Educating Artists | Art History Teaching Resources
Hallie Scott (author) is a PhD Candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center and the Education Director at the Wassaic Project, a contemporary art center in Dutchess County, NY. She is working on her dissertation “Teaching=Doing: Communication Pedagogy in California, 1966–1974.”
Jon Mann (editor) is an Adjunct Lecturer at Lehman College, a Senior Contributor at Artsy, and a lecture contributor and editor at Art History Teaching Resources and Art History Pedagogy and Practice.
By analyzing the evolution of artistic training, the lesson explores the shifting role of the artist in society and questions access and privilege within artistic training systems.
Many of the students in art history surveys enter the course with a notion of art as mythic work produced by geniuses. This lesson helps to deconstruct this idea by highlighting the structures and systems of the art world. The focus on educational systems, in particular, connects to students’ own experience, encouraging them to consider how they are impacted by access to schools and structures within schools.
The majority of the lesson is organized around the three paradigms of art education outlined by Thierry de Duve in “When Form Has Become Attitude — And Beyond:” the “talent-métier-imitation” paradigm upheld by royal academies, the Bauhaus emphasis on “creativity-medium-invention,” and the “attitude-practice-deconstruction” model that emerged at North American art schools in the late-1960s. The essay provides a useful framework that can also be called into question, especially de Duve’s mournful conclusion about the “sterile” third paradigm.
The basic course aimed to help students develop a universal formal language that could be applied to different areas of design. Eugen Batz’s Exercise for color-theory course taught by Wassily Kandinsky provides insight into the types of exercises that students did to build this language. Kandinsky asked his students to assign the three primary colors to the three elemental geometric shapes. Your students can try this exercise here.
A comparison of the National Academy of Art Life-Drawing Class and Josef Albers and students in a group critique at the Bauhaus Dessau reveals immediate divergences between the two paradigms: while the students at the academy are all drawing from the same model, the students at the Bauhaus have all created different sculptural forms. In fact, Gropius specifically denounced the “professionalization” heralded by the academic model. Students can unpack his opinion by analyzing this quote: “…art is not a ‘profession.’ There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. In rare moments of inspiration, transcending the consciousness of his will, the grace of heaven may cause his work to blossom into art. But proficiency in a craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies the prime source of creative imagination.”
how do these two classroom scenes differ? How does de Duve discuss the differences between the two models of art education?
The divergences between the two modes of art education is further evident in the comparison between one of the main buildings of Félix Duban’s École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1830) and Gropius’s Bauhaus building in Dessau (1925–6). Duban’s school, built under the aegis of traditional academic training, upholds the forms of classical tradition; Gropius’s sleek, restrained design embraces new materials and industrially inspired form. The latter building’s architectural advancements include a glass curtain wall, steel-frame construction, and an asymmetrical plan. This building reflects Gropius’s increasing embrace of industrial production. By the mid-1920s, he had adopted the motto “art into industry,” encouraging students to create designs that could be mass-produced.
his point is worth considering in greater detail: what does this embrace of industry signify about the role of the artist that the Bauhaus sought to produce? How can we explain this shift? At the time, Germany sought to become a center for manufacturing and design in Europe, and Bauhauslers wanted to help shape that production.
The school welcomed female students — in fact, more women applied to the school than men in its first year. However, inequalities still existed at the Bauhaus, and women were much more likely to participate in traditionally “feminine” arts like weaving and ceramics than architecture or sculpture.
many former Bauhaus students and teachers emigrated to the United States and other areas of Western Europe, leading to a widespread adoption of tenets of Bauhaus pedagogy, and even forming a satellite Bauhaus in Chicago in the late 1930s. The Bauhaus legacy can also be seen in Black Mountain College (1933–57), an experimental college in Asheville, North Carolina where several Bauhaus instructors and students taught.
The California Institute of the Arts (abbreviated CalArts) serves as a case study for the next paradigm of art education, but it is important to note that the shift in art education in the late-1960s did not emerge at a single school.
the shift in art education in the late-1960s did not emerge at a single school. Other schools that could be brought into this discussion include Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD), the University of California at San Diego’s art department, and the Hornsey College of Art in London.
CalArts’s Feminist Art Program, established by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro in 1971, was one of the first of its kind. When it began, the program’s studios were still under construction, so the participants converted a deserted Hollywood mansion into an installation and performance space they dubbed Womanhouse. Womanhouse, although only one of many aspects of the Feminist Art Program, provides a good entryway into the work of the participants. The installations Nurturant Kitchen (which was entirely pink) and Linen Closet and the performance Ironing Piece provide an idea of the analysis of gendered work thematized by Chicago and Schapiro’s program.
the built environments in which learning takes place: how does this building differ from the other academic spaces that we have looked at?
These questions should engender a discussion that touches upon some basic tenets of feminist pedagogy, such as the struggle against the objectification and alienation of the traditional academy and the embrace of personal experience. For an overview of feminism in the arts, feel free to consult Saisha Grayson-Knoth’s excellent lecture for AHTR here.
Once students have discussed these points, they can turn to a larger question posed by the study: if art schools are some of the most expensive schools, as highlighted by the Artists Report Back slide, is an art degree necessary?
how can these questions be connected to students’ own experiences of higher education? Do they see ways to reform the higher education system that they participate in? Can they imagine other modes of non-institutional learning that might better serve their own goals?
The Public School (http://thepublicschool.org/)
Trade School (http://www.tradeschool.coop/)
Bruce High Quality Foundation founded Bruce High Quality Foundation University (http://bhqfu.org/)
Reflection: Students could describe their own ideal schools, taking tenets from the above examples and/or developing their own educational approaches and solutions.
Research Project: For a longer investigation into the teaching of art, students could research the pedagogy of central teachers within these three paradigms. Possible teachers of interest include: Charles Le Brun at the Royal French Academy, Joshua Reynolds at the British Royal Academy, Johannes Itten at the Bauhaus, Wassily Kandinsky at the Bauhaus, Anni or Josef Albers at the Bauhaus and/or Black Mountain College, Walter Gropius at the Bauhaus or Yale, Allan Kaprow at CalArts, Michael Asher at CalArts, or Roy Ascott at the Ontario College of Art. Students could write papers about these teachers or enact one of their methods in the classroom.
For students, I recommend:
- Thierry de Duve, “When Form Has Become Attitude — And Beyond,” in The Artist and the Academy: Issues in Fine Art Education and The Wider Cultural Context, ed. Stephen Foster and Nicholas deVille (Southampton, UK: John Hansard Gallery, 1994).
- BFAMFAPhD, “Artists Report Back,” 2014.
Potential further reading for students:
- Walter Gropius,“Bauhaus Manifesto and Program,” 1919.
- Judy Chicago, “Feminist Art Education: Made in California,” inEntering the Picture: Judy Chicago, the Fresno Feminist Art Program, and the Collective Visions of Women Artists, ed. Jill Fields(New York: Routledge, 2012), 101–15.
For instructors, I also recommend:
- Leah Dickerman, “Bauhaus Fundaments,” in Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity, eds. Barry Bergdoll and Leah Dickerman (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2009).
- Janet Sarbanes, “A Community of Artists: Radical Pedagogy at CalArts, 1969-72,” east of borneo, June 05, 2014.
- Howard Singerman. Art Subjects: Making Artists in the American University (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999).
- How has art education changed over the course of the modern period, and what factors govern that change?
- How has access to art education changed throughout the modern period?
- How have these shifts altered the role of the artist in society?
Léger, Marc James, “Neither Artist Nor Worker,” Esse, 94-Automne, 2018, p.21, 22.
Reyes, Jen Delos, “Re-thinking Art Education (Revisited) Or How I learned to Love Art School Again,” Beyond Critique: Contemporary Art in Theory, Practice, and Instruction, eds., Pamela Fraser, Roger Rothman, New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017, Part 3, Chapter 14, p. 171.
Frenette, Alexandre and Steven J. Tepper, “What Difference Does it Make? Assessing the Effects of Arts-based Training on Career Pathways,” Higher Education and the Creative Economy, eds., Roberta Comunian, Abigail Gilmore, New York: Routledge, 2016. Chapter 5. 84-85.
Satinsky, Abigail, “Movement Building for Beginners,” Art Journal, 74.3 (Fall 2015). 50-66.
Berlatsky, Noah, “What Can You Really Do With a Degree in the Arts?,” The Atlantic, November 6, 2014.
Guida, John, “If David Byrne Does Not Care About Contemporary Art, Should We?,” New York Times, October 29 2014.
Ferdman, Roberto A., “If you’re lucky enough to earn a living from your art, you’re probably white,” The Washington Post, October 21, 2014.
Schjeldahl, Peter, “Local Heroes: The Brooklyn Museum surveys recent art from the borough,” The New Yorker, October 20, 2014.
SELECTED ONLINE PERIODICALS
Thyrza Nichols Goodeve, “The Art of Institutional Possibility: CAROLINE WOOLARD with Thyrza Nichols Goodeve,” The Brooklyn Rail, LMAKgallery, February 7, 2018.
Alexis Clements, “How Art Making is a Type of Management,” Hyperallergic, February 6, 2017.
Satinsky, Abigail, “Who Pays Artists?,” Bad at Sports, October 24, 2014.
Brooks, Katherine, “Most Artists Who Make A Living From Their Work Are White, Research Says,” The Huffington Post, Arts and Culture, October 24, 2014.
- Johann Zoffany, The Academicians of the Royal Academy, 1772
Zoffany’s The Academicians of the Royal Academy provides an introduction to the Académie royale in France and The Royal Academy of Art in Britain, established in 1648 and 1768, respectively. These schools served to professionalize the status of artists, distinguishing them from craftsman’s guilds, previously the predominant mode of education and organization for artists. Academies were not only centers for instruction, but also dictated artistic patronage through annual or semi-annual salons, which, until the mid-nineteenth century, served as the major venues for exhibiting new work. The academic model quickly spread to other countries and still exists in some schools today.
the British Royal Academy as depicted by Zoffany: what conclusions can you draw about who can be part of the academy? Why might the women only be seen in portraits on the wall? Women’s membership to the Royal Academy was capped, and history painter Angelica Kauffmann and flower painter Mary Moser are seen only in portraits because it was not considered proper for women to participate in life-drawing sessions.
how does de Duve describe this educational paradigm? How does he define talent, métier, and imitation? And, after students have teased out de Duve’s analysis: what sort of artwork might this type of educational system produce?
In rejection of formal academic training, many artists began to form small coteries in which they could advise each other in a way that might be considered an early predecessor of modern art school group critiques. These coteries, which existed among nearly every major movement from the Impressionists to the Surrealists, also found alternative venues for exhibition.
he step towards re-thinking art education in an institutional capacity that challenged the perceived problems of academic teaching did not occur until 1919, when architect Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany.
“basic course” (whose modern equivalent is typically known as “Foundations”)
“Bauhaus Manifesto and Program,”
- National Academy of Art Life Drawing Class, c. 1905
- Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Socrates, 1787
- Pietro Antonio Martini, The Salon of 1785, 1785
- Walter Gropius, Bauhaus Dessau, 1925–6
- Walter Gropius, “Diagram for the structure of teaching at the Bauhaus,” 1922
- Eugen Batz, Exercise for color-theory course taught by Wassily Kandinsky, 1929–30
- Josef Albers and students in a group critique at the Bauhaus Dessau, 1928–9
- Félix Duban, Palais des Études, École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, c. 1830
- Marcel Breuer, “Wassily” Chair, manufactured by Standard Möbel, Germany, 1925–6
- Gunta Stölzl, Slit Tapestry Red/Green, 1927–8
- Herbert Bayer, Bauhaus, 1925
- Postcard of CalArts, c. 1975
- Womanhouse, Linen Closet, 1972
- Womanhouse, Nurturant Kitchen, 1972
- Ironing Piece, c. 1972
- John Baldessari and his Post-Studio Students, c. 1971
- John Baldessari, Assignments (Optional), 1970
- John Baldessari, Throwing Four Balls in the Air to Get a Square, 1972–3
- BFAMFAPhD, Artists Report Back, 2014
- http://thepublicschool.org/
- http://www.tradeschool.coop/
- http://bhqfu.org/
BFAMFAPhD Free/Paid MFA programs 2018 update (visual arts focus) – Google Sheets