CIRCA 89 Art Education Supplement
TEACHING THE UNTEACHABLE: ART AND THE IDEOLOGY OF GENIUS
The ethos of the standard curriculum in Art seems to be fundamentally at odds with the genius-centred ideology that surrounds the theory and practice of modern art. On the one hand, especially at second level, the objective of the curriculum is to teach certain traditional skills, including the skills of representation; on the other hand, the framers of such curricula ‘know' that art is unteachable, that it is the product of original talent or, ideally, of genius. Overlaid on this discrepancy between skill (which is learnable in principle by anyone) and original talent or ‘genius' (which can be facilitated but not taught), there is a further and more immediately vexing discrepancy between two sorts of ability—the ability to do representational work in the traditional mode and the ability to produce experimental work in the modern, avant-gardist mode. While the emphasis in the art class is on skill and craft, the emphasis in the art-world outside the art class is on a level and a quality of originality which often seems to disregard or even jettison the traditional skills promoted in the art class. Many secondary school students leafing through a well-illustrated history of modern art or attending an exhibition of contemporary art are likely to feel a disconcerting gap between the skills they are mastering at school and the ‘original' work that constitutes modern art. I want to briefly address this discrepancy between the skill-based ethos of the art class and the genius-centred ideology that surrounds the modern idea of art. I want to do so, moreover, in the name of a theory of justice. First, let me set the scene by briefly rehearsing the story of how the discrepancy between the skill-based ethos and the genius-centred ideology seems to have come about historically.
The history of the idea of art is part of the history of work and servitude, a history in which the classical distinction between the liberal and mechanical (or servile) arts has played a central role. In classical Greece the liberal arts were those skills cultivated by a free citizen, while the mechanical arts were those assigned to a slave or servant. The liberal arts were originally the ‘gentlemanly' arts of grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, music, geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy, all of which had in common the fact that they required ‘intellectual' rather than manual effort. Throughout the medieval period painting and sculpture were regarded as arts that were both manual and menial. Alberti, Leonardo, and other Renaissance artists argued, however, that painting at least should have the status of a liberal art. They pointed out that painting required study and knowledge—a knowledge of nature, history, mythology, theology, geometry (proportion, perspective), and anatomy—and was therefore superior to the general run of menial arts. Leonardo famously engaged in detailed studies of nature, as if to show that by placing visual studies on scientific foundations "he could transform his beloved art of painting from a humble craft into an honoured and gentlemanly pursuit" [1]. By the second half of the sixteenth century, painters, sculptors, and architects had begun to free themselves in earnest from the craft ethos of the feudal workshop. The first academy of art was founded in Florence in 1563, with Michelangelo as its head, under the patronage of the Medici family. Similar academies were set up in other cities and in other countries throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The emphasis in these early academies was on the intellectual rather than the mechanical or manual aspects of the new ‘fine' arts. The extraordinary interest in perspective and anatomical studies, and the emphasis on drawing rather than on painting, may be taken as evidence of the determination of the newly ‘liberalised' and ‘academicised' artists to stay on the right side of the division between liberal art and menial craft.
By the eighteenth century the role and status of the visual artist had changed dramatically and would go on changing. It was during the eighteenth century that Romantic conceptions of art and artistic ability became pervasive. Romanticism stressed originality, genius, creativity. This was really another way of emphasising the extent to which the artist differs from the artisan. Whereas the artisan learns a skill and follows rules, the creative artist manifests his genius by departing from convention, breaking old rules, making new ones. The eighteenth-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant defined the fine arts as the product of original genius. He defined genius as "the talent or natural gift which gives the rule to art" [2]. There is, he declared, a complete contrast between genius and what he calls "the spirit of imitation," and since learning is nothing but imitation, "it follows that the greatest ability and teachableness…cannot avail for genius" [3]. Artistic skill, in other words, cannot be communicated—"it is imparted to every artist immediately by the hand of nature" [4].
It is this development in the history of the idea of art—from the idea of art as menial craft to the idea of art as academic skill, latterly to the idea of art as the unruly expression of genius—that is reflected in the discrepancy that now exists between the skilled-based ethos of the traditional art curriculum and the genius-centred ideology of the modern art world. The emphasis on skill may be understood as a legacy of pre-Romantic, pre-modernist conceptions of art (and also, of course, a legacy of educational systems which value skill because skill is teachable). The emphasis on talent and genius may be understood as a more recent legacy, the legacy of Romanticism, modernism, and avant-gardism. The institutionalised discrepancy between the ethos of the traditional art class and the ideology of the modern art world is not necessarily a bad thing, however. It may in fact be perfectly justifiable. There is an important point made by John Rawls in his Theory of Justice which ought to be considered here. In Rawls's view, all self-respecting human beings in a position to choose principles of justice would wish to avoid at any cost the social conditions that undermine self-respect. Self-respect in Rawls's scheme of things is a primary, non-negotiable good. It implies a confidence in one's ability, so far as it is within one's power, to fulfill one's intentions and to exercise one's faculties and talents, regardless of whether these talents fall somewhere short of genius. Without self-respect, especially the self-respect that comes from the successful exercise of some talent, nothing will seem to be worth doing and we will take little delight in pursuing our life-plans. All desire and activity becomes empty and vain, "and we sink into apathy and cynicism" [5]. So important is the good of self-respect that it is central to our plans for life and to the sorts of relationships we should be able to form with other people. In a just and democratic society there should be a variety of communities and associations within which people's faculties and talents can be given their optimal expression. What counts is not the achievement of some rare standard of excellence but the mutual recognition and confirmation of associates who share similar interests.
According to Rawls, the achievement of excellence is always relative to the individual and therefore to her natural assets and particular situation:
Thus what is necessary is that there should be for each person at least one community of shared interests to which he belongs and where he finds his endeavours confirmed by his associates… This democracy in judging each other's aims is the foundation of self-respect in a well-ordered society. [6]
What the founders of a just and democratic society would avoid on principle is any doctrine of elitism or perfectionism which would claim that the only legitimate social or cultural associations are those composed of highly gifted individuals. Rather, the founders would wish to accommodate a wide variety of talents and levels of talents in the context of a wide variety of ‘satisfying associations'. This, then, is the basis of justification for the teaching of skills, especially to those whose talents fall short of genius. Genius, by its own ideological assumptions, triumphs against the odds, requiring at most only facilities and recognition. At the same time, degrees of talent that fall short of genius are entitled to optimal cultivation. The traditional art class could be said to meet a basic requirement of justice by offering the facilities of which genius may deign to avail, while at the same time providing the means of cultivation that all talent deserves.
[1] E. H. Gombrich, The Story of Art, London: Phaidon, 1965, p. 215
[2] Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgement, trans. J. H. Bernard, London/New York: Hafner Press-Macmillan, 1951, p. 150
[3] Ibid., p. 151
[4] Ibid., p. 152
[5] John Rawls, The Theory of Justice, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972, p. 440
[6] Ibid., p. 442
Tom Duddy is a lecturer in Philosophy, National University of Ireland, Galway.
