By Stephen Gjertson This article was originally published in The American Society of Classical Realism – Salon 1992, exhibition catalogue, Heritage Art Gallery, Alexandria, VA. Footnotes are inserted into the text within brackets. Foundations are important....
Tradition and the Training of Painters in the Second Half of the 20th Century By Stephen Gjertson Art students are terrified at the prospect before them, of the toil required to attain exactness. . . . They wish to find some shorter path to excellence, and hope to...
Considering the Relationships Among Patronage, Training, and the Arts By Stephen Gjertson Footnotes are inserted into the text within brackets. The contemporary artist who wishes to follow in the footsteps of the great painters of the past must come to grips with two...
By Stephen Gjertson It was a sultry summer afternoon in central Minnesota. I was painting about three yards from Minnehaha Creek, made famous by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his poem The Song of Hiawatha. I had been working in this spot on a painting of...
A Legacy of Preserving and Promoting the Fine Craft of Picture Making By Stephen Gjertson This is adapted from an article published in the Winter 2006 issue of the Classical Realism Newsletter. For centuries, the broad objectives of Western European art have been...
By Stephen Gjertson Portrait painting is a difficult and sometimes exasperating art. To survive, the portrait painter must be talented, flexible, thick-skinned, and tenacious: talented enough to meet the artistic and creative demands of fine portraiture, flexible...
