The Artist. Very simply: by giving them a knife and a piece of wood.
The Questioner. Well, really!
The Artist. And crayons and clay and singing-games and so forth.—But perhaps you prefer to show them pictures of alleged masterpieces, and tell them, “This is great art!” They will believe you, of course; and they will hate great art ever afterwards—just as they hate great poetry, and for the same excellent reason: because, presented to them in that way, it is nothing but a damned nuisance. Yet the child who enjoys hearing and telling a story has in him the capacity to appreciate and perhaps to create the greatest of stories; and the child who enjoys whittling a block of wood has in him the capacity to appreciate and perhaps to create the greatest art!
The Questioner. Then you do not think children can be taught to appreciate art by looking at photographic reproductions of it?
The Artist. I would hardly expect a Fiji Islander to become an appreciator of civilized music by letting him look at my phonograph records. The dingy-brownish photograph of a gloriously colored painting has even less educational value—for it lies about the original. Do you know that there are thousands and thousands of American school children who think that the great masterpieces of the world’s painting are the color of axle-grease? They are never told that their own free efforts with colored crayons are more like Botticelli in every sense than any photograph could possibly be; but it is true.
The Questioner. But don’t you want them to respect Botticelli?
The Artist. No. I want them to look at Botticelli’s pictures as they look at those of another child—free to criticize, free to dislike, free to scorn. For only when you are free to despise, are you free to admire. After all, who was Botticelli? Another child. Perhaps they may prefer Goya—
The Questioner. Or the Sunday comic supplement!
The Artist. A healthy taste. And if they know what drawing is, though having used a pencil themselves, they will prefer the better comic pictures to the worse, and be ready to appreciate Goya and Daumier—who were the super-Sunday-supplement comic artists of their day.
The Questioner. Left to themselves they may come to like Goya, as you say; but will they ever come to appreciate such a masterpiece as Leonardo’s Last Supper without some more formal teaching?