Courses
A Contemporary Renaissance Workshop. A Path to Becoming a Professional Artist.
The Three-Year Program at Milano Painting Academy is an intensive and structured educational path designed for those who wish to pursue a career in drawing and figurative painting. It aims to develop solid technical skills, a conscious artistic vision, and a personal expressive language.
Inspired by the model of the Renaissance workshop, the course offers a dynamic and immersive working environment, where each student grows through daily interaction with instructors and peers, practicing directly from life under natural light.
The artistic direction of the entire program is entrusted to Nicola Verlato, one of the most important contemporary artists on an international level. His innovative and multidisciplinary vision brings a unique character to the Academy, combining classical painting tradition with a strong openness to the contemporary world and new technologies.
The faculty at MPA is composed of highly renowned artists and scholars, selected for the excellence of their artistic, academic, and exhibition careers. The drawing and painting instructors are nationally and internationally recognized artists with strong academic backgrounds and deep experience. They are joined by expert lecturers and scholars who lead theoretical and specialized seminars, offering students a complete and well-rounded education.
A cornerstone of the three-year program is a rich schedule of seminars, covering topics such as: the history of techniques and materials, three-dimensional composition, applied anatomy for drawing, the dynamics of the contemporary art world. Each seminar blends theory and practice, with exercises, case studies, and open discussions that help broaden perspectives and strengthen artistic, technical, and professional competencies.
Alongside the daily practice of drawing and painting, these seminars are a vital complement to the program, giving students the tools to deeply understand the creative, historical, and cultural processes of art—and to enter the contemporary art world with awareness and preparation.
At the end of the program, each student will participate in a final group exhibition, curated by a prominent figure in the cultural field, and will be featured in a personal printed catalogue. This experience marks a key moment: a true entry into the professional world, and a first concrete opportunity to present oneself publicly as an artist.
Milano Painting Academy is supported by Fondazione Maimeri, a long-time promoter of artistic culture in Italy. The Foundation actively supports the Academy through events, collaborations, exhibitions, and cultural initiatives—a fundamental contribution that strengthens the value of the educational path and increases opportunities for students to engage directly with the art world.
The MPA Method
The Milano Painting Academy’s program stands out for its originality and depth, distancing itself both from the vision of the “Contemporary” Academy—which regards figurative language as obsolete—and from more traditional figurative schools based on the French Bargue-Gérôme method. The MPA method arises from a current and powerful reflection, strongly endorsed and supervised by our Artistic Director Nicola Verlato, one of the foremost figures in contemporary painting at an international level.
At the core of this method lies the belief that drawing is not merely an aesthetic experience, but a design, intellectual, and cognitive process. It is a tool for construction and investigation, just as it was in the Renaissance tradition, now renewed with a contemporary approach thanks to Verlato’s vision.
The focus on the student
The MPA method is built around the student, aiming to provide them with all the plastic and expressive resources necessary to become a professional artist. In the Drawing and Painting program, each student is guided through a personalized path, structured to progress gradually and consolidate real skills. Individual rhythms are respected, and the difficulty increases with the experience gained.
Teaching is organized by thematic areas, with highly qualified instructors, each specialized in their own field. Every stage of the work is carefully monitored through continuous interaction with the teachers and visiting professors, offering constant, critical, and constructive feedback.
The focus on drawing
A fundamental element of the MPA method, drawing is present in every discipline and forms the beating heart of the entire educational framework.
At Milano Painting Academy, drawing is conceived as the foundation of visual knowledge and as the primary tool for the development of painting. Without a solid grounding in drawing practice, the complexities of the figurative language would remain unattainable.
For this reason, drawing lies at the center of our teaching process: not only as a technical skill but as a form of structured thinking, design, and interpretation of reality. A practice that becomes language, vision, and artistic growth.
Learning Objectives
At the core of the Milano Painting Academy’s teaching method lies the conviction that drawing is the true tool of knowledge. For this reason, one of the fundamental goals of the training path is to train students’ eyes to measure the world with the naked eye, without relying on mechanical or digital instruments.
The consistent and thoughtful practice of drawing allows students to internalize proportions, shapes, volumes, spatial relationships, and surfaces, transforming the hand into an extension of the mind. Students learn to go beyond the purely aesthetic conception of drawing and access an analytical and design language—an essential foundation for conscious painting.
Fundamental concepts such as anatomy, gesture, foreshortening, and proportion are approached progressively and systematically. Only after these elements are fully assimilated will the student be able to tackle the painting process in all its stages—from grisaille to glazing—in a functional and coherent way.
An essential pillar of the MPA method is the conscious use of light and the laws of optics. Drawing inspiration from the Venetian painting tradition, students learn to generate depth and atmospheric effect not through simple tonal juxtaposition of colors but through a deep understanding of light as a spatial construction.
Through this journey, each student acquires not only solid technical tools but also the freedom to build a personal language capable of engaging with contemporary art without renouncing the legacy of the great masters.
Fundamental learning
Drawing represents the central core of the Milano Painting Academy’s training program and is present, to varying degrees, in all the disciplines taught. Without a solid mastery of drawing, most of the challenges encountered along the artistic path would be insurmountable.
At MPA, drawing is not considered a mere preliminary exercise, but a structured and conscious language capable of supporting and enhancing every future development. Painting, in this perspective, is the natural evolution of drawing: an ultra-language built upon solid foundations of line, hatching, anatomy, and proportion.
Students learn to manage these elements through constant and progressive practice, guided by a highly qualified faculty. Every phase of the course is designed to build concrete and lasting skills: from initial exercises on simple forms to more complex painting projects.
Once the basics are consolidated, instructors encourage students to open up to experimentation—in technique, color, and stylistic solutions. The goal is for each student to develop a personal, authentic, and recognizable artistic language. A language that, while rooted in tradition, can engage in dialogue with contemporary sensibilities.
The course’s aim is not only to teach faithful representation of reality but to lead students toward the ability to construct complex and structured images, capable of activating the imagination and generating meaning.
Thus, pictorial composition becomes the culmination of a conscious process in which drawing, painting, and visual thinking merge into a personal and powerful language.
