Juliette Aristides: Observations
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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