Which kind of art history education ought to be given in art school today?

Willy,

Art history education should touch upon all types of art from all over the world. More in-depth studies of specific art styles and regions can be offered later, but Art 101 should introduce the student to art in all its forms.

Ethnic art is a good option for an Art 101 but praxis is crucial too...

Thanks James Thanks Rafael

What is Art 101?

greetings

Willy 

It depends on many things: what kind of art school are you thinking about, meaning the whereabouts of this art college; what cultural and political context is there, what are the religious feelings and dogmas at work in a certain society. I presume you cannot show nudes painted by Bouguereau in Saudi Arabia, for example. Not if you want to live. Even if art should keep its autonomy from politics, any historical perspective on art should keep in mind the other factors contributing to the environment artists dwell in, rebel against or abide to. Ideally, any art history should try to encompass an ever-enlarging frame aiming to offer a global understanding of the phenomenon. Yet, the art historian should be very careful in order to not level the differences between the many ways people in different areas relate to the concept of „art”, that meaning even the possibility of art being an alien term in certain societies. I do believe art history should focus more on the cultural history of the artists and explicitly on how a certain complex environment could influence the artist's choices in means of expression, but, as an art history teacher, I would not fill any political agenda in an art history class, that meaning I would not emphasize an idea which could capture the art student inside any ideological pale.

Thank you, Mircea-Ioan Lupu

I retain:

1,art history should focus more on the cultural history of the artists

2,how a certain complex environment could influence the artist's choices in means of expression

3,no ideologicality - ideological neutrality in the classroom

now what religious feelings and dogmas are concerned we've got a problem here:

when we want a global approach censuring because of religious feelings and dogmas can be a problem everywhere.

art and neutrality are opponents - there is no neutral art. 

Western art especially has been provocative all over the last two century's

Art can have an important impact anywhere - and has never been easy on authority of any kind. 

So tolerance versus art schools is an issue here.

I do not believe art should be neutral. But the teaching of art history should. Art history teachers should not make that confusion. Imposing our own political ideology on art students is a mistake because we should teach them how to express through their art the social, political, religious etc views that suits them better. The art student should not be used by the teacher as a tool to reach his own purposes, but helped by his tutor to find the right way to express, through art, his own personality. The historical precedent of western art is not an issue here, because the question was about which kind of art history „ought” to be given, not „is” or „was given”. Of course you could teach about the art of the Third Reich to a Jew art student , but you should carefully  choose your angle on the matter. And, about art neutrality, at the moment, event though I could be mistaken I cannot find the political, religious, or social matter Cezanne rebelled against, nor why should an art history teacher emphasize on such dimension of his work.

Dear mircea-ioan Lupu ,

- Paul Cézanne is a good example of an "esthetic revolutionary poet" - Apollinaire called him the "pre- cubist" - but this followers  - Picasso for example -   "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" maybe not be political but shocking at the time - and his predecessors Manet "Le déjeuner sur l'herbe" was a scandal.

"Guernica": had a strong political statement

- Also Courbet made social critical work - and in de XXste century there are many examples : from Huelsenbeck to Hans Haacke...

 - Political, religious, or social matters are very present in cinema and literature till today.

If find it hard to find a modern art history without them.

best wishes

Willy

Of course, Cezanne can be thought of as a revolutioner. But he revolutionized a way of seeing, rather than anything political or social. The changes he started in aesthetics and consequently, in the way people thought about the reality of the 20th century,he was not totally aware of. Yet, we should still make a difference between the artist, as a rebel and a revolutioner, and the art historian, as an ideal conveyor of knowledge. As an art historian, anyone could  talk about Picasso joining to the French Communist Party in 1944, at the same time without trying to persuade someone that this was the only way he could get famous. To be neutral, in my opinion, does not mean to ignore the importance of ones political, social, or religious choices, but to not overemphasize the importance of a certain ideological path in some art student endeavour to enter the art world. After all, we should have the courage to accept that the mere fact that someone thinks of himself as of an artist already makes him closer to become one, the other choices awaiting him in order to be accepted having a lot more to do with his individuality than with our need to convince him of the righteousness of some specific path.

Regards,

Mircea

I never think of convincing or converting in relation to art-history classes -nor have I the need to biograph the author - these are anecdotic-  I agree - they are not to be seen as "bypass to the art system" .

But isn't there the need showing the differences in the social, esthetic, cultural  commitment ? As you should discuss color differences - your not convincing someone to use red by showing her the works of Malevich.

There is a diference in focus between - say the Futurist Manifesto - the Dadaist - and the Surrealist - for example  -  Or the work of Joseph Beuys - they all are in their own respect cultural critics.

Many artists today are ethnographic - or documentary makers - so there social involvement IN THEIR ART is important - it's not understandable without.

An other thing I am wondering about is gender.

What about women in art history?

Is Western Art history not the story from the male point of view?

What about women artists?

Where's their history?

How was their input in the art world at the time?

Or are they lost for art history?

Or has history to be rewritten?

All they all forgotten?

best regards,

Willy

Willy,

When I noted Art 101 I was talking about entry level classes in university, which in the United States are usually numbered 101 or 1001. Following classes are usually numbered 102, 103, etc., where more advanced classes are in the 200s and graduate classes in the 300s.

Art 101 introduces the student to art. This course usually is in two parts: influential artists and different forms/styles of art. Sometimes these entry level courses are broken into two classes, the first being a semester of the history of art and the artists and the second semester being an introduction to different types and styles of art.

Thanks,  James :)

While it would be very difficult to maintain neutrality in telling about cases like this one, here is some material I would like to see discussed in an art history class today: link below.

Hope that answers your question, even though I have my doubts about how could this be put into practice. I am not sure about the way the traditional male point of view about what is relevant in Western Art can be bypassed, when many male art history teachers still share the same patriarchal views as some three or four centuries ago. Another thing I am not sure of is if this feminist or gender aware approach is not just another strategy of subverting any true sense of rebellion in young artists, harvesting their creative energy into some sort of politically correct relation with the establishment. In other words, I think we should allow artists to rebel against what they chose, not against what we tell them to.

Best wishes,

Mircea

I find James Elkins' works on the topic  quite refreshing and challenging, pointing at visual literacy, non-art images and other topics beyond the artistic field

I fully agree with James A. Green's position about art appreciation courses being as wide-based as possible. Historically, in this country, art appreciation and even art history has usually consisted of a narrow curriculum that restricts itself to the offerings of Western European culture and history. The art world across the northern hemisphere, including the south, central, and northern regions provide a wealth of subject matter that has clearly not been appreciated or probably understood in our mainstream educational institutions.

Art history education ought to be given through artists' biographies, Semiotic art history, feminist art theory, Contemporary art, Ancient  art History.

Artist's biographies?...a turn back to Vasari's model...

I fully agree with James A. Green's position about art. Courses must be as wide-based as possible. In Italy unfortunately arts education in schools is still very neglected.

A grounding in the history of social and participatory art should be included. Many contemporary artists are working in this field

so-called "global art" is art history's dream -- its ahistorical and transcultural fantasy come to life in the museum-archive and the art-historical textbook.  art history, which, as we know, is a modern, enlightenment invention, and, i think, it "should" be taught in (almost) all the ways you mention -- crisscrossing ideas and ideologies -- as well as disciplines, as Abt Warburg argued.  Also, the discipline should be taught in tandem from which it emerged: philosophy -- for example, aesthetic, ethics, and politics, which none can be disentangled from the other.

Management of artistic and creative development of art school students involves taking into account age, individual, national, cultural, rational characteristics and traditions; the latter presupposes an appeal to the deep roots of folk art, imbued with the national spirit, rather than a blind copying of patterns and canons of art.

Involving students in understanding the content and totality of art should be done through personal and emotional perception of artistic information. It is through this that the spiritual, moral and aesthetic education of the student's personality is achieved, the awakening in his soul of good feelings, sensitivity, ability and empathy.

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