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Observationsjul iette arist ides

Observationsjul iette arist ides

August 10—September 14

2013

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Jul iette Arist ides has established herself as one of the

premier artists working in the classical tradition today. A

painter who exhibits regularly throughout the United States,

she is also the author of several authoritative books on the

practice of drawing and painting and a highly sought-after

instructor, both at Atelier Aristides in Seattle, WA, which she

founded, and at other schools and art institutions around the

country. Yet for viewers new to her work, it is important to

be aware not only of Aristides’s current accomplishments but

also of the historical background that informs her approach

to painting. A broader knowledge of the rich tradition within

which Aristides works can deepen an instinctive appreciation

for the compelling beauty of her paintings into a greater

understanding of their significance.

The classical model of artistic education, which Aristides

pursued as a young artist and now teaches to her own students,

follows a pattern of study developed at Academies and Ateliers

throughout Europe in the nineteenth century. The primary

goal of the academic system was to train the student’s eye

to observe a given artistic subject with the highest degree of

subtlety and accuracy, so that the hand could then convincingly

render that subject on paper or canvas. Students progressed

by painstakingly small degrees, over about three years, from

“the flat” to “the round.” They began by copying plates

(“flat” pages) from drawing books designed especially for

beginners, such as the famed Cours de Dessin, or Drawing

Course, by Charles Bargue. They then drew from three-

dimensional (“round”) plaster casts of antique Greek and

Roman sculpture; and the final test of their ability was to work

directly from life, creating a drawing, called an Académie,

from a nude model who posed in the studio—translating a

living three-dimensional form onto a static two-dimensional

surface. Only after they had mastered the techniques of

drawing completely could they advance to painting.

This kind of training has been difficult to come by for some

time; with the advent of modernism in the early twentieth

century, it gradually fell out of favor in the U.S. and Europe,

to such an extent that academies finally closed their doors,

the drawing manuals went out of print, and galleries stopped

exhibiting and selling work coming from this tradition. Realist

art was seen as too conservative, connected to outdated

ideals and divorced from the realities of modern life. Yet

even in the nineteenth century, there had been arguments

and disputes over the uses and values of academic art. Some

young artists—among them Dante Gabriel Rosetti, Edward

Burne-Jones, and others associated with the Pre-Raphaelite

Brotherhood in the 1850s and the Aesthetic Movement in the

1870s and ’80s—began to wonder what the classical imagery

their training was based on could mean to their own time.

Such imagery had always been associated with classical

ideals: the bodily perfection of Greek gods and youths, and

the universal truths held to be evident in myths. What Rosetti

and his contemporaries found missing from these values was

any element of personal self-expression or merely human

feeling; with this in mind, they rebelled, and began making

drawings and paintings that exhibited the formal qualities

they had been taught to render so beautifully, yet suggested

narratives and moods that were particular and personal to

their own everyday experience, and thus newly relevant to

contemporary life.

Today, Aristides and a growing number of other artists have

come to a similar conclusion as their nineteenth-century

predecessors; having undergone the demanding regimen

of academic training, they now seek to employ the technical

accuracy and finely wrought draftsmanship that derives from

classical imagery in the service of contemporary narratives

and ideas that speak to the here and now. Their task has

been made doubly hard, however, by the long absence of

classical training; after nearly a century during which even

the word ‘academic’ has been used as a pejorative, Aristides

and her contemporaries have sought out, and in many cases

reconstructed, through research and by piecing together their

educations here and abroad, the methods and techniques

that were once taught in every art school. So a body of work

such as the one in this catalog represents years not only of

complicated artistic practice but also of intense study and

collaboration, and the passing on of newly acquired knowledge.

And Aristides pays fitting tribute to that fact; throughout her

work, we find references, some overt (such as a deliberate

nod to the Aesthetic Movement, in The Artist’s Model

[p. 8], which features a Chinese screen and Japanese blue-

and-white vase, two objects which first became popular in

the West in that era) and some more oblique, to images and

artists and from the past she has so painstakingly sought

to understand and learn from. The skill in her drawings

and paintings is enlivened by a feeling of intelligence and

sympathy—looking at these works, you can sense the artist

thinking about the meaning in the individual experiences

she portrays, and finding ways to evoke natural, unforced

relationships between their world she and her subjects live in

and the world of the past.

Juliette Aristides has written that she seeks to understand

and convey the human spirit through her art. Viewers who

are moved by her work will surely share her sense that this

is possible through a deep and lasting appreciation for the

beauty of the human form, and find in themselves a renewed

awareness of the complexities of human experience.

Flora Armetta, Ph.D.

Director, Hersh Fine Art

5 6Tr u n k Ink on Paper 14”x 10” 2 0 1 3 O a k L e a v e s Ink on Paper 10”x 14” 2 0 1 3

7 8T h e A r t i s t ’s M o d e l o n B r e a k 2 0 1 0 Oil on Linen 38”x 25” S t u d y f o r “ t h e A r t i s t ’s M o d e l o n B r e a k 2 0 1 3 Walnut Ink of Paper 14”x 11”

9 10Tr e e a n d L e a f 2 0 1 3 Oil and Linen 48”x 36” P u g e t S o u n d 2 0 1 3 Oil and Linen 48”x 36”

11 12H e s p e r u s 2 0 1 3 Oil on Panel 25”x 30 1/4” K i m o n o Charcoal and Sepia 24”x 15” 2 0 1 3

13 14S i l v e r K e t t l e Charcoal and Walnut Ink 10”x 10.5” 2 0 1 1M e d i c i n e Charcoal and Walnut Ink 10”x 11.5” 2 0 1 1

15 16C r e d o 2 0 1 3 Oil on Linen 24”x 18” T h e N a t u r a l i s t 2 0 1 1 Oil on Linen 25”x 18”

17 18S t u d y f o r W i l d f i r e 2 0 1 2 Charcoal on Toned Paper 18”x 16” W i l d f i r e 2 0 1 2 Oil on Linen 24”x 18”

19 20C h a i n 2 0 1 3 Oil on Linen 24”x 18” N e w Ye a r s D a y 2 0 1 1 Oil and Linen 36”x 24”

21 22F a m i l y 2 0 1 2 Charcoal, Sepia, And White on Toned Paper 24”x 18” Ta l i a 2 0 1 2 Charcoal, Sepia, And White on Toned Paper 24”x 18”

23 24R e m e m b e r 2 0 1 0 Oil on Linen 30”x 24” S u n 2 0 1 3 Charcoal, Sepia, And White on Paper 22”x 18”

25 26S t u d y f o r S o l d i e r 2 0 1 1 Oil on Linen 24”x 18” S o l d i e r 2 0 1 1 Oil on Linen 30”x 24”

27 28S t u d y f o r 1 9 4 5 Sepia on Paper 18”x 11” 2 0 1 1 1 9 4 5 ( B e n d h e i m R e m e m b e r a n c e ) 2 0 1 1 Oil on Canvas 49”x 72”

29 30T h e A r t i s t 2 0 0 7 Oil on Linen 48”x 36”

Juliette Aristides Born 1971 Capetown, South Africa

Founding instructor: Aristides Atelier at the Gage Academy of Fine Art in Seattle, WA est. 1999.

EDUCATION:

1998-1996 Jacob Collins Studio /Water Street, New York, NY

1994-1996 National Academy Of Design, New York, NY

1992-1994 The Atelier, Minneapolis, MN

1989-1992 Pennsylvania Academy Of Fine Art, Philadelphia, PA

1988-1989 Barnstone Studios, Coplay, PA

SOLO EXHIBITIONS: (select)

2013 Juliette Aristides: Observations, Reading Public Museum, Reading PA

2013 Allegory And Sacred Cannon, Lewis And Clark College, Lewiston ID

2012 Juliette Aristides, John Pence Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2011 Juliette Aristides- Le Quire Gallery, Nashville TN

2005 New Paintings &Drawings, John Pence Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2004 Juliette Aristides, The Brigham Gallery, Nantucket, MA

2003 Recent Drawings And Paintings John Pence Gallery, San Francisco,CA

2003 Drawings and Paintings, The Brigham Gallery, Nantucket, MA

Aristides exhibits in one person shows and participates in dozens of group shows nationally. Her work has been featured in Fine Art Connoisseur,

American Art Collector, Artists and Illustrators UK, Gulf Connoisseur Magazine, American Arts Quarterly and American Artist. She is a frequent

contributor to Artist’s Magazine. Aristides is the recipient of numerous awards including Elisabeth Greenshields Grant. She teaches workshops both

nationally and internationally.

PUBLISHED BOOKS:

2011 Lessons in Classical Drawing, Random House NY- Juliette Aristides

2008 Classical Painting Atelier, Watson-Guptill Publications, NY Juliette Aristides

2006 Classical Drawing Atelier, Watson-Guptill Publications, NY Juliette Aristides

aristidesart.com

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all images copyright Jul iette Arist ides 2013printed in the usa

Reading Publ ic Museum500 Museum rd, Reading, PA 19611