The fundamental principle of the Marchutz School is simple: the synthesis of sight (a perception of the world) and insight (a perception of art) can be the precursor to fresh, original painting. It can be the springboard to a new concept.

From this principle, students at the Marchutz School begin. They draw and paint - everyday if possible. They work from models, children, musicians, dancers. They interrelate figure drawing, portraiture, landscape and still-life with interpretative copies of master works, memory work, and sketch book journals. Painting and drawing, study in museums and reading/writing assignments challenge students to explore the correspondences between natural and artistic forms.

Group and individual critiques are integral aspects of each student's process. Technique is developed in concordance with each student's vision and imagination. Individual projects give students the freedom to explore their unique concerns.

The core of the Marchutz program consists of 6 studio painting and drawing credits, plus a 3-credit seminar all taught at the Marchutz School locale on the outskirts of Aix. Students additionally take two 3-credit elective courses at the Aix Center to complete an academic load of 15 credits. The elective courses may be chosen from any of the offerings at the Aix Center.

FACULTY AT THE MARCHUTZ SCHOOL OF ART
The studio art and aesthetics courses at the Marchutz School are administered and team-taught by two full-time American faculty members, Alan Roberts and John Gasparach, who have each worked in study abroad in France for over thirty years.

Director of the School since 1990, Alan Roberts has a BS in Psychology from the University of South Carolina and an MFA from Vermont College.  His personal studio is located at the renowned Chateaunoir, situated on the Route de Cézanne in Aix-en-Provence.  Mr. Roberts’ international exhibition record includes the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence as well as private galleries in the U.S. and France.  A selection of his paintings can be viewed at www.marchutz-school.org.  He has also collaborated on several important books concerning the art of Leo Marchutz and his students.

John Gasparach studied  at the first Marchutz School summer session in 1972 and has been a working artist in France ever since. He served as assistant to Leo Marchutz and the founding artists of the program, subsequently joining the Marchutz School faculty in 1986. Mr. Gasparach’s work—inspired mostly by the Aix-en-Provence countryside, Venice, Seattle, and the islands of Puget Sound—has been exhibited at numerous galleries and museums in France.  He received a BA in  Philosophy from the University of Washington and a Masters in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, Santa Fe. Currently Mr. Gasparach acts as the curator of the family collection of the work of Leo Marchutz. He was a major contributor to the recent publication of the monograph, Leo Marchutz.  A selection of his work can be viewed at www.marchutz-school.org.

SEMINAR
Weekly interdisciplinary seminars ask students to seek connections in their works with that of other artists as well as critics from different times and cultures. Music, poetry and theater are often compared to painting, sculpture or architecture. Intensive discussions around slide comparisons of works from all periods of art have their positive affect on the students' capacity to view their art in a larger context.

CRITIQUES
The purpose of critiques is for students to take distance on what they've done and have the experience of looking at a body of their work. Taking distance allows students to begin to judge the relative value of one work compared to another: how successful one painting is, or what promise another image shows in terms of a possible direction that might be explored in the future.

When you're involved in painting, you're much too close to be able to judge what you're doing. So, while painting, you must learn to simply let yourself go and immerse yourself in the visual experience you're having rather than trying to judge it immediately as to its ultimate value.

Critiques involve separating yourself from what you've done, looking at the work objectively, and then trying to judge it - in terms of how successful it really is - regardless of what you wanted to make of it or how you felt at the time you were doing it.

Often, some of the best paintings done by students have occurred during times when they felt they were doing their worst work. And sometimes paintings that students consider to be their masterpieces show themselves to be rather mediocre or conventional, because they are simply expressions of what was wanted or willed, and don't go beyond that.

Critiques are a time of looking carefully and, little by little, discovering what the images reveal.

EXCURSIONS
Excursions are an integral part of the program. Students visit small towns and villages of Provence, which in the past have included St. Remy, Arles, Luberon Valley villages of Bonnieux and Lacoste. In addition, the Marchutz program often takes students on a longer trip. Students have enjoyed destinations such as Paris, Giverny and Venice.

SUMMER 2008 MARCHUTZ EXCURSIONS