Gerald King wrote:
I have some sympathy for the many art professors I have known who accepted and followed the ways of Picasso. Most have given up painting long ago. Some still dabble in conceptual crap or photography. Some hang on to their teaching positions so they can feel significant to the young art students.
I have some sympathy for the many art professors I have known who accepted and followed the ways of Picasso. Most have given up painting long ago. Some still dabble in conceptual crap or photography. Some hang on to their teaching positions so they can feel significant to the young art students.
Gerald, I very much agree! As a young professor I come across these problems often - some artist/teacher hits on a formula for making experimental work and then repeats it, over and over again, which is repetition, not growth. Worse, if there's no basis for comparing and contrasting one's artwork with the world, there's no reason to grow, no driving philosophical impetus to increase the quality.
A bad environment is one where growth is not encouraged or incentivized, and where there's no people nearby who are more experienced and who can offer critical and good feedback. Bad philosophies are the ones that claim there is no reality, and thus no real reasons to do anything.
One reason it's important to provide students with excellent technical skills and the ability to paint and draw from observation is that nature and reality are the best teachers, always more diverse, stranger, richer than any art philosophy. Nature is also affordable. If you can't hire a figure a model, or aren't near a museum, you can probably still find a tree or some clouds to study!
Greg Scheckler
