At the danger of being accused of anachronism, I believe that art is about beauty. For proof that this is the foundation of truly great art, one need only stand in front of Boticelli’s Venus, and let the truth be felt. That the respect of beauty is lacking in the modern discourse, and even eschewed and derided, is, it seems to me, a gross mistake.
     In my art, I am trying to explore this lost quality. Just as it would make little sense to attempt the study of calculus intuitively and without a teacher, it makes perfect sense that any serious student of beauty would first consult those who understood it best. With this in mind I have applied myself to the last great masters of beauty; Sargent, Monet, Manet, Siseley, Corot, Renoir, Pissaro, and Cassatt, to name a few. What all these great masters had in common was an understanding that beauty is all around us: in nature, as expressed by their landscapes, in our lives, as seen in their figurative works, and most importantly, in ourelves, as revealed in their portraits.
     This respect for the past should not be misconstrued as a pining for it, and it should rather be seen as “looking ahead from the vantage point of tradition.” Just as Picasso saw in the tribal art of Africa something that he could expropriate for Cubism, so I see in the traditional art of the West something that should be brought into the practice of art in the 21st century, not as a stale memento of bygone glory, but as a vital and dynamic element.