Art education
Educating the arty
Giles Auty
There is probably no practice on earth so attractive to foolish theory and propo- sals as art education.
During the few years when I taught, part-time, in an art school, I used to capture and display for my own students details of projects set by the trendier tutors of other departments. One of the less remarkable of these, required students of etching, if I remember — to count and record the number of telegraph poles sighted when travelling by train from home to their place of study. Whether these unfortunate students were asked to count the poles on one side of the track only, or on both, I cannot now recall.
In general, the folly and futility of some of the student projects I unearthed were matched only by the conceit and com- placency of their creators. In the strange world of further education in art it is near impossible to remove full-time lecturers, no matter how incompetent — or even psychopathic — from lifelong office. In an art school I have visited I was told of a senior lecturer who regularly assaulted the work of his foundation students with knife or razor. On many working afternoons he was clearly drunk.
The principal of another institution, with a salary to match that of a Junior Minister, enjoyed the rather odd distinction of hat- ing not just art in particular but culture in general. He maintained authority in his art school by standard of spying which would hardly have disgraced the KGB.
Does art education matter in the slight- est? In view of much which has happened in Britain during the past 25 years, it would be easy to assume the answer is no, not least because those with the authority to root out malpractice and make necessary changes have shown so little inclination to do so. The people most genuinely con- cerned appear to be present or former students, their parents or humdrum tax- payers.
To put up with shoddiness, wrong- mindedness and laissez-faire attitudes in art education is to suggest that the visual arts are, in themselves, unimportant and peripheral. Indeed, this is probably what many, including some of the highest in the land, now think, but they could not be more mistaken. Life soon grows stale in the land where technology or material prosperity are given more than their right- ful place. By providing part of an essential balancing mechanism, good art helps keep civilisation worthy of its name.
This autumn I hope to visit and write about some of our more prominent art schools. However, recent information sug- gests that some of the trends I will see will prove contrary to general wishes, especial- ly those of students. Educational theorists generally escape the consequences of their theories.
Even the ludicrous ideology which promotes the idea of non-competitive sport in comprehensive schools is no more in- sane than that which has sought to substi- tute subjective expression for the learning of skills in art schools. Both notions achieve a very similar effect, in fact, by helping add still more citizens entirely unfitted to the demands of life on this planet to the present plethora of the same.
In recent weeks, visits to art schools have brought me into contact with two fairly unlikely enterprises. Both are pri- vately run and financed but both, unfortu- nately, are now under threat.
After 130 years of distinguished exist- ence, during which two major Pre- Raphaelites — Burne-Jones and Rossetti — Millais, Leighton, Poynter, Walter Crane, Sickert and Ayrton were just a few of the celebrities who studied at the school, the future of the Heatherley School of Fine Art in Chelsea is now very much im- perilled. This state reflects nothing on the school's high success rate in achieving places for its foundation students on de- gree courses at major British art colleges, nor on future demand for places. By its emphasis on drawing, and teaching, through example, by a staff entirely com- posed of professional artists, Heatherley's fills a real need in the present context. However, because it is in the unsubsidised sector, the school must compete for neces- sary premises with more obviously com- mercial or industrial concerns. In Chelsea, this is a tall order.
At the weekend I called in at another private art school for which lack of stu- dents, rather than premises, is likely to prove the problem. Yet foundation stu- dents, from anywhere in the world, would `This epistle's quite clearly addressed to the Corinthians.' be very lucky to find any more beautiful setting than Symondsbury, near Bridport in west Dorset, where fine Georgian pre- mises were once the largest rectory in Britain. To spend a year enjoying grounds which inspired William Barnes's famous poem 'Linden Lea', amid some of the loveliest and least spoiled countryside in Britain; what more improbably agreeable start could a young artist make to la vie Boherne?
The art school is staging a distinguished exhibition of contemporary work during July and August.
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