Reflection on "Can art & design be taught?
After listening t the lecture and reading through my notes I decided to write a reflection on what I think of the matter. Its a very controversial subject and its one that ha interested me. The idea of being able to be taught art to me isn’t possible, some people have the talent and some don’t, however I think this goes to a certain degree...
Someone who has the talent may go further and make more money in the art field and someone who is not so good will only ever be in the middle ground at the most. Good art is recognised and this can only be done through a talent.
The Bauhaus believed that teaching students to see beyond the obvious would broaden their work, and teaching art will only create cliché and boring artwork. I agree with this, art is about experimentation, teaching a class to do the same thing will only limit their outcomes to middle of the road art.
In addition to this James Elkin says that art is irrational and it can’t be taught in a rational way, then creating boring work.
The idea of bringing art into the educational institutions was a controversial one, from a pluralism view it generates a lot of noise because of the disagreements that appear from different peoples views but I believe this can only be a good thing, this can spark inspiration experimentation between disciplines creating more influential work.
James Elkin looked at the way we teach art in modern times by using 'the crit' this in turn is like our formative assessments, where we sit and have a one to one with tutors. Elkins view is that there are 2 approaches controversial or emotional, both underpin an emotional charge that is under all art and their artist. He’s saying that the modern day studio allows us to flourish and experiment, I think he's exactly right, although we may not do as much academic writing, we have access to all materials, processes and methods to help push our work, due to the interconnection of disciplines.
I believe that art and design could be taught to a certain degree, the theory side the way it came about and the science behind our thoughts, but teaching someone to draw only reaches a limit of their capability, creative have to have an eye fro design and not everyone can have that and not everyone can be taught it.
