After passing the exams and reviewing the works completed in half a year, the students of the State Academy of Arts of Turkmenistan begin practical classes in the open air. Taking easels and sketchbooks with them, they go to the nearby picturesque corners of Ashgabat in the open air. On June 22, two-week plein-air classes began for students of the faculties of fine and decorative arts, who can be found on one of the most beautiful green alleys of Ashgabat, located next to the Academy.
The teacher who led the plein air for freshers said that such outdoor activities, where you can see all the warm and cold shades of green and many other colors, help novice artists improve the technique of drawing and color reproduction, which looks completely different in sunlight than in indoor rooms of the audiences. After such classes, students feel the color better and convey it more expressively in their works.
The term “plein air” itself comes from the French “en plein air” - in the air and refers to the image in the picture of the whole wealth of color changes due to exposure to sunlight and the surrounding atmosphere. A striking example of the artist's work in the open air is impressionism. It was the French Impressionists who made plein air a popular basis for the aesthetics of artists, for whom light and air acquire independent significance and pictorial interest. Interesting that, thanks to the plein air, paints began to be produced in tubes, because before that, artists prepared paints in their workshops themselves. And for the convenience of carrying the easel to nature, more convenient and compact methods were invented - this is how the first sketchbooks for painting appeared.
The State Academy of Arts of Turkmenistan is the highest art educational institution of the country, where students, over the course of six years of study, acquire knowledge of anatomy and perspective, drawing and oil painting, receive practical skills in working stone and metal in sculpture workshops, study the history of art, and acquire professional knowledge in technology of carpet weaving, ceramics and jewelry art. Plein air classes are an important component of studying at an art academy for both freshers and senior students. Not only future painters come to the open air, but also, for example, girls studying the traditional art of Turkmen carpet weaving, because the feeling of color and its overflows in different lighting, the perception of color shades is important for any artist.
