A Way of Seeing and the Spiritual Search for Visual Truth in Painting

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Artistic education is directed toward building foundational skills and knowledge in art, but it also influences the artist’s larger worldview. This study examines the role of artistic education in shaping individual artistic beliefs, attitudes, and personal philosophies among a small group of American painters. Its central focus is the common belief among artists that artmaking or aesthetic response to art can be a form of spiritual activity or experience leading to spiritual insight. This book traces the educational transfer and evolution of notions linking art and spirituality through four generations within a single school of painting. The primary data for this study is a series of in-depth oral history interviews with seven painters who studied with Henry Hensche at The Cape School of Art in Provincetown, MA, a summer school of American plein air painting that is linked with Impressionism. Charles W. Hawthorne, a painter who was a protege of American Impressionist William Merritt Chase, founded the school in 1899. This book is addressed to artists, educators, and researchers who are interested in ways that spiritual ideas may be acquired and conveyed through education.