Learn
Kitsch Painting! 

A six-week internet course on classical portraiture

With Jan-Ove Tuv, student of Odd Nerdrum 1996-2002. 

Sign up for more info!

Premiering 10th January 2022, this course gives you more than 30 professionally produced films, teaching you the basics of portrait painting.  

Jan-Ove Tuv will personally guide you. After course finish, you have access to the material for an extra 12 months. 

Curriculum

The Portrait
Watch me paint a life-size portrait from A to Z

Bonus films
Additional information on technical issues

Lectures
On old master technique and storytelling in painting

Feedback
Let me personally help you with your course painting

Full curriculum: below
What Kitsch is: bottom

Jan-Ove Tuv:
My Background

I was born in 1976, and studied with Odd Nerdrum 1996-2002.

Since then, I have given painting courses for 11 years. I have also made three other internet painting courses.

In 2018 I became the host of the podcast/YouTube channel "The Cave of Apelles" - focusing on myth, philosophy and archetypal storytelling. 

I have contributed to three books: 
On Kitsch (2002)
Kitsch - More Than Art (2011)
The Nerdrum School (2013)

Below: Full curriculum
Bottom: What Kitsch Is

Full Curriculum

THE PORTRAIT

Learn Kisch Painting introduces you to the "Apelles palette", consisting of only white, yellow ochre, Vermillion and black. 

The 12 main films show you my self-portrait, from start to finish.

The first film shows you how to set up your workshop, even in a limited space.
The second shows you how I stretch and prime the canvas. 

That gives you 10 films, where I start a portrait in the wet-in-wet technique.
These films will demonstrate basic principles such as:

Reaching «an unfinished totality» before adding detail

The importance of «value hierarchy»

The importance of «contrast hierarchy»

Establishing focus through manipulation of shadow and placement

Where to paint thick/thin

Sandpaper and glazing as painting techniques 

Etc.

THE LECTURES

Two pr. module (12 in total).

1) Explaining the painting technique of the masters such as Velazquez, Rembrandt and Odd Nerdrum



2) Explaining the importance of storytelling through Aristotle´s Poetics, the main principles of composition, and the philosophy of kitsch. 

THE BONUS MATERIAL

Each module also features bonus material, such as: 

Introduction to the Apelles palette & recommended colors 

Recommended brushes, painting medium, canvas, etc. 

 

How to measure proportions

The most efficient ways to spot mistakes

How to pre-mix colors in a tube 

Etc.

THE FEEDBACK

Receive comments on your course painting two days a week (video recording)

One Q&A pr. week (video recording)

Option of 30 minute one-on-one conversations

What Kitsch Is

 

According to Hans Reimann, the concept of ‘kitsch’ came into being in mid-1800´s Munich ateliers. Its purpose was to attack ”the previous culture”, making room for modern art. Historically, the term is linked with the birth of the system of the fine arts 100 years earlier.

 

While the latter praises aesthetical indifference, ”kitsch” encompasses sentimental and narrative paintings, literature and music. Kitsch motifs typically deal with the unchanging experiences of human life. 

According to Tomas Kulka, these motifs could even be futher analyzed ”in terms of Jungian archetypes”. 

Odd Nerdrum has always identified with these values. In the manner of classical kitsch criticism, he has thus been reproached for his concern with past masters and sentimental, pathos-filled images.

 

Reading Hermann Broch´s essays on kitsch represented an immediate identification on Nerdrum´s part. In 1999, he inserted three articles (as ads) in ArtNews. Together with other authors, he published the books On Kitsch (2000) and Kitsch - More than Art (2011).

 

To Nerdrum and many others, the concept of kitsch represents a new superstructure for sincere and narrative figurative painting.

Mads-kopi