Art instruction defined
In this chapter an attempt is made to set forth the aims, content, and methods of art instruction in the college. In this discussion the word "college" will be regarded in the usual sense of the College of Liberal Arts, and art instruction as one of the courses which lead to the degree of bachelor of arts.
There is no term that is used more freely and with less precision than the word "art." In some usages it is given a very broad and comprehensive meaning, in others a very narrow and exclusive one. The term is sometimes applied to a human activity, at other times to the products of but a small part of that activity—for example, paintings and statuary.
In this chapter the term will be used in accordance with the definition evolved by Tolstoi, who says: "Art is a human activity, consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are affected by these feelings, and also experience them."[[102]] The external signs by which the feelings are handed on are movements, as in dancing and pantomime; lines, masses, colors, as in architecture, painting and sculpture; sounds, as in music; or forms expressed in words, as in poetry and other forms of literature. The external signs with which art instruction in the college deals are lines, masses, and colors. This discussion, therefore, treats of instruction in the formative or visual arts, which include architecture, painting, sculpture, decoration, and the various crafts, in so far as they come within the meaning of the definition given above.
Instruction in art should be an integral part of a liberal education
Concerning the nature of art and the purpose of art instruction in the college, there is so much misunderstanding that it will be well to make an attempt at clarification. Art is too commonly regarded as a luxury—a superfluity that may serve to occupy the leisure of the well-to-do—a kind of embroidery upon the edge of life that may be affixed or discarded at will. Whereas, art is a factor that is fundamental in human life and development, a factor that has entered into the being of the race from the dawn of reason. Its products, which antedate written history by thousands of years, form the most reliable source of information we possess of the habits and thoughts of prehistoric man. It has been the medium of expression of many of the choicest products of human thought throughout the ages. These products have been embodied in forms other than that of writing. Its functions are limited neither to the citizen, the community, nor the country; they extend beyond national bounds to the world at large. Art belongs to the brotherhood of man. It is no respecter of nationalities. It is obvious that in a general college course, a study of the religious, social, and political factors in civilization that does not include art among these factors is incomplete.
The question under discussion concerns the teaching of art to the candidate for the bachelor of arts degree, and this question will be solely kept in view. Since, however, graduates in science, engineering, law, medicine, etc., are not exempt from the needs of artistic culture, they too should have at least an effective minimum of art instruction.
Art a social activity
Art is recognized as a social activity. It enters largely into such practical and utilitarian problems of the community as town planning and other forms of civic improvement. As workers in such activities, college graduates are frequently called to serve on boards of directors and committees which have such work in charge. To most of such persons, education in art comes as a post-collegiate activity. Surely the interests of the community would be promoted if the men and women into whose hands these interests are committed had had some formal instruction in art during their college years.
If by practical education we mean training which prepares the individual for living, then the study of an activity that so pervades human life should be included in the curriculum of even a so-called practical college course. Art education has a more important function than to promote the love of the beautiful, to purify and elevate public taste, to awaken intellectual and spiritual desires, to create a permanent means of investing leisure. Important as all these purposes are, they are merely a part of a larger one—that of revealing to the student the relationship of art to living.