The New School of Classical Art
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The New School of Classical Art (NSCA) offers the Atelier Method of art instruction and is based in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, USA. It was founded in 2005 by the Master Painter and Classical Realism (arts)Artist Dana Levin. Ms. Levin is a prominent Florence Academy Alumnus and former faculty member. The New School of Classical Art is currently the only established Atelier School for Classical Realism painting in Rhode Island. Rhode Island is becoming an important center for the arts in New England. The state actively promotes the arts Rhode Island State Council of the Arts. Intensive training in Academic art, also called Classical Realism was traditionally done inside an artists working Studio called an Atelier. For centuries ateliers were considered the most favorable environment for passing artistic methods and techniques onto students. The atelier as classroom was acknowledged by the Masters of the Renaissance, the Guild Schools of Flemish painting, and by the finest artists of the 19th Century French Academy.
The Sight Size Method has been utilized for centuries by countless great painters and is still widely used today. It is an indispensable tool for anyone who wishes to work from life. The easel and subject are placed beside one another and a fixed point is marked at a fair distance away from the subject. (Generally 2 and a half to 3 times the largest proportion of the subject) The artist makes all observations and assessments from that point and then steps forward to the easel to draw what they saw. Quickly, they step back to their marked spot and compare drawing and subject simultaneously. By viewing both images at once and next to one another, the artist can more accurately translate their observations. Students begin with the Cours de Dessin - a drawing course developed in the late 1860s in Paris by Charles Bargue and Jean-Leon Gerome. As a prerequisite to drawing directly from life, students would copy these lithographs masterfully done by Bargue. The student copies these same lithographs in pencil and then in charcoal at a larger scale.
Next, students advance to drawing from replicas of Classical sculpture . They progressively use more complex mediums: charcoal and white chalk on toned paper, oil painting in grisaille , oil painting in limited palette, and finally students use a full oil painting palette.
Copying Bargue references and drawing from antique casts teaches students to become proficient with accuracy and technique. It also teaches the core elements of classical realism, in order to create beautiful relationships and harmonies within the visual art of drawing. Afterward, students work on still life and portraiture of their own composition. The Sight Size Method is used in all the exercises. The New School of Classical Art is Art Renewal Center (ARC) approved. Typical Art Colleges generally do not offer intensive training in classical drawing and painting techniques.
[edit] The Instructor:
Ms. Levin is proud to be part of a lineage that connects her as an artist and teacher to Jean-Leon Gerome,The Boston School Painters, Edmund Charles Tarbell, William McGregor Paxton and Frank Weston Benson , R. H. Ives Gammell , Richard Lack, and her own maestro,Daniel Graves. Dana has taught academic art and classical realism for eight years. Upholding the tradition of her education, Dana offers instruction and critiques to her students on an individual basis.
Dana Levin began her fine art education at the young age of 14, attending the competitive fine arts summer program, Belvoire Terracein Lenox, MA. and in high school the prestigious New World School of the Arts in Miami, Florida. She continued her studies at the prominent Art Institute of Chicago, where her achievements earned her an early graduation with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Seeking to enhance her artistic abilities and proficiency, Levin then moved to Italy to train under painter Daniel Graves, and learn the techniques of the European masters at the Florence Academy of Art. She completed the three-year curriculum and upon graduation was asked to join the school’s drawing and painting faculty for the next five years and is considered to be among one of their most important Alumni.
She has been awarded numerous prizes and scholarships from organizations, which include the Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco, the Art Renewal Center and the John F. and Anna Lee Stacey Fund. Her work has also been published in several prestigious catalogues and magazines. Her skills span the genres of still lifes, portraiture, and figures utilizing oil paints, charcoals, and graphite pencils.
