The purpose of art?

I remember a group I taught before I retired. The PTB at our little school decided that our art students - and these were all outstanding kids, learning through a nationally recognized program for teaching the arts in a public school system - would naturally be good writers, and enrolled a large number of them in my AP class. They were wrong, but more on that later. At one point, while we were studying Hamlet, we came upon Hamlet's comment to the players, about the purpose of art being, "...to hold a mirror up to nature." I asked them if they agreed. they looked at each other, and at me, a bit blankly. I asked another way: "Do you paint the world the way it is, or the way it ought to be?" they looked at the young man who was their leader and spokesman, who eventually replied, "We paint the way our teacher tells us to paint." Later, I asked one of their teachers, who told me that art students have so much technique to learn that they don't generally get the opportunity to apply it until their upperclassmen years in college.


This was the complete opposite to the way we were strongly encouraged to teach writing in those days, especially to our "gifted" students. We were told we were not to "stifle their creativity" by teaching them any form of order and structure. My darling artists were apparently making up for the structure of their art classes by creating all over the place, without any thought to an organized purpose. I had a major battle on my hands with my superiors, who didn't seem to get that, if they wanted to earn college credit by passing, not only my class, but those rigorous AP exams, they had to be able to do both - within a very limited time frame.

We were also told that all their reading should be "relevant," and that they would be bored by the "classics." I always felt that it was my job to point out that the reason the classics were just that, was that they spoke to timeless themes, in forms that honored the use of language, and that made them always relevant.

I am glad that I retired when I did.

I do not understand why so many people don't understand that when we promote the teaching of the sciences whine we ignore and put down the arts, we get so many people who contribute to the world they live in by creating better and better WMD's.

Ann

Purpose of art? To beautify our existence, imo.

Art does get cut when the budgets only allow it or science. Since science understanding will make a more fundamentally competent person, I don't have a problem with that. People can learn art on their own, if they want. It's harder to learn science.

In a perfect world, we'd all get both.

So, which do you think? Should an artist depict the world the way it is, or the way it ought to be?

Did I just ask and either/or question?

Ann

I think you can guess my answer -an artist should depict the world in whatever way he can get paid for it.