The Renaissance era brought real prosperity. Visual art grew from a simple reflection of the world around it and an attribute of religion to a science equivalent to mathematics and physics. It is at this time that the disciples start living, working and learning painting in their workshops with great masters.
One of the most famous examples of a genius teacher and no less a genius student in the quatricento stage is Filippo Lippi and his student Sandro Botticelli. In 1464, Botticelli began studying with Lippi and won love and respect with his talent, later reaching an absolutely new level of artistic mastery. Another example of a teacher-student tandem is from the Baroque era – Peter Paul Rubens and Antoine van Deik. The student achieved such a high virtuosity of mastery that Rubens was sometimes unable to distinguish his work from that of a new protege. Thanks to their work and treatises on art, the masters of the Enlightenment laid the foundations for the establishment of professional educational institutions. The first art academies in Western Europe opened in the second half of the 16th century. Students received highly qualified and versatile education and graduated as experienced painters. Art academies evolved and improved, generations of artists changed, but the tradition of passing on artistic skills remained unchanged and reached out to contemporary artists who, like their predecessors, learned from the talented masters of their time.
In today’s world, the tradition of teaching painting has survived not only within the walls of professional educational institutions, but also as a transfer of a teacher’s personal experience to a student in the artist’s workshop. This phenomenon is by no means rare and, in our opinion, has survived precisely because of the creative potential of people who strive to take over the skills and experience of their favorite artists, whose work is in line with their own personal understanding of painting.
The exhibition “Teacher – Student” in the gallery MuseumLV is dedicated to the creative relationship between the master and his students and is made up of works by several professional groups of Latvian artists. Artists such as Ilze Laizāne, Dmitrijs Lavrentjevs, Zane Balode, Nikolajs Krivošeins, Nukzars Paksadze, Tālivaldis Muzikants, Ieva Muzikante, Emīls Kristiāns Muzikants, Olga Šilova, Nele Zirnīte, Vadims Markevičs, Katrīna Taivāne, Roberts Diners, Lilija Dinere, Andris Loss and their talented followers.
Curator of the exhibition “Teacher – Student”: culturologist Darya Samarina.
