Aims
In days long gone, painting was once a craft, like stone masonry or stained glass.The apprentice studied in the studio of a master, receiving the direct transmission of tradition and technique. Later, the academy emerged, to inspire the artist to the eternal quest for beauty, harmony and art’s highest ideals.
Today’s students enter art colleges with the high hopes of youth, only to realize that these schools teach a Contemporary art theory entirely lacking in beauty (emphasizing the ugly, ironic and provocative), while offering only the bare rudiments of painting methods.
The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art
Our Academy has developed a creative programme that encourages both technical mastery and original vision. Our curriculum, shaped by the Faculty as a whole, emphasizes the direct transmission of painting, since the teachers actively demonstrate their techniques while guiding the students in their creation of an original composition, based on their own ideas and designs.
Throughout the year, sacred and visionary aspects of painting are pursued in depth. Following Fuchs’ own studio practice, painting becomes a form of meditation and visualization. As well, a significant portion of our trimester courses are given over to the Mischtechnik (Mixed Technique). This Old Masters approach to painting, revived by Professor Ernst Fuchs, mixes (“misch”) two great lineages of the painter’s craft: egg tempera and oils.
Following the precepts put forth by Academy Director Laurence Caruana (in his book Sacred Codes: The Forgotten Principles of Painting, Revived by Visionary Art), our Academy pursues two major traditions in art: the Hieratic Style (Sacred Art of the East: Egyptian, Hindu and Buddhist) and our Humanist Inheritance (Western Classical and Renaissance painting, with its focus on humanity and human feeling). Thus, the Western canon of art, while greatly respected, is expanded to include Eastern and Ancient models. Vienna’s rich collection of museums offer sculptures, not only in the Greek and Roman tradition, but also the Egyptian, Hindu and Buddhist styles, which the student will acquire through careful study and drawing during our field trips to the near-by Kunsthistorisches Museum, Museums Quartier and Albertina Collection. Each trimester also includes a visit to The Ernst Fuchs Museum, located in the west of Vienna in the Otto Wagner Villa, to study and learn from its extraordinary collection of Fuchs’ life-work.
The artists of the Guild are dedicated to guiding their students through a serious curriculum designed to support and inspire the artist’s own unique vision.
Prof. Ernst Fuchs & the Mischtechnik
Ernst Fuchs: Moses and the Burning Bush
As an internationally renowned artist, Professor Ernst Fuchs is best-known as one of the five founding members of the post-war movement called The Vienna School of Fantastic Realism. He has since become known as ‘the grandfather’ of Visionary Art.
Professor Ernst Fuchs
His rediscovery of the Old Master’s painting technique – the Mischtechnik – allowed him to create fantastic works with the precision of the Netherlandish masters (Van Eyck, Bosch) while expanding colour harmonies into (what he called) Visionary Impressionism. Fusing egg tempera with oils, the Mischtechnik inspired the translation of his dreams and visions into an ever-evolving oeuvre of masterworks, infused with lyricism, beauty and grace.
As architect, sculptor, author and engraver, he explored the innermost depths of the human spirit and raised them to profound heights of beauty and expression. Today, the Ernst Fuchs Museum in Hutteldorf houses his documents while exhibiting a rich collection of his paintings, sculptures, engravings and architecture.
Professor Fuchs was actively engaged in the founding of the Academy in 2013, and spent the last two years of his life, visiting our studios and advising students on their works. He passed away in November 2015, and the Academy is dedicated to preserving his legacy.
Prof. Fuchs overseeing the students’ work – 2014
The Visionary Guild
Some members of the faculty and administration with Professor Ernst Fuchs:
Kuba Ambrose, Laurence Caruana, Florence Ménard, Ernst Fuchs,
Timea Tallian, Maura Holden, A. Andrew Gonzalez
Having met many times over the years, the members of The Visionary Guild discovered a deep artistic and spiritual kinship, which inspired them to come together as both artists and teachers.
They have exhibited collectively in Los Angeles (Temple of Visions inaugral exhibition), Paris (Questing the Sacred at Galerie de l’Art Visionnaire de Paris), Vienna (Transmission – A Tribute to Ernst Fuchs at Galerie 10) and numerous other venues.
Through The Visions in the Mischtechnik Seminar held each summer at the eco-village of Torri Superiore Italy, they have transmitted their love of art and craft to hundreds of students, drawn from all quarters of the globe.
Due to its immense popularity, the Seminar reached full capacity in its fifth year. The teachers took the next natural step of expanding the seminar into a full academy, rendering homage to their shared mentor. In this way, Ernst Fuchs was able to realize his life-long dream of founding an Academy, with the aid of his former assistants.
Today, each member of the Guild continues to pursue their international career, travelling around the world to exhibit or teach. But, they also return on a rotational basis to the Vienna Academy of Visionary Art to share their creative adventure with colleagues and students alike.
Each member of the Visionary Guild is gifted in a unique way (as evidenced by their work), and guides the students through an original painting to directly transmit their artistic vision and their knowledge of craft.
Just like the early guilds, which grouped artists into a mercantile association, The Visionary Guild is also a developing commercial enterprise, which aids these artists in their joint and solo projects. Academy students profit from these facilities, by seeing and learning ‘hands on’ the commercial side of selling their work.
Through its imaginative curriculum, The Vienna Academy offers an in-depth and uplifting training in all aspects of painterly creation.
Some members of the faculty in Ernst Fuchs’ Studio, Vienna:
Daniel Mirante, Kuba Ambrose, Emma Watkinson,
Laurence Caruana, Timea Tallian