The Art Education Problem

ART Renewal Center ^ | FR Post 3-7-03 | Don Gray

[vannrox]

If we are looking today for a general level of art of serious purpose, art with profound content supported by significant aesthetics, we will not find it. Contemporary art has failed.

If we are satisfied with superficial, artificial art that manipulates aesthetics for empty abstract, decorative effects, then we truly live in a "golden" artistic age ... for this kind of art is everywhere.

The degree of present-day artistic collapse, compared to the height of past artistic achievement, can be seen in the velocity and extent of precipitous decline during the 20th Century, increasing since World War II.

In our time, artists mechanically -- and temporarily -- scribe lines on museum walls, spread debris on museum floors (perhaps it is merciful that such works are not preserved for posterity), and make metal video robots that may wonderfully tell us how dehumanized we have become, but offer no suggestions on how to reverse the process.

We lost our connection with principle and enduring greatness in art (and life), when we lost connection with nature and with our own spiritual, poetic, artistic dimension. We lost connection with each other and with ourselves when we were overwhelmed by technology and the forces of societal and personal dehumanization. Our values -- artistic, spiritual, societal -- are in disarray. One aspect of this tragedy is that many don't even realize what happened to us and our art.

We hope for better things, more understanding, insight and integrity from future generations. But, unfortunately, the future continues to be corrupted by the present and recent past.

Young, would-be artists are subjected to the stale, dead, often perverse contemporary art ideas propagated by too many teachers of the day. Too many college and art school professors have lost their own way as artists, have little idea what genuine art is, and mindlessly espouse the distorted values, the fashionable cliches of contemporary art ...

... depersonalized design without character; theoretical, esoteric color and drawing; ritual gesture and mechanical relationships; meaningless formulas devoid of significant connection to the deepest thoughts and feelings of student-artists, unrelated to the meaning of life or to the visual and emotional reality of the world.

Too many art school graduates are ill-equipped to see the "art" in everyday life as did great artists of past centuries. They don't have the knowledge, insight or drawing and painting skills to create art from reality, to significantly translate their experience of life into art.

They have not been taught to dig deeply within themselves, to ask what they really need from art to fulfill themselves as artists and human beings, then use that awareness to excavate the raw material of the world. As far as they know, art is a closed narcissistic circle that does not include other human beings or the world. Art is aesthetic masturbation without communication. Tragically, most young artists don't realize they are clones of limited teaching unless they have an instinctive reaction, a sense that something isn't right even if they can't put it into words. How can most students tell a cliche from a timeless principle? It takes time and effort to earn that understanding. Or, if finally fed up with this educational process, they may react like the outraged college student who threw a wadded drawing in the face of the instructor who, when asked for help in drawing still-life ellipses, replied, "We don't worry about ellipses around here."

How many students give up in the face of non-information, disinformation and sometimes outright hostility from their teachers? A certain college art department could not understand why they had so few students, why their numbers were declining yearly. The answer was clear. The art professors were bitingly critical. Most of us would agree that such an attitude is not teaching, anymore than the passing on of degraded and degrading art fashions. To teach is to support the students, give them solid skills, do everything possible to awaken them to timeless art principles, the miracle of art, fill them with a passion for art they can build on for a lifetime.

There are obviously good art teachers. But the general impression of the college and university art educational system, based on the art produced by both students and faculty (like contemporary art itself) is decay.

Young artists need to be taught organic, vital, biting, powerful, personal drawing and painting. They need to draw and paint rutted cabbages, twisted tree roots, muscled forearms, aged heads, rocks, onions, rotten apples, cow pelvises and a hundred other things, and do it with character and strength. They need this more than they need the slick, clever, unfelt line and shape, the commercial swish and stain of brushwork unrelated to any reality, that are hallmarks of contemporary "draughtsmanship" and painting.

They need to be taught to see, to study an object so intensely they become one with it; the forms, color and character of reality and the world revealed to them. They must be given the aesthetic means to significantly express these timeless truths, each young artist responding in their unique way.

We will remain rootless as artists and art lovers if we thoughtlessly continue trying to build upon the insubstantial aesthetic mannerisms of contemporary art.

We need to rediscover the foundational principles of great art when it was still in touch with life, not to copy past styles, but to learn from genuine artists, be inspired by their example, commit ourselves to the search for styles, forms and subjects expressive of our own time and worthy of our humanity, now and for centuries to come. This is what the great artists of the past did.

The only way to build an artistic bridge to the future is to re-construct our link with the past that was destroyed by the pain, passions and corruptions of the 20th Century. Obviously, artists should do what they feel they must do, but almost anything else will result in a continuation of the present empty aesthetic floundering.

The rediscovery of the world and foundational principles in art involves as daring and revolutionary a search for the very nature of art and life as the Renaissance discovery of the world after a thousand years of medievalism. There is nothing more innovative and difficult that any of us have ever faced. But we need to do it ... for art, for ourselves, for our self-respect, and for future generations of mankind.

[Sam Cree]

"Basically the government pays artists to live in Rome and do their thing for a full year."

Man, that is kind of infuriating, although somehow it makes me want to laugh out loud. I figure anyone that wants to give money to artists is welcome to do so, but where in the world do they come off asking the government to forcibly confiscate if from others for that purpose? I mean, even if I thought it could be a good cause, at least I might want a choice in what sort of artist to subsidize, and how much to give.

How did you like Italy and the art there?

[Darksheare]

Most of the libertarians in my area aren't.
They're more Liberals than libertarians. Makes a mockery of everything. The few I met that were honest libertarians, as opposed to the previously mentioned ones, have moved elsewhere due to the dishonest atmosphere here.
I don't blame them, honestly. The only reason I stay is to be a thorn in the Liberals' side.

The rest of teh 'non-instructor' artists here will be repectful of one's political affiliation, the instructors aren't. They're enlightened after all..*cough cough* Not sure why this is, but it exists.

I'm too much of a solid conservative Repub to make it as a libertarian. (Those that exist in my area believe in legalising all drugs and restructuring the sex laws that exist. Have no idea why they want the last one, none of them have come up with a solid congnisant explanation for it. I've seen what drugs do to people firsthand, and am against legalising them due to that firsthand knowledge.)

I do so hate being at art gatherings and they start going off into politics. That detracts from what one is there for. I don't know about them, but I am there to showcase my personal psychosis called art, meet other artists, discuss art, and see art.
In short, I'm there for the art.
It's become too much of a political forum these days, as well as an excuse to be juvenile and shocking.
Not sure what is to be done about it, if anything can.
(The area I'm in, the 'high echelon' of the local artists believes that the shock value is worth more than the satisfaction of seeing something beautifully created.)

By the by, if you're reading anything I typed and see 'teh' or 'tehre', it's supposed to be 'the' and 'there'. I have a habit of hitting the e key before the h key. (I type faster than I proofread. And usually never get back to it!)

[justshutupandtakeit]

Actually I know a great deal of the evils of communism and how it operated over the years. Gramsci was an Italian not a Soviet. His political theories have had a major impact among the "intellectuals" but art is a different issue. I have read Marcuse have you?

Most of the sixties culture was not based on Marxism but the same kind of idealism and hedonism which had surfaced occasionally in this country since the 1820s. Long before Marx or the Communist manifesto. I read Horowitz when he was a commie and since. And Marx, Lenin, Mao, Hegel, Debray, Stalin, and Trotsky as well.

I do not claim Marxists have not tried to undermine Western life quite the contrary. However, Modern Art has little to do with that attempt and it certainly does not fit the Marxist theory of art. Just to claim something is commie influenced merely because you don't like it is hardly convincing. I have seen nothing by George DonDero about modern art perhaps you could point me to something.

[Ditter]

It is true that many artists can't draw. If you go to the Houston Livestock Show (going on right now) Go to the Student Art Show. You will see many "drawings" in pencil & in color that look like photographs from a distance. They have been projected from a photograph using a machine & then the image has been traced. These highschool students will recieve thousands of dollars for their "work" toward college tuition. Then when the get to college they will be encouraged toward "abstract art". The situition is very sad. Some of these students might have had potential, but who knows?

[SauronOfMordor]

Where are the Van Goghs, Gaugins, Picassos, JMW Turners, Renoirs, Pizarros, Chezannes, Degas, Monets, Manets, Seuratts, Mondrians, Mondiglinais, Klimpts... Where are the masters who did Pinky and Blue Boy. Where are the Remingtons?

They fled. The current art world is inhospitable to their kind of art.

A lot of people who would have become "fine artists" have gone into commercial art (ie, art where you have to please your buyer). Norman Rockwell, Boris Vallejo, Julie Bell, lesser artists like Kelly Freas do their art for widespread publication rather than gallery walls. Then there are the artists who do album covers (they had a bigger canvas before the CD era) and book covers

[SauronOfMordor]

These guys are almost supernaturally talented, but they serve the fruits of their talent to you on a silver platter for your pleasure. Their paintings seem like a service to the viewer, somehow -- it's the viewer's pleasure that's important -- and I appreciate that. In a way, the nature of being a commercial illustrator harkens back to the days when artists were commisioned to paint or sculpt by wealthy patrons. I think that aspect of hiredness is less likely to lead to the sort of silly narcissism that we see in a lot of modern art. Instead, it leads to images that are unabashedly resonant and beautiful.

You got it. Art that does not impact the viewer is not art -- it is masturbation

Lots of decent art is done for covers and such. One artist I like for his work on science fiction covers from my early days is Kelly Freas (below)

[Ditter]

>>Drawing is one of those skills you can work on for a lifetime & keep on improving>> You are absolutely correct. My drawing is better now than I thought was possible when I was young.

[Judith Anne]

My daughter has painted for years...sold her first painting at age 15 (for 45.00) has been commissioned by protestant ant Catholic churches for beautiful religious art...she learned from a private instructor, and did a lot of copying...once, she copied Da Vinci drawings on wood with a very fine woodburning pen, they are exquisite...she paints on the huge Easter candles, she paints on wood, she paints on canvas...her pet portraits get 250.00 each...she paints icons--anything you can imagine, her favorite themes are religious and rural...you would never know, looking at her or talking to her, what passion for art she has...I'll call her later and see if her website is up.

[jimt]

You would be AMAZED at the beauty and helpfulness of these art technique books!

Thanks for the tip ! I took your advice (and my daughter the budding artist) to Half Price Books and bought five !

[ggekko]

Art is always an expression of a worlview. The worldview that dominates high art is nihilistic and solipsistic; this worldview reflects itself in the arbitrariness and agressive ugliness of most avant garde visual art. There has also been a wholesale collapse of aestehtic standards; lacking classical aesthetic principles it is next to impossible to convey aestehtic judgement to aspiring art students.

The current avant garde art scene is a politically correct sesspool that lionizes untalented performance artists and visual shock pieces. Aggressive gallery owners keep the whole sham running by selling schlock to credulous trust fund half-wits and the wives of rich men.

[Sam Cree]

That's nice that your daughter paints, I believe there are quite a few freepers who have art ability or who are artists.

I would like to see her art if her site is up.

[u-89]

I am not saying all leftists are communists, I used the term loosely but there is and historically was communist ties to the culture war in all its manifestations from film and art to history texts to music. If you do not want to believe that then I am not going to try and convince you as I would be wasting my time and yours. I am not saying that every aspect of this is part of a centrally planned conspiracy. Like a snowball tossed down a mountain side these things gather size and momentum as they progress and a direction of their own. But that does not mean those who tossed the thing didn't understand the ramifications of their action.

Since the Frankfurt school, who Marcuse was a part of, got mentioned let me say that they understood that in America a Godly person would not be persuaded by "reason" that God did not exist and that American's belief in God prevented them from embracing atheistic communism so they pushed sexual deviance because sex is such a strong a primal urge. Religion keeps this in check but once someone gets hooked into something they voluntarily become estranged from God and then become susceptible to the idea of a new society where they will not be judged wrong in their activities. This is only one example of how popular culture and traditional beliefs can be undermined and altered. Of course the Soviets didn't employ these methods in Russia, they already had their revolution. Methods of creating the new man were different where they were in charge from where they were fighting, and that includes art.

Not knowing you or your background I mentioned earlier the Frankfurt school and Horowitz assuming that most conservatives had heard of them. Rep. Dondero I threw in just because he was so obscure and I was feeling a bit smart alecy. In the late 1940's and early '50's he delivered speeches like "Communists maneuver to control art in the US", "Modern art shackled to communism", "Communist conspiracy in art threatens American museums", "Communism under the guise of cultural freedom strangles American art" just to name a few. Not that any of this would prove anything to you if you are not inclined to agree but I am not making up these connections just because I do not like certain aspects of art.

[u-89]

How did you like Italy and the art there?

I love Italy. Just the landscapes alone are inspirational enough to make the trip but if one likes history and art going back to ancient Greek times there is a lot to see. There is something magical about staying in a hotel room that was built in 1340 like I did in Florence. Where I live in NJ, one of the oldest parts of the US, there are homes still standing from the mid-1700's. I've been in a number of these as I know some people who own them but that doesn't compare to having diner in a cellar room 2000 years old. I must admit though after awhile of looking at all the "classical" art I couldn't wait to get back to New York to see some modern abstractions for some relief.

[Sam Cree]

I have heard nice things about Italy.

I recently have been taking some time to study some of the old masters' techniques, particularly the Venetian school I am pretty interested in how much one can accomplish using a palette limited to only 4 or 5 colors, which was about all that was used by most of those guys.

[justshutupandtakeit]

I would not disagree that artists are inclined to the Left. That appears to be a natural tendency since artists, by nature, must push the envelop and create new things. Conservative art is generally boring and doesn't experiment.
Art must question the status quo. A true artist in a communist country would wind up in a camp or dead since questioning the status quo is intolerable there.

Picasso was a Communist. Look at the difference between his early work (while still in Spain) it is conventional and quite beautiful but without the power to affect the viewer that some of the later work shows. Like it or not Guernica is not something that does not leave the viewer unaffected. Thus, it is a very effective work.

Dali is an exception. He was very conservative politically, religously and socially but his art was very affecting, in fact, he loved outrage for its own sake. Yet, at the same time some of his pieces were marvelous examples of techical virtuosity and often breathtakingly beautiful.

[u-89]

how much one can accomplish using a palette limited to only 4 or 5 colors

It is totally amazing what a few colors can create. A friend of mine is a house painter and over the years I have given him a hand when he needs an extra pair and I can spare the time. I look at his paint chart samples that are literally hundreds of variations of hues and in the paint store they mix all that from a dozen or so base colors. It never ceases to amaze me. As far as the old masters are concerned they also were famous for thin washes (translucent layers) that held some pigment yet let the layer below it show through.

[u-89]

One more thing about Italy which is true elsewhere in the region, I call it the Meditaranean mindset. I was raised in the New York/New Jersey area with the hustling appraoch to life. You've heard of a New York minute I'm sure. Well in Italy they take 3 hours off in the middle of the day. Even the churches, where I would go to see the paintings and archetecture, even they shut down, they kick you out and close their doors. They have their big meal and escape the heat of the day and enjoy life. Not exactly the Dutch/Protestant mindset I was raised with but it is an interesting approach. I also like the after diner/evening stroll around town and sitting at outdoor cafes having a drink and watching the people go by. Combined with the landscape and archetecture it can't be beat.

[Sam Cree]

"in the paint store they mix all that from a dozen or so base colors"

Apparently one of the colors favored by many of the Old Masters was what is today marketed by art suppliers in tubes as "cold black." Interestingly, it is almost the same color as "lampblack," which is one of the tints used by by paint stores in mixing up their colors. It is a black that, when a little white is mixed in, makes a gray with a distinctly blueish cast. When used alongside the earth tones that dominated in those days, it is amazingly blue, and even makes a green when added to yellow.

[u-89]

I frequently use black in abstract work but never in my representational stuff as it tends to flatten surfaces and straight black and white to make a grey tends also to be lifeless. I use color mixtures that together read as a very deep dark blackish hue but really is colorful and lively. The mix could be anything but many times I mix pthalo blue and green, maybe some alizeran crimson, an umber if needed and so forth depending on the circumstances. I will admit to sometimes using Payne's Grey in the sky of landscapes though.

[Sam Cree]

Yeah, that is the rule, don't use black. However "cold" black can be OK, IMO, with its blue cast, it is surprisingly soft.

Apparently Titian, Rembrandt, etc, went ahead and used something similar. I think.