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If the students didn’t have on well-worn jeans and flip-flops, you’d swear that David Voros’ Painting 101 course was taking place in a 15th-century artist’s studio.
An assistant professor of art, Voros has faithfully re-created the scene and the science. A cluster of students intently crushes burned chicken bones and adds a fine linseed oil using a 500-year-old recipe. Other students talk about a figure in a roughly-bound book of sketches. A lone student studies a copy of an old Venetian masterpiece propped in a corner.
“In many ways, Painting 101 is a cooking class for artists, and we follow historical recipes,” said Voros, pointing to a table covered with jars full of natural materials. “White is made from bones and black is made from burned bones. Verdigris comes from placing sheets of copper into anything acidic. Carmen red is created by grinding up Cochineal beetles. Crimson is created through a dramatic process where fermented matter roots in water, which yields red water. Alum and baking soda are added, creating a crystallized powder. The powder is added to linseed oil, creating the paint. And often, the measure of time required in a recipe is listed not in minutes—since, typically, artists did not have clocks—but in the time it takes to say the Paternoster two or three times."
In the 15th century, some twenty years before Columbus discovered the New World, artist Cennino Cennini wrote Il libro dell’arte, a book filled with painting techniques and recipes. Since there is no text for Painting 101, Cennini’s book is one of the sources used by Voros and his students. They also study the work and oil-painting techniques of 15th-century Flemish artist Jan Van Eyck, and the work of 16th-century Venetian artist Titian, known for his use of color.
“What people miss when they simply squeeze a tube of paint is the connection between the pigment and the natural materials that created it,” Voros said. “But if students know the source of their materials, and the behavior of those materials, and if they know that painters from centuries ago used the same formulas they are using, they will feel more connected to their painting.”
Reproducing works from different eras solidifies that connection for students.
“Professor Voros gives us a time frame—like 15th-century Venetian art—and we Google it, find an image we like online, and then reproduce it using paint made in class,” one student said. “Our last project included making a medieval-like frame for one of our paintings.”
Voros and his wife, Pam Bowers, an adjunct faculty member in the art department, are currently writing a text for the course.
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