of the Salvador Dali paintings, all the way down to the cactuses on the side of the road and down to the crab legs in the cracks of the rocks.
I took a swim in the cool Waters of Cala Jugadora which was purportedly Salvador Dali's favorite spot. It didn't disappoint.
Below I captured the truth that Spain is absolutely beautiful and has produced some of the greatest artists the world has ever seen.
