Torey Paternaude
Staff Writer
In Spain, we have the opportunity to view original masterpieces and understand the artists we study as ordinary people. It is amazing to be able to trace Spanish movements to artists in the United States. This is the type of experience that opens minds, teaches appreciation, and generates a strong desire for more.
What separates this art class from art classes back on campus is more than just the language that is spoken in the classroom. The setting, the culture, and the history makes the class unique and worth the work. Spending every Tuesday class in the Prado museum, standing inches away from the actual pieces that we spent hours analyzing the days before, creates a strong sense of appreciation and hunger to learn more. The ability to stand so close enough to an original piece that you can see the mistakes—and the brush strokes to cover them—makes the artist human to the viewer and not just another name in a textbook.
To anyone who studied history, art or, better yet, art history, names such as Velazquez, Goya, El Greco, and especially Picasso are familiar. These are the painters that I have studied in the Spain abroad program. At this, point I can tell you off the top of my head more dates of events and paintings of Velazquez than I ever thought necessary. I have pulled an allnighter to work on an art presentation that was an incredibly detailed report on a painting—not even the artist, but just one painting. There are moments in class when the professor draws so many lines of perspective on one piece of art that he mine as well have created his own abstract drawing. The workload and the rigor make art classes in Spain similar to St. Lawrence classes; familiar in a foreign land.