Baroque Style Oil Painting

     My name is Meir Levinger. I am a software engineer. I live and work in the Silicon Valley and I paint for my own pleasure. This web page is my first step in going public with my art. I was born in 1944 in Israel and lived there most of my life. Now I live in Mountain View, California and do my part in shaping the technology of the future. I paint in the little free time this demanding industry lets me have.

     I don't have any formal art education but I had a very good teacher who taught me for several years the secrets of painting in the style of the great Baroque masters. What I didn't learn from him, I try to find out for myself by searching in old books and running my own experiments.

     In order to achieve a high artistic quality in my work, I simply don't take shortcuts. I found out a long time ago that in art the seemingly easy route leads to a dead end. So I stretch my own canvases, cook my sizing glue and my gesso; I mix my powders, my linseed oils and my egg tempera; and formulate my own varnishes. I try to make as few mistakes as possible and plan ahead every move.

     You might say I'm an amateur, an art enthusiast who makes a living as an engineer and has a hobby of painting. In my opinion I'm not. Art is for me a way of life. I do my engineering as an artist and do art as an engineer. It sounds as though I have a divided personality?.... maybe. But wasn't Leonardo doing the same?