Drawing as a Language of Thought and Feeling - Part II
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute

This course offers a quiet immersion into the world of the Renaissance workshop. A return to a studio tradition shaped by purpose, serenity, and the search for truth. It stands deliberately apart from contemporary and conceptual approaches, inviting students into a space where drawing is both discipline and delight, and where the hand and the intellect work together in harmony. Rooted in Aristotle's understanding of form, causality, and imitation, we will explore how the Old Masters absorbed these principles and transformed them into craft, image, and meaning. Working in charcoal, within a studio shaped by Renaissance habits and atmosphere, students will step into the role of an apprentice. They will study proportion, tonal structure, symbolic form, and the moral resonance of the image.

Through demonstrations, guided practice, and philosophical discussion, participants will experience the manner in which the Old Masters worked: slowly, attentively, observing nature with reverence, first imitating its truth, then elevating it through understanding and thoughtful refinement.

Completion of Part I is not a prerequisite. Whether one arrives as a beginner, from previous course Part I, or with many years of practice, this course offers a return to sincerity, craftsmanship, and the poetic shaping of line and light. It draws on the enduring principles that guided Western art from the Renaissance through the Romantic era, principles that still speak to us today with surprising clarity, generosity, and warmth.