Chairman's Message
It is with great pride we present the winners of our 5th International ARC Salon® competition.
The level of skill and quality that we see coming in from all parts of the world, confirms what we have known for some time now: that Humanist, Classical, Traditional Realism is back in full force. It's the only paradigm of fine art capable of expressing the full range of human ideas, beliefs, concepts, values, and emotions. And despite the claims it its enemies, it has not now, nor ever could have "all been done", any more than it would be true to say it has "all been written" in literature.
Just as the immense vocabulary of written language, with its endless complexity and sophistication, is capable of expressing any idea a human being can create, so too with a realist vocabulary, (all things in the real world around us), we are able to express the full range of human thoughts, ideas, concepts, beliefs, values, and emotions (including even those in fantasies, dreams, myths and legends) within the fine arts of drawing, painting and sculpture.
As the last 5 years of ARC Salons have shown, we are rapidly advancing and closing in on the highest levels ever reached during the three high points for fine art in the High Renaissance, 17th Century, and mid to late 19th Century.
I hope you enjoy viewing the results, and ask accomplished artist everywhere to please enter next year's competition. ARC must exhibit the best of the best of what is being accomplished around the world, and can only do so with the widest possible participation.
For those who did not win, and those who did not even make it to the finals, many of you still demonstrated very high and advancing levels of quality and accomplishment. Please don't be discouraged. There is always next year, when with hard work and uncompromising dedication you just may be a winner. Many of this year's winners only first made it there after several years when they did not.
There were so many excellent works this time, that I eliminated, at least for this year, the Bouguereau Award, instead naming 7 Chairman's Choice Awards that I felt deserved more recognition than they had received in the judging by category.
Please join us in wishing warm and robust congratulations to all of our winners, honorable mentions and finalists.