Art & Museum Programs

Accelerative OptimaLearning in Art™
Unique Training in Art Perception

Growing out of the Gallery Walks that Dr. Ivan Barzakov has conducted over a decade, the Accelerative OptimaLearning In Art program (AOLIA) engages each person's perception directly and personally with paintings. This has proved exceptionally effective and transformational.

Whether you are a novice or a connoisseur, AOLIA's interactive process expands your perception, feeling and vision.

Dr. Barzakov, creator of OptimaLearning® and of Accelerative OptimaLearning In Art™, has conducted programs in major art museums in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, London, Madrid, New York, Paris, Rome, and San Francisco.

You may attend introductory AOLIA training courses of 1 or 2 days, or get personalized coaching by special arrangement. Contact Barzak Educational Institute for up-to-date information.

AOLIA is a radically different approach to appreciation of fine art. Through an active experiential process, your own perception of great masters opens to their orchestration of color, form, and many other aspects of painting. You begin to perceive these great works with a painter's perception and gain insights into his/her creative process.

With "new eyes" you experience artistic expressions of Beauty and Meaning. Most importantly, you learn to ENJOY art in museums or out in the world.

By approaching fine art through these OptimaLearning techniques, you strengthen your own innate pattern seeking processes. You train your mind to grasp the gestalt of experience or ideas, assimilating details clearly and quickly. Through skillful orchestration of experiences, the visual arts become a gateway to mind development in subtle, but dramatic ways.

"Not only can I see paintings with new eyes. I see the world differently too.
I discover beauty everywhere."

"AOLIA gave me a vitality I hadn't experienced before.
My creativity has exploded."

You can learn to see the essence of great art "through new eyes." Unlike traditional didactic museum tours, this ten hour, two day program will train you to interact directly with paintings_immediately, personally and in-depth. AOLIA will help you discover the artistic VISION that emanates from each painting. This radically different method will sharpen your perception so that you can look at art with "painterly" eyes, eyes trained in specific techniques of "seeing." One such technique is called "Dancing with Perception™".

You will be guided to discover the "secrets" of genius and build your own criteria for greatness in art. Through AOLIA you will profoundly experience the orchestration of color and form with the essence and meaning of artistic expression. The techniques of the method activate dormant brain/mind energy to invoke major shifts not only in aesthetic perception, but in general perception as well. AOLIA also strengthens your innate pattern-seeking processes. It trains your mind to grasp the gestalt of experience or ideas, assimilating details clearly and quickly.

As a special bonus in this two day program, you will be introduced to a brief history of critical paradigm shifts in European painting, period by period. You will also learn about key pictorial components and how they interact with one another — form and color; composition; light and shade; contrast, complementation; multiple perspectives and all that in action.

Most importantly, you will learn to ENJOY art in museums or outside them — everywhere!

You will go home with special tools. You can use these to make any painting come alive, any painting from any culture anywhere in the world. Moreover you will carry your new perceptual skills beyond the museum walls, seeing beauty more vividly.

Dr. Ivan Barzakov, who created the AOLIA programs, will personally lead this training.

Participants in an AOLIA program will:

1. Learn to enjoy paintings-immediately and profoundly.
   
   
2. Gain new perceptual skills and comprehension of the basic components of art as well as the subtle relationships between color, form, composition, space, light, tone, modeling, etc., through experiential and theoretical learning.
   
   
3. Discover the secret of genius, penetrating the essence of art. Through comparative art analysis see the paradigm shifts throughout history of art. Come to appreciate and value contemporary art for its unfolding uniqueness.
   
   
4. Acquire insight into the meaning of art.
   
   
5. Penetrate the creative process, and begin to understand the phenomenology of art appreciation and art creation.
   
   
6. Expand aesthetic perception as it leads to creating new connections, sharpening mental processes, generating ideas, and stimulating creativity in work and life.
   
   
7. Enrich life. Through the neuro-physiological brain stimulation of participative aesthetic learning, use renewed passion, creativity, and rediscovered vitality to achieve a special quality of life.
   

What Others Are Saying

Read a detailed account of one person who reluctantly participated, only to discover that it was a life changing experience.

". . . (Dr. Barzakov) knew precisely what he was doing all along and carefully orchestrated the acceleration of learning to superb effect. . . Without a doubt an effect had taken place in my mind that was imperceptibly allowing me to change my perception. . . Over the next few days the effects of the AOLIA training became even more apparent. Everywhere I looked I saw form, color, tone and incredibly — beauty. . ."

"After having read some complex ideas from philosophy neuroscience, literature, etc., I understood them after one reading, two at the most! Not only did I understand them but could relate them to other concepts and seemingly unrelated ideas. . ."

"An unexpected outcome from the training was a constant stream of ideas, thoughts and perceptions totally unrelated to the fine arts began to flow from me. My note pad became full of ideas on a variety of topics to do with work, solutions to problems, and ideas for articles to be written. In essence I hesitate to say I became more creative, but instead the blocks had been removed to allow my creativity to surface."

Accelerative OptimaLearning in Art® (AOLIA) is transforming not only how ordinary individuals perceive and enjoy fine arts, but also how their experiences continue to infuse an aesthetic sensitivity and delight into their lives. Here are excerpts from letters of other persons who have participated in AOLIA programs.

"That's the subtlety of art and that's what we need to get in touch with again. Slowly a pattern will appear spontaneously in your mind of how the colors and patterns are interconnected to form a feeling or a sense of something newly discovered. Dr. Barzakov calls this technique in the OptimaLearning® interpretation of art Dancing with Perception™"

"Looking at art is like looking into the mind of a genius. You sense the complex processes that went into his or her creations. In time, as your mind is exposed, it becomes entrained to think in similar patterns. That is why suddenly you find yourself very creative or able to grasp complex parts and see them holistically as a picture."

"Through Dr. Barzakov's training, art stays with you even when you are no longer looking at it. It is in your mind. The beauty of art infiltrates your life making everything more beautiful."

"The OptimaLearning training for fast and profound penetration into art and art history turned out to be an exceptional gift for me. Through Accelerative OptimaLearning in Art I succeeded for the first time in my life to grasp the deepest meaning of great paintings and optimally perceive color, line and style."

"What is even more important-AOLIA gave me two new eyes! I see the world differently now. I discover beauty everywhere, in nature as well as in human relationships. This is not just knowledge or a skill; this is a special gift which I will never be able to repay you, Dr. Barzakov, in my lifetime."

"AOLIA really shifted my perception of the world around me from the trivial to the positive, filled with life energy. After the workshop, I was gifted with "a pair of new eyes." All those masterpieces I saw (most I'd never heard of and really couldn't understand at all) totally changed my world. The brilliant masterpieces helped me to rediscover Beauty in all its aspects: from the Beauty of nature to the Beauty of human relationships."

"I'm wondering how a painting of a genius who lived ages ago is still so expressive, revealing Beauty in the world. That Beauty gave us a feeling of vitality that I had never realized before. This is because of my "new eyes" after just three hours of experiencing AOLIA.""

"The next day I had the strange feeling that through the paintings I had been in direct contact with the artists. AOLIA taught me how to enjoy the moment, how to discover the beauty in people and places around me. The masterpieces shared their Beauty with me and now that Beauty is keeping alive the music of my soul."

Programs outside of the United States may be offered in English, or other languages. Dr. Barzakov also speaks French, Italian, Bulgaria or Russian. Contact the Barzak Educational Institutes for options and details.