Vienna Academy of Visionary Art

The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art

SWS Scholarly Society Partner

Interests: all aspects of painterly creation

The Vienna Academy, an esteemed global educational hub offering instruction primarily in English, welcomes up to twenty students annually into its one to three-year Diploma programs. Additionally, it provides shorter academic engagements, including a Single Trimester (3 months), Half Trimester (5 weeks) in Vienna, and seasonal seminars in Italy.

Established to honor Professor Ernst Fuchs, the academy champions a Spiritual Renaissance in art, led by a distinguished faculty, The Visionary Guild, comprising artists closely allied with Fuchs. This collective, spanning from London to Melbourne, imparts traditional artistry on a trimester rotation.
Students craft two paintings each trimester under expert mentorship, cycling through six different instructors yearly for a diverse, vibrant learning experience. Academy Director Laurence Caruana enriches this journey with lectures from his work, alongside exercises in composition, perspective, and more, including live nude drawing to refine understanding of form and beauty.
End-of-trimester exhibitions showcase student artwork, emphasizing the art's commercial aspects. The academy's expansive facilities, over 500 square meters, feature dedicated spaces for teaching, exhibitions, and holistic activities, supporting a comprehensive educational experience.
Central to our ethos is nurturing artists' pursuit of beauty and unity, guided by sacred visions. This approach not only fosters technical skill but also aims to elevate art through a blend of tradition and innovation, celebrating individual creativity and genius.

The academy

Laurence and Florence - the Academy’s managers

Our Academy has developed a creative programme that encourages both technical mastery and original vision. Our curriculum, shaped by the Faculty as a whole, emphasizes the direct transmission of painting, since the teachers actively demonstrate their techniques while guiding the students in their creation of an original composition, based on their own ideas and designs.

Throughout the year, sacred and visionary aspects of painting are pursued in depth. Following Fuchs’ own studio practice, painting becomes a form of meditation and visualization. As well, a significant portion of our trimester courses are given over to the Mischtechnik (Mixed Technique). This Old Masters approach to painting, revived by Professor Ernst Fuchs, mixes (“misch”) two great lineages of the painter’s craft: egg tempera and oils.

Following the precepts put forth by Academy Director Laurence Caruana (in his book Sacred Codes: The Forgotten Principles of Painting, Revived by Visionary Art), our Academy pursues two major traditions in art: the Hieratic Style (Sacred Art of the East: Egyptian, Hindu and Buddhist) and our Humanist Inheritance (Western Classical and Renaissance painting, with its focus on humanity and human feeling). Thus, the Western canon of art, while greatly respected, is expanded to include Eastern and Ancient models. Vienna’s rich collection of museums offer sculptures, not only in the Greek and Roman tradition, but also the Egyptian, Hindu and Buddhist styles, which the student will acquire through careful study and drawing during our field trips to the near-by Kunsthistorisches Museum, Museums Quartier and Albertina Collection. Each trimester also includes a visit to The Ernst Fuchs Museum, located in the west of Vienna in the Otto Wagner Villa, to study and learn from its extraordinary collection of Fuchs’ life-work.

The artists of the Guild are dedicated to guiding their students through a serious curriculum designed to support and inspire the artist’s own unique vision.

Read "The Rise and Fall of Academies":

https://vienna-academyofvisionaryart.com/the-academy/about-academies

Images, video and texts credit: www.vienna-academyofvisionaryart.com

Inner worlds

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Exhibition "INNER WORLDS" at SWS Scholarly Society Sessions in HOFBURG

A Selection of Works From the Teachers & Students Of The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art

Participants: Laurence Caruana, Florence Mйnard, David Heskin, Aloria Weaver, Vera Atlantia, Kuba Ambrose, Amanda Sage, Daniel Mirante, Kevin Campeau, Shantaya Satyam, Hadley Seymore, Ihti Anderson, Mark Lee, A. Andrew Gonzalez, Martina Hoffmann