Kenneth Freed

As a painter who began working about 43 years ago, I have been fascinated by the techniques of the great masters of painting. In the last 20 years, I have spent much time understanding their approach to painting, materials, and specific practice. I have spent much of my time in a relatively narrow area of study, although I have picked up little bits from the early Flemish painters to nineteenth-century Academy painting. However, my absolute concentration has been on those painters that moved me the most in face-to-face museum confrontations. They are Rubens, Velázquez, Titian, Leonardo and Rembrandt. Their technique seems to be shrouded in a great mystery, and while artists and educators have written about them over the last several hundred years, much of it is contradictory. There are a few exceptions, and the book published by Virgil Elliott entitled Traditional Oil Painting is a significant advance forward compared to most of what has been previously written on the subject...