Gustave Courbet- Statment on realism - Art can not be taugh

Artistic techniques can certainly be taught, although depressingly few modern artists seem to have mastered any of them. Teaching art, on the other hand, would seem to be an entirely different matter. It would no doubt be something like teaching jazz: either you get it or you don't.

Re: Gustave Courbet- Statment on realism - Art can not be t
louise dean 23


No. Art cannot be taught.
But, before someone arrives to the point of creating an work of art, he must learn the language, the specific techniques, even a style.

In the case of music, as example, you must start to learn the written language of music, it's vocabulary. You start by being able to read a partition.

Next level, the composition techniques. They change, according to historical periods. Harmony, counterpoint, rhythm, orchestration.

The last level is to study a style. That is generally made by the artist itself, beginning by following another artist style. See the cases of Beethoven composing in Haydn's style, Stravinsky following Rimski-Korsakov, or Schönberg following Wagner.
Then, when they were able to compose, it is time to create their own style. A process that only ends with the death of the artist.
And this, the work created by the personal style of the artist, is art.

Don"t be afraid to create in horrorsville
http://www.pbase.com/alkeme/image/6551152

Art can be taught.

Remember to Artists - 'art' is realtive.

Unless they now want to argue for some objective standard for what 'art' is. Which seems, from all of the artists I work with, not to be the norm.

Even if Art is objective - art can be modeled - and thus taught.

TF

Art is a piece of heart HEART

Re: Gustave Courbet- Statment on realism - Art can not be t


So what you're saying is that art is the creative process, whereas craft is the execution of such? The craft can be taught, but the art cannot?

I'll have to do some revision before I dare enter into this matter.I tend towards the "it can't be taught" side but it is quite complex.

We had a programme,which I only caught a bit of,about how man first used images.It was very strange.I wish I had seen it properly.I hardly suppose it answered the question but they looked like they were trying to.Showed some of those fabulous cave paintings so it was worth it just for that.

I adhere to the definition that says, "Art is the selective recreation
of reality in accordance with the artist's metaphysical value-judgments."

I realize this does exclude many beautiful and well-designed things that evoke a great emotion. (Photography and many forms of "modern art" for example) That does not mean I appreciate these thing s any less. I just appreciate them for what they are. A plumber can do his job artfully, but I wouldn't consider plumbing "art".

To this end, I can say that anyone can create art if they are selectively recreating
a piece of reality in accordance with their metaphysical value judgments. It just may not be good art, which is a subjective evaluation in which many people can come to some extent of an agreement. Since this is such a rudimentary and natural process, the only thing being taught and elevated is the level of proficiency, not the actual process. So teaching someone art is like teaching someone to communicate. (Actually, teaching art is teaching a form of communication.)

Re: Gustave Courbet- Statment on realism - Art can not be t
coluber2001




Let me put it this way: in order to write a poem you must learn how to write. But no one can teach you how to be a poet.

The techniques of art, the toolkit, can be , and is, taught. The most skilled artist knows the most tricks(or as was said, the most painterly solutions to the problems at hand). To be a good or great artist, is like any other talent. A real world example is that many game designers are not programmers who are taught to be artists. Most game companies go out to recruit the best art students , and then try to make them facile in computer graphics. The artist came first. Anybody can play a cello, theres very few YoYo's

Id been working on a BFA part time while I was already in a totally different field. I saw the skill of the good art students and the creative process of these and others. Creative ideas with no ability to produce and no skill to make the creative idea blossom was rampant in the school. I discovered that these lesser skilled students were either art ed or art therapy majors from other colleges in the Uni. They were given the option to pursue as many studio classes as they could fit while taking their "ed" courses. They never struggled over mastery of skills like perspective or light and shadow, cast shadowm reflected light etc. I remember being in the studio late at night cause I felt I had to. As I looked around, only the really good and really driven students were there. I considered myself one of these.
Look at Picasso, he was a master draftsman first. His color sense was a gift.

You can make the students aware of the skills inventory. You can train them up to their ability to produce something to their skill level. Not everyone can be a master. Least not yet.

The basic problem is finding a definition for art and it needs to separate art from everything else or it won't work.Skill or materials can't do that because there is an insensible shading into that everything else.The best thing I know stems from the fact that there are no female artists.This suggests that art is an activity of men which takes the feminine principle as its subject.

I know!I know!I know!

spendius

There are no definition of art (let's forget Plato and his obsession for definitions).
There are works of art. Beethoven 15th Quartet is art. I cannnot explain why, but I am sure it is.
Beethoven learned from Haydn how to compose quartets. But he didn't learn how to compose such a marvel as the 15th Quartet. It was in himself.

And Spendius: some women are great artists. Not in music, I agree. Just an example: the portuguese poetress Sofia de Mello Breyner. I think you would like her poems, specially those included in the book "Day of the Sea".

val:-

I can't say I care too much for Beethoven.He's okay but a bit bombastic.

The theory,as I understand it,is that the music of the 18th and 19th century expressed a sense of the Faustian soul and that the decline of it foreshadows the decline of our culture.There is mixed in with it a good deal of pagan sentiment.Especially in popular songs.

There is also to be taken into account the technology of instrument manufacture and that is a deep subject indeed.

I wasn't trying to denigrate women.Quite the contrary.I was suggesting a principle which is clear and unambiguous.If that isn't there then everything can claim to be art.

Men wrestle with the mystery of the feminine.The female is that mystery and she doesn't need to wrestle with the mystery of men because there is no mystery there.

Imagine the incongruity of "Four and Twenty Blackbirds" being played over images from space exploration.

The fact that the statement came from Courbet should help in our quest to find a proper definition of art.
To me Courbet, limits the definition more than any other "artist" except Eakins. "Art for Arts Sake" was a term that defined his life and, as he was enough of a painterly story teller (consider his" Study of the Artists STudio, a "real Allegory" of Seven Years of my Life"). He was opinionated about his art and somewhat a pain in the ass to
those who followed and broke his mold.

Let me for once disagree with this statement. From my personal experience, women still wrestle with men's mystery...

Francis:-

They never had any trouble with me.I can't remember any woman who didn't have me sussed out lock,stock and barrel and the whole kit and caboodle;the sum and the substance.

Perhaps Frenchmen are more complex than us.

Any chance of some enlightenment Francis.I quite fancy being a little mysterious.Being an open book I have possibly been too easy to take advantage of.

I dont think it's a matter of nationality but of personal behaviour. Like Flaubert, maybe a matter of self-analysis...

Being an open book is a choice if you have reflected on human condition.

Francis:-

What I was asking was what is this mystery in men?

Just a bit of an idea will do for a start.A clue.

What about your thread.I hope you are not lying in ambush waiting for us to make idiots of ourselves.
That's a possibilty I don't exclude.

I'll talk there about mystery in men.

But, no, Spendius. I'm not that kind of man. I'd never made a fool of anybody...Having, for the matter, reflected on "humanity"and not mankind.