The Bottom Line
That's what Carl Goldstein's Teaching Art is all about, looking at how and what artists were taught from the Renaissance onwards. He surveys what academic artistic training in Europe involved, what the values and traditions were and how these changed, as well as touching on aspects such as how this tradition was exported to other countries and excluded women from formal tuition.
Pros
- Surveys European traditions in art tuition from the Renaissance to mid-1990s.
- Chapters are thematic, not strictly linear in the presentation of the information.
- Understanding how artists were taught helps an understanding of their paintings and your own work.
- Illustrated with plenty of examples of paintings, drawings, and engravings.
- Comprehensive index.
Cons
- In sections reads like a dry, fact-packed academic thesis that requires unpacking of the info.
- Assumes a knowledge of who's who and theories mentioned -- a glossary would've been useful.
- Out of print and hard to find. Available copies tend to be expensive. Publisher needs to reprint it!
- Needs a new edition with a chapter covering the emergence of the contemporary atelier system.
Description
- 366 pages. Nearly 170 black-and-white illustrations.
- Published by Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN Hardback: 052148099X Paperback: 052155988X
- Author Carl Goldstein is a professor in the Department of Art at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, USA.
- Chapter 1: Problem of the First Academy (The Florentine Academy) Chapter 2: A Tradition in the Making (From Florence to Rome)
- Chapter 3: The Triumph of the Academy, Leading to the Reaction of the Avant-Garde. Chapter 4: Doctrine 1 Art History.
- Chapter 5: Doctrine 2 Theory and Practice. Chapter 6: The Copy. Chapter 7: The Antique. Chapter 8: Life Drawing.
- Chapter 9: Art and Science. Chapter 10: Style. Chapter 11: Originality.
- Chapter 12: The Revolt of the Crafts. Chapter 13: Teaching Modernism.
Guide Review - Teaching Art: Academies & Schools from Vasari to Albers by Carl Goldstein
It's all to easy to think art education was a fixed thing in the Renaissance (read: "art students were taught technical skill and artistic brilliance without debate of what this was") and it's all been downhill since the Impressionists (read: "no-one learns skills anymore and modern art is bad"). But the education of artists has never been a constant, as art educators and the art establishment promoted their personal preferences and breakaway groups sought to influence. Every era has had its changes, though none as dramatic as the modern.
The concepts of creativity and originality as defined and valued today among painters were quite different a couple of centuries ago. Figures were painted as ideals, using a model as a starting point, they were not painted as they actually were. Certain subjects and genres were regarded as worthy, and dictated what art students would paint. Copying and borrowing bits from the recognized masterworks ("manipulating the elements of a grammar" of works of the "immortals") was part of an artist's training and development.
I've found Teaching Art a fascinating read, albeit one to take slowly as there's lots to absorb. At times it's like an academic paper where it's assumed you'll know all the references; I wish it had a glossary of terms/people. It's given me a far fuller understanding of the academic tradition of art, what the ideas/aims were, and how these were reinvented periodically.
The illustrations are all black-and-white, but that suits the topic as until the advent of color printing and photography art students used B&W reproductions to study the Great Masters. The examples include works "borrowing" from other artists. If you're a painter wanting to know more about the traditions and approaches of art tuition, you'll enjoy this book (if you can find a copy!).
