Concepts and Problems in the Visual Arts, Lecture H26: History of first-year art instruction

[@joannapinkiewicz6756]

Thank you for the comparison of academic influences! I’m enjoying your lectures.

[@allagadassik3479]

Thank you for making this labour of pedagogical integrity and knowledge freely accessible online.

[@notanemoprog]

This was a really really REALLY fascinating and amazingly useful series, thank you for the massive effort in producing them and for your kindness in sharing them freely with the public! I'm sure I'm not the only one who really looks forward to your next video so we can learn about what you're thinking about ATM :)

[@joannapinkiewicz6756]

Some arguments for keeping life drawing as fundamental, even though it may not be directly relevant to the subject matter of the students own work: 1. Cognitive practice: brain/ hand/ material connection 2. Concentration 3. Appreciation of the human form as is: physicality, movement, expression, etc. I had a wonderful drawing teacher who included mark making and materiality in our drawing practice. It got me thinking in abstract terms. It was a game changer!

[@JamesElkins]

I agree on all those, provided the instructor also talks about the reasons life drawing was valued in European academies, what it might mean for a roomfull of people to look at a naked person, etc. - the situation is so interesting, so full of meaning, that it's odd to just present it as natural or necessary for any artist.

[@joannapinkiewicz6756]

@@JamesElkins You made me aware that I indeed thought it was natural. In India's art schools life drawing and drawing from nature is seen as necessary and fundamental. However models are not naked. So, its definitely cultural :)

[@BillyClaire]

I feel like you totally missed Walter Smith and the Drawing Act of 1870 in Massachusetts which set the standard and requirement for art education in the US.

[@JamesElkins]

Tell me more. Have a text/video you'd like to recommend?

[@derink8523]

@@JamesElkins Billy is right, especially in the context of the US. The drawing act was meant to create a workforce to compete with British manufacturing as the US did not have a cultural history in design. It was later amended in 1875, essentially mandating that every town with more than 5000 people must make drawing instruction free and available. Massachusetts Normal Art School (MassArt today) was founded to equip teachers to support the drawing mandate above. Smith had a particular program with instruction sheets focusing on line and geometric design.

[@JamesElkins]

Derin, Billy, thanks, I've been looking into Smith. His two principal books are online here archive.org/details/teachersmanualfo00smit_0/page/184/mode/2up and here archive.org/details/industrialdrawin00smit/page/n3/mode/2up My wife, who is also an art historian (Margaret MacNamidhe) has been studying European art educational reforms in the 1880s, and it looks to me like Smith took many of his exercises from English manuals, which were in turn sometimes indebted to French manuals. A good place to start is Meredith Cole's PhD thesis (2009) "In Search of Walter Smith," which is here: aquila.usm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2107&context=dissertations&fbclid=IwAR2QnebF3gvhbXHWu7M_QgaECEgnHQCGu0_-eCeTyps0ZlK4aYChlYN7ugM She has a chapter on the end of Smith's influence, his attempt to start up again in Canada, and his return to England. She remarks: "Walter Smith's strictly pedagogical stance on craftsmanship ultimately did not promote personal expression and critical consciousness. However, art can simultaneously enable personal and social consciousness and explore different historical artistic techniques without being divided against itself. Smith's influence is still felt today in public school art education and in art institutes such as the Rhode Island School of Design and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (which now offers a Bachelor Degree in Fine Arts, a Master of Science in Art Education, a Master of Fine Arts, and a Master of Architecture). There are also Brazilian parallels of Smith's art education influence." It would be interesting to follow up on this, to see if any individual exercises survive in the introductory curriculum, and what ideas of Smith's are cited as influences.