I think if we are going to succeed with this new aim, it is also important to ask questions of ourselves and others.

I am therefore interested, as with everybody who joins, to learn what people think, do, and say, when faced with the big contradictions in art today.
And I do think it is important we should not be embarrassed to be honest and forthright, despite the difficulties we have all faced in trying to make traditional art. For as you will have seen, we have formed this group to preserve traditional painting from the final disintegration and loss it faces from unchecked modern art today.

As a consequence we will challenge misinformation about how and why great art was made, and what we can each do to recover those wonderful standards. This will mean seeking to reform many unnecessary ideas and practices. It also means drawing lines.

So I offer one example here – the practice of working from photographs?
If you take the current practice in portraiture of only working from photos, then this style has lead to over sized heads being copied and present, distortions for all kinds presented for all types of poorly justified modern trendy reasons, when the drawing was so bad otherwise, without being able to hide behind the excuses of modern visual distortion.
Would you be happy and expect others likewise to comment for us against this practice of the use of photography for example? To explain we know the use exists and has done for a long period, it may seem quicker to execute, but there are a number of good reasons why this practice is limited/ fails, and if we are going to see a return to the great standards of traditional art, we must first start by encouraging proper drawing again today.

I hope you will not find this difficult, for I think we should be helping others to complete new steps in practice and understanding, and in this example by teaching them how to do better without this prop. And I do expect it will prove necessary to help other members in our new group too in both thought and practice, for there are so many problems to overcome.

Prof. Charles Harris MA.BA.
(Copyright – February 2016)