Three-year Academic Course
The teaching of the Milano Painting Academy fulfils the specific desire to create an art school that is a free space, where you can express your talent and demonstrate your perception without formal constraints.
The goal is to train the student and create a wealth of professional technical knowledge thanks to an agile, fluid training course in an open cycle, which ranges from traditional techniques to contemporary stylistic suggestions and influences, up to the most up-to-date trends and research.
The teaching is managed by work areas, with teachers dedicated to each subject. The training course includes aspects of tutoring that aim to personalise the activities according to the learning pace of each student in order to always guarantee effective feedback on results and on individual growth.
Milano Painting Academy is also a cultural community where ideas and actions of inclusion are developed, and in which students and the community recognise themselves as part of a pluralistic and multicultural design.
First year
The first academic year is devoted exclusively to drawing. Students will be provided with all the notions and technical steps to sketch out the “preparatory cartoon” of a painting, teaching them to think of drawing as the fundamental design phase during which the masses, dimensions, proportions and the volumes of the composition are identified and defined. The “Renaissance-style cartoon” is a place where one begins to conceive the space of the painting, and where, through the hatching, the quantity of shadow and halftones are highlighted, to identify and sculpt the figure or to trace the path of light on the surfaces of the subjects and create the set of volumes. All without any real interest or attention to descriptive detail, because, unlike the aesthetic drawing for which the goal is realistic representation, the Renaissance cartoon is not the end of artistic expression but the means to start painting the picture.Training goals
The objective of the first year is therefore to make people understand the fundamental role of drawing in the Renaissance meaning of project design, training recognition and analytical skills and developing production skills.- To train the ability to read the image to be reproduced.
- To acquire the methodology for carrying out an analytical study drawing.
- To assimilate the concepts of chiaroscuro and tonal evaluation.
- To recognise the anatomy, assimilate the mechanics of gesture and proportion.
Second year
The second year is dedicated to painting, or rather to the progressive acquisition of the various pictorial languages. Students’ learning will be accompanied by carrying out works with life models, with copies of masterpieces and with visits to museums for study from life, with the aim of making them understand that a painting never starts from an impersonal white canvas, but it is created through a long process of study and decisions that will determine the style, the materials and above all the use of light, which then influences the colours of the work.Training goals
The objective of the second year is to become familiar with everything that precedes the painting, that is, with the operations and steps necessary to create a painting.- To train the skill of using colours to make light
- To acquire the methodology to carry out a painting
- To assimilate the concepts of tonal evaluation
- To know and manage the graphic resources to express and represent the subject of the painting
- To recognise, mix and manage the colours of the pigments
Third year
The third year is dedicated to developing a personal approach and bringing out the style and personality of each artist. During the third year, students will develop an artistic project under the guidance of a renowned scholar, in a training course that will be completed with an exhibition and a personal portfolio with critique by the Maimeri Foundation.Training goals
The objective of the third year of the Academic Programme is to bring out the style and personality of each artist, thus completing the professionalisation journey by starting the artist towards the art system.- To refine the painting technique
- To develop a personal style
- To plan a solo exhibition
- To make the material for a solo show
Drawing
- Quick sketches – Alternative drawing
- Copies from the Masters – 2D to 2D
- Drawing from statues and casts – 3D to 2D
- Natural Model Drawing – 4D to 2D
- Applied Anatomy
Painting
- Painting
- Pictorial languages (copies from the masters)
- Life study – plaster casts/human figure
- Life study – still life/materials
- Life study – landscape
- Personal Style Search
Theory lessons and seminars
- Materials techniques
- Anatomy
- Optics History of Art Aesthetics Technology/software
The MPA Method™
The teaching programme at the Milano Painting Academy is based on an MPA study plan that moves away from the traditional dichotomy between the “Contemporary” Academy (where figurative language is seen as traditionalist and outdated) and the various figurative academies based on the French method, for example Bargue-Gerome. The whole MPA method therefore revolves around a single simple but fundamental concept: drawing is a planning and fact-finding process and not an aesthetic experience. This vision has its roots in Renaissance thought, which sees drawing as a preparatory tool for painting.The focus on the student
Since the primary objective of the method is to provide the student with all the plastic and expressive resources typical of a professional painter, in the Drawing and Painting programme each student works and practises at their own pace and progresses through the course programme gradually, with a personalised path that progressively increases the difficulty according to the growth achieved. Students interact constantly with teachers and have different teachers available for each work area with a goal of feedback on results and individual growth, which ensures that the student digests the teaching in each phase of their learning by correcting, modifying and improving constantly on all the critical aspects highlighted by the teacher.The focus on drawing
Present to a greater or lesser extent in all disciplines taught at the MPA, drawing is the heart of the teaching process of the Milano Painting Academy. Because without a solid foundation in the practice of drawing, most of the difficulties that will arise during the artistic journey would be insurmountable. The focus on drawing as the founding design process of pictorial knowledge is in the MPA method the tool par excellence, preparatory to painting, the tool that allows you to validate an entire training path that leads the student to develop the plastic and expressive skills of a professional painter.The teaching of the course is spread over three years.
The academic year lasts 9 months.
The academic week is divided into 25 hours of practice (drawing and painting) and 5 hours of theoretical lessons and seminars.
Practice lessons will be held from Monday to Friday from 9:30 to 12:30 and from 13:30 to 16:30. Theoretical courses will take place bi-weekly.
The courses will be held in Italian, English and Russian.
Throughout the year the students will make several visits to museums with the teachers, to study, analyse and copy the works of the Great Masters.
- The first year is dedicated to drawing intended as a tool for the design of the whole piece, for the study and understanding of the movement of light on the elements of the composition and on the volumes of the composition.
- The second year is dedicated to painting, or rather to the progressive acquisition of the various pictorial languages. Students’ learning will be supported by carrying out works with life models, copying masterpieces and visiting museums to study from life.
- The third year is dedicated to the development of a personal approach and to bring out the style and personality of each artist.
The teaching is, however, fluid and the MPA method, which is based on the direct and constant relationship between students and teachers, allows students to join at any time of the year.
The time that each student dedicates to passing each point of the study programme and, consequently, to completing the training course is absolutely personal, and can therefore vary from the other students’ journeys.
MPA gives the opportunity to deserving students who have completed the three-year study period and intend to pursue a career as a teacher to become teaching assistants for the academic course.
Teachers and Visiting Professors
for questions, to request more information or to book your spot, please contact us at: info@milanopaintingacademy.it