Expert: Ben Mahmoud - 2/2/2008

Question
What area(s) in fine art should a graphic artist familiarize himself with?  thanks for your anticipated response.

Answer
Am I too assume that you are a developing graphic artist, and want to know what skills and knowledge you need?  Or, are you a working graphic artist that wants to broaden your scope?

Ok, take the first assumption first.  If you are still in school, I would, of course, take the core courses for design.  This is important.  Later, you will work with the computer since it seems most graphic arts are done on a computer these days.  I would also advise you to take as many contemporary art history courses as you can.  This will enrich your imagination, and the pay back would be tremendous. I would recommend that you take some core courses in drawing.  Even though you may never draw in the computer age, the courses will help you develop a visual literacy.  And this is the most important asset you can have.  Do not focus on skills at this time.  Focus on ideas.  You will have plenty of time to develop your skills.  Skills without ideas are much like an empty billfold.

Second assumption:  you are a working graphic artist that wishes to broaden your scope.  Let me begin with a story from my life.  Many years ago I got a job as an illustrator in a large illustration shop.  I was placed in the same room as the art director.  I let it be known that I was doing this just to make enough money to go to graduate school.  I wanted to be a painter (fine artist).  I brought a couple of my painting to hang up in the room where I worked.  Immediately, the art director began to rag on me about "modern art."  He thought it a farce, and told me he saw no value in it.  A couple of months later, I noticed that the art director brought a brown bag lunch with him, and he disappeared at lunch time.  One day I followed him out of curiosity.  The shop was next door to a large museum.  The museum opened at 1PM, but apparently he knew some of the guards, and he was allowed in.  I was also allowed in since it was close to opening time.  I walked around the museum looking for Ned.  To my surprise, I found him in one of the rooms that held the most modern art.  He was sitting with a sandwich in one hand, and a sketching pad in the other.  He was sketching from the paintings.  I walked in behind him, and said, "Ned, I thought you hated this stuff.  What are doing here?"  His reply was, "I do hate this stuff, but this is where all the ideas are."

That's why he was an art director.  He transcended his taste.

Now, if I were a working graphic artist, I would enroll in some contemporary art history courses.  I would pay more attention to what the prof. said, rather than the images on the screen.  You are looking for ideas: ideas that no one else has had.  So, you need to listen for why things developed as they did in modern art.  You need to know the underlying sub-structure of these works.  That will broaden your horizons, and, hopefully, make you more curious.  Curiosity causes us to pay attention to things others do not see.  And curiosity is the seed bed for ideas.  

If you can find a design class taught by an old guy/gal who knows who Gyorgy Kepes, Vassily Kandinsky are. Or what the Bauhaus was...take that course.  Failing that, you might find an old copy of a book called, "The Language of Vision."  Read as if were a Bible.

There is so much more to say in response to your question.  It is a very good question.  But the proper response to your question would be a four-year course of study.

In any event, I hope I have been of some help.

Best wishes,

Ben Mahmoud