Melville Holmes, Artist

"Old Master Dialogues"

mholmesart@gmail.com ● 509-838-6878 ● Spokane, WA

About

MH-2004

Melville Holmes received his first oil painting lessons at the age of nine and it seemed a matter of course that he entered college as an art major, but it was only during his junior year in 1972 that he found clear direction.

“Standing before Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Rabbi, I saw a rich matrix of paint applied with consummate technical understanding, within which was an image of such existential human nobility that it seemed to transcend the artist’s age and mine. It was a kind of epiphany, proof of quintessential artistic virtue, demonstrating that it is possible for a painted image to somehow reach across the centuries to touch one’s essential humanity. To accomplish something of this in my own generation, even if only in a small way, became my goal.”

Melville Holmes

The Influence of Chardin

One of Holmes’s earliest impressions of art came from a book that his mother checked out from the library in 1963.  It was Chardin by Georges Wildenstein.  If one concurs with the opinions reported therein to have  been held by Chardin’s contemporaries, it is that no one should ever again paint like Chardin–not even Chardin! … More The Influence of Chardin

Elements of Varnish Making

“It took many years to realize how great a gulf separates the contemporary artist from his or her seventeeth-century counterpart. There are few teachers of the ‘old way,’ for there are no living links to the workshops of the ‘golden age’ where technical understanding and sound craftsmanship were the norm. Speculations about the ‘secret of … More Elements of Varnish Making

An Object of Contemplation

“Works of fine art are perhaps best distinguished from other human products in that, beyond any other function, they serve as objects of contemplation. A painting affirms its content, saying to the viewer: ‘Think on this.’  For example, the still-lifes of Chardin, the landscapes of Frederick Church, Vermeer’s View of Delft or Woman Holding a … More An Object of Contemplation

Classic Holmes Still Life from Melville Holmes on Vimeo.

Using techniques derived from his studies of the materials and methods of the Old Masters, artist Melville Holmes has painted richly luminous, contemplative still life paintings for many years.