History of the Fine Art Curriculum Nicholas Houghton Pt

Book Review

Creative person Teacher: A Philosophy for Creating and Education G. James Daichendt (2010) Bristol: Intellect, ISBN 978-i- 81450-313-four (hbk) £29.95

Reviewed past Nicholas Houghton

Artist Teacher has a simple and clear message. Art education needs artist teachers. However, on those programmes [in the The states, I presume] which prepare students to go school teachers of art, the emphasis is firmly on educational activity lone, while on MFA programmes [also, I presume in the U.s.a.] those who will teach art at mail service-compulsory level receive no educational activity in education. Whilst Daichendt (the author) expresses reservations most the latter, he is more than concerned with the former. As he explains, 'The emphasis on education has trumped the art in art education' (p. 149).

In the United kingdom, where I work, this isn't quite the example. Nearly all secondary (high school) teachers of art volition have first undertaken a university degree in a relevant arts discipline and so enrolled for a farther yr studying for a postgraduate certificate in education, while it is now becoming the norm that those who teach in the mail service- compulsory sectors must obtain a postgraduate educational activity certificate (in further education or higher education). Moreover, there is an Creative person Teacher Scheme for school teachers. So although I know what he's writing about, it'south non what's happening here. Throughout this volume Daichendt is writing about the American context and I couldn't work out whether information technology had been written specifically for an American readership or if he but presumes that the rest of the world is exactly similar the USA.

No matter, what lies behind his proposition still resonates. At all levels of educational activity one can see greater demands being put on teachers and an always greater professionalism required. Universities seem to adopt full-fourth dimension staff, which allows fiddling time to pursue a career as an artist. Meanwhile, the art earth has likewise become more than and more professionalised. One consequence is that instead of teaching, artists need to be spending all their spare time away from the studio networking to further their careers. In this respect Daichendt could have a point. Moreover, although he doesn't say so, I would add that how someone teaches and assesses is intricately connected with what they teach and assess. Generic theories of education only get you so far.

The vehicle for Daichendt's proffer is a book divided into two sections. The commencement is dominated by a chapter which provides a history of art education. In the second department there are accounts of creative person teachers from USA, England and Germany, all but one of whom is well known. None of this cloth seems to be reinforcing his proposition, except in the nearly tangential way. It is striking that virtually of his full general discussion is nigh teaching in compulsory education, while his examples were teaching at post-compulsory institutions such as the Bauhaus or Black Mountain College. Information technology'due south not stated why these chapters about eminent creative person teachers accept been written, simply I presume they are exemplars of what such individuals can do. I'd rather have read some accounts of what can be achieved within the constraints of more regulated institutions. I'm sure that many, many art teachers would welcome the freedom of working at a Black Mountain College, or as Hans Hofmann did, at his very ain Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts.

They might also embrace the freedom they would more likely have been given forty years ago. Because Daichendt rarely goes beyond 1970 in this book. Hence, whereas his proposition is almost the present twenty-four hour period, his supporting fabric is about what things were like before 1970. This happens to exist the date of publication of Madonald'southward The History and Philosophy of Art Educational activity, of which Daichendt has made peachy apply. But information technology's also an interesting appointment for art education, because so much has changed since then. For instance, there has been a marked shift in teaching from business about product to critical analysis of the procedure. The taken for granted certainties, such every bit art'southward firm foundations of a western catechism of art history, have been challenged by critical theory and the multicultural and visual culture movements. Round the world in that location has been a huge increase in the number of post-compulsory art courses and programmes and educatee numbers on these, including a steady move into postgraduate and now doctoral degrees, so that most people who take ever studied art accept studied it in the concluding forty years. The reach of art pedagogy has extended to museum education and customs pedagogy. Teaching art has been revolutionised from being about drawing, painting, sculpture and printmaking to an expanded field of practice including, for example, conceptual works, installations, videos and digital media. Any history of art teaching appearing now and non including these is non fifty-fifty telling half the story. Since this book mentions this catamenia in less than a page in the concluding chapter through a cursory and over-simplistic mention of postmodernism, it is indeed telling less than half the story.

What information technology does recount near the history of art instruction is very straight frontwards and very familiar. It starts with the ancient Greeks and Romans, moves on the Middle Ages and thence to the Renaissance and and so on. Information technology concentrates on Italia, then France, and then England and and then the United states. Nosotros're informed about 'the discovery of America' (p. 32) during the Renaissance (when I read that I imagined a Native American on the shore, maxim, 'Thank you for discovering America; nosotros hadn't noticed information technology was in that location.'). All right, our institutions do trace their lineage dorsum to the western tradition. The trouble is an unquestioning repetition of this narrative, equally if it hadn't been brought into question in the terminal 40 years.

Simply at that place'south another shortcoming that runs throughout most of the book (the chapter on Geoerge Wallis existence the i, possible exception). It is all description but without assay and very largely a literature review. Information technology is true that Diachendt has read lots of texts, which he has used to provide his narrative. However, each text has been treated every bit if it were neutral, as if each hadn't been written from a particular theoretical or cultural standpoint and every bit if each had equal weight. Hence references to texts by the Marxist art historian Arnold Hauser can be slotted in beside ones by the fiercely anti-communist Ernst Gombrich (information technology tells a lot about the level of Daichendt's scholarship that the latter is 'The Story of Fine art'). As to be expected when there is so picayune critical analysis, the author seems unaware of his own standpoint. Behind the argument that 'Thinking like an creative person is not formal but a talent' (p. 62) lays a host of assumptions about what an artist is (and what tin can and can't be taught).

There is a farther shortcoming with much of this book, which is that between the first and last few pages it meanders and appears unclear what its focus is and information technology certainly doesn't maintain whatever sort of an argument. Hence it osculates between discussing teaching art in schools and instruction it in universities and the history drifts into design. If information technology's about the teaching of design, isn't the subject then the designer teacher?

These are serious faults for an academic text. It's such a pity considering the topic is very expert one. The issues he outlines at the beginning are compelling: balancing ii careers and two identities; working within 2 very different worlds; reconciling the freedoms of art with the restrictions of education; how exercise the two activities feed off each other and can they ever be kept in balance?

The fact remains that no affair what artistic know-how you might have, when you lot're inside the educational activity arena you demand to apply this to its conventions, while irrespective of your educational activity abilities, when within the art world you need to target your interventions to that context. This book is surely inside the former: it is a volume almost education; it is not an artwork. Therefore it'south a shame that information technology reads as if the education scholar has been trumped.

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