Melville Holmes

Artist, Craftsman, Scholar

“To love beauty is to see light.” — Victor Hugo

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 the masters’ have proliferated since the eighteenth century, but often proved untrustworthy. In 1987, I resolved to no longer rely on the opinions of others and undertook the study of the materials of painting, their chemistry and technology, in historical sources and the scientific analysis of art in museums. This was combined with much practice in making paint by hand.

“I found old master effects that some associate with style really arose from a simpler, more direct relationship with the raw materials themselves, before materials for artists were supplied by industry. Painting in deliberate layers and glazing was simply a way to get the most out of a few pigments combined with oils and natural resins. My goal is to attain the level of expressive freedom and control of the seventeenth-century masters, to return to their foundation while taking full responsibility for the integrity of my art.”

Melville Holmes

 

Artist

Melville Holmes (born 1950 in San Francisco) is a traditional fine artist, using pictorial modes and painting methods derived from the Old Masters of the 15th-18th centuries. In 1998, the Frye Museum in Seattle showcased the artist’s philosophy in a one-man show, “Old Master Dialogues.” The “dialogues” have continued through the years, as the artist first … More Artist

Craftsman

A fine line separates Melville Holmes’s craftsmanship and the scholarship that has gone into it. The results of his original artworks, interior design work, as well as art and statuary restorations are owed to his diligent research. It is not unusual for him to grind his own paint pigments in the old-fashioned way or to … More Craftsman

Scholar

Melville Holmes’s work extends into the field of art conservation and the scientific analysis of historic materials. He has published several papers which include: “Amber Varnish and the Technique of the Gentileschi,” included as an appendix in Artemisia Gentileschi and the Authority of Art: Critical Reading and Catalogue Raisonné by R. Ward Bissell, Penn State University Press … More Scholar

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.

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