Before Uncle Waldy, I hadn't really picked up the paintbrush at all. I had, but never with a serious dedication to making this into a working business.
Now that Uncle Waldy is here, I can't imagine anything else I want to be doing.
Now this is no blood relation I'm talking about. Uncle Waldy is what I call him. His real name is Waldemar Januszczak. He is an art critic and expert extraordinaire, but he never presents what he's talking about in a pompous or fussy way. Instead, he is unpretentious and a bit bumbling, but his knowledge of art and artists themselves is anything but awkward or clumsy. When he talks about Monet, he delivers. When he walks through the streets of Rome discussing Renaissance paintings, he doesn't fool around. Each subject is given equal treatment, and seemingly no stone is left unturned. I remember the first documentary I saw him in was "The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution." With Uncle Waldy taking myself through a tour of Paris and its art schools, I learned how the Impressionists had to deal with an antiquated (and quite frankly, outdated) Salon that demanded the same kind of art year after year with no deviations from its staid norm. It was brilliant the way he did it, walking through Paris and showing through walking that infernal circle of art schools how the Salon simply wanted more pictures of mythology and religious subjects. Get trained here, get selected there, go through the Salon, and if your portrait of Zeus was good enough for the jury, congratulations, you're in. You're the best there is? Go teach other students how to do the same thing. Borrrrring!!! Claude Monet and his merry band of rebels broke out of that mold and showed a completely different side of the human condition. From Degas' ballerinas to Monet's wild and exciting views of the ocean and rock formations at Etretat, this movement pushed beyond angels and gods, and made more earthly views just as heavenly.
Would you like to know more? The link to Waldemar's documentary is below:
Waldemar Explores Pissarro, Monet, Renoir and Bazille | The Impressionists Full Series | Perspective (youtube.com)
Now go forth and explore the art world according to Uncle Waldy. You'll be glad you did.
Cheers!
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