Malen lernen

When painting with a focus on the visible – for example, a still life with fruit – artists perform complex partial actions: they perceive the colors of the real visual references and their own color palette. They envision a possible color concept for their painting and translate this into the artistic representation. Differences between what is depicted and what is perceived are leveled by the artist's skill. It is only through this skill that mimetic representation needs can be satisfied – so that a painted apple, for example, resembles the perceived one in color quality and intensity. Thus, painting is not merely an action, but encompasses relational partial processes of selecting, mixing, and applying color, in the interplay of artistic perception, imagination, and representation. The guiding question of this empirical-hermeneutic analysis in the field of art education didactics is how these partial actions represent teachable and learnable knowledge and skills in mimetic painting.