When you learn about how to see both the visual music in a painting and its visual poetry, you begin to see paintings in a new light. It will become much clearer to you why a master painting is considered a masterpiece, and at the same time make you a much better critique of your own work. This will help you to improve much faster. In order to better understand painting and also to help place contemporary work in its historical perspective, it is useful to have a model. The model I describe in this course is called the "Visual Poetry and Music Model". It takes into account both the abstract and representational aspects of a painting. In this model, a painting consists of visual poetry combined with visual music. The poetry of a painting is what the artist is trying to communicate to the viewer through his or her painting, and the emotion that is elicited from the viewer. The music of a painting is its sensuous, non-intellectual part. It derives from the physiological pleasure the human brain gets from making visual order out of the visual chaos of nature.

In this course unit

This course unit will show you how to combine visual poetry and music to create a powerful painting. You will learn:

• the five components of the visual music and poetry model – the characteristics of the best contemporary work
• pure naturalism to pure abstraction – the choice you have when depicting your subject
• how to differentiate the poetry from the music in your painting and make them work together, rather than fight each other
• the difference between far music and near music, and why brushwork is so important
• an eight point checklist to ensure your painting has visual poetry
• an eight point checklist to ensure your painting has visual music
• how two master painters, John Singer Sargent, and Ludovico Tommasi, achieved visual music and poetry in their work
• how visual music and poetry relates to the Virtual Art Academy® curriculum

Total number of assignments: 2

Total number of pages: 17