The Maze of old masters

Details of some of my oil paintings

Ever since I started painting in oil, I'm fascinated about the old masters paintings and simply, that's what got me into art. I used to think of them as something from the fantasy world, fills me with awe and appreciation to something very unique and unreachable and I said unreachable because it took me a while to figure out about the classical approach in painting and drawing and what make things more complicated,  With each oil painting courses and every book I read and every single information I could put my hand on, I learned something different and sometimes incompatible. And in general each one of these methods; want to teach their own way in painting from start to finish and it doesn't matter if it's right or wrong because at the end you will go out and do your own thing. 

Notwithstanding, these sources form some sort of catalyst sanctuary and at the same time it's terrifying, through raising the awareness of understanding the complexity and the incongruity inside the lost secret of old master paintings and techniques.

 

Over the years, I have changed and followed many methodical ways in painting classic and you can see it obvious and tangible in the way I approached painting if you follow me in my social media like Instagram, in every painting I implemented different techniques from start to finish from different sources for different era and let me throw my confession here about reaching out the world of perfection and clarify this point of view, It's hard and you need to have that type of determined unfearful courage to proceed to learn and then practise your learning without thinking if your execution is right or wrong and you have to be ready to accept the failure under any type of criteria, because you'll surrounding with stiff walls, their jobs is to tell you, you aren't good enough and the more you try, the more it's get harder and harder. 

Let me take you with me inside this journey when I felt completely enchanted with MARIANA by Sir John Everett Millais from the Pre Raphaelite, I thought Jan Van Eyck who painted this painting when I first saw it. The painting is one of these paintings which I can stare at it forever, the selective colour palette to create the story and the scene, the gesture of the girl stretching her back after working for long time on the embroidery laying down on the table, gives the sense of waiting, the leaves that connect the interior with the exterior through her looking at the marvelous window. The gorgeous blue in the girl velvet dress , the bright velvet red on the seat, and the gold, all the elements knitted together to produce this master piece. 

This painting was the starting point behind spreading my net over learning the old master paintings and techniques.

It was an exhaustion procedure to reach out all the master painters and their techniques like Filippino Lippi, Hans Holbein, Anthony van Dyck, Michelangelo, Leonardo Davinci, Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt Van Rijn, Sir Peter Paul Rubens. Apparently the science behind their techniques and their understanding the chemical aspect of the reaction of the materials between pigments and binders and between surface and ground which dominant their skillful norms effected by the nature of their lives at that time.

And again the criteria that been considered for master painters were very competitively high and the quality of their performances in making, mixing and grinding, furthermore the ways they approached drawing and painting were very precision. However they weren't all the same Vermeer was different than Van Dyck, Leonardo was different than Rembrandt, and Ruben alone was a mystery to me when he sharpened his potential and tools depending on sources like animals, plants and earthen pigments and making them into painting. 

I'm not sure where I am right now between all that and I could write endless pages about my experience through years, to me it's a maze and I'm lost inside its secret.