Yes!! We need interdisciplinary study! I also wonder if some of this is a result of the advent of the internet. We no longer have a set prescription of these are the pieces of art, literature and film that make you a well-cultured or learned person. Now everyone has their own frame of reference. In many ways this is good because we now have a more diverse, inclusive range of texts to go on. But rather than expanding the list of things that are culturally important we’ve kind of siloed off into niches
I think this problem started before the internet (I have argued elsewhere that the art world has been in decline since Duchamp), but you may well be right that it was an accelerant... although on the other hand, it enables autodidacts like no other technology!
Even though I’m a painter and trained 20 years ago, It is only very recently (maybe in the last 5 years) that I have become really interested in art history and the broader historical picture and I often wonder whether for some people it really does take this long to ‘get it’. I have sympathy for kids and young adults who say they are just not interested, because that was me. I just wanted to paint and draw, I didn’t particularly want to think about the work of other artists. When people say we should be focussing on teaching history in schools I half agree as I know how important it is, but practically speaking, I also know that in order to learn and retain knowledge, one has to be interested. That said, I was given quite a good liberal arts education (rather against my will!) by my parents and in good schools and so I had Shakespeare (for example) drilled into me. I heard someone recently (I think it might have been the comedian Andrew Doyle) say that we should be teaching children Shakespeare even if they don’t really understand it and I think he might be onto something. Now that I have become more interested in wider questions about Great Art and how concepts transcend art forms I am so thankful for my basic knowledge of Shakespeare which I can relate to the elements of Great Art that I am realising are most important.
Haha I'm glad you were forced to learn Shakespeare. Did you have any teachers who tried to inspire excitement for a liberal arts eduction, or was it just "now you must study this"? I'm sure the vast majority of my university students would resist too. Perhaps a twofold issue:
(1) History is a riveting story! So much fiction people love is based on it for that reason, but students likely aren't taught it by good story tellers often enough. Any art student learning about Renaissance painters in Florence who aren't also taught about the power struggles, intrigue, and sexual affairs of the Medici, and that crazy monk Savonarola trying to burn it all down, are missing out on so much juicy drama. Educators have a responsibility to try to show students why history is worth learning.
(2) Students have a responsibility to treat their education as serious work, and even if they have the best teachers, of course it will still feel like work sometimes. Not every point in history can be AS riveting as Florence in the Medici Era (although I do think most are fascinating). If a physics student said, "I just want to contemplate the nature of reality. Math is boring," then we would say, "I guess you won't become a physicist, then, and you won't learn how to contemplate the nature of reality very well without math skills." But we don't hold art students to the same expectations as STEM students, and that's a disservice. Studio art students aren't learning painting techniques as well, if they aren't taught how the Masters painted.
Most young students are by their nature immature and unappreciative — this is just what it means to be young! It's a description more than a criticism; how could they know better? This is why I list this as the second part of the problem, because ultimately this responsibility of the student also becomes the educator's responsibility: it is their job to require students to measure up, but humanities educational standards have slipped.
Substack has a couple people who recommend a "Great Works" list for literary classical education, but I haven't seen any recommendations for people who want to self-educate on the arts as a whole. Are there any suggestions on how to integrate other artforms (such as paintings, etc) for self-directed learning? Thanks!
Maybe I should start doing art history explainers like how Liza breaks down poetry and literature. I am working on a piece about Impressionism, so stay tuned! It's not meant to be an explainer, but you'll learn about Impressionism if you read it; it won't be out for quite a few weeks, but it's definitely coming relatively soon.
The best approach to self-directed learning about visual art is visiting museums like the Met, the Louvre, and the Philly art museum with the Rocky steps; most cities have smaller versions if you can't easily or often visit the big name museums. Start by taking a snapshot of artwork that wows you + its wall text, then you will have the information handy to look up that artist later to read in more depth than wall text can provide. Read a lot about the artists who grip you, then about the era they belong to and their contemporaries. Rinse and repeat!
If visiting museums in person is not feasible, then visit your local bookstore and pick up fine art books that catch your attention (you can also get a vetted selection of art books at the museum giftshop if you can visit in person, and if those aren't in your budget, look up the books you're interested in online for a cheaper used copy). Follow the same process of going down rabbit holes about the artists that you gravitate towards.
If you want a survey book about all of art history, then Janson's History of Art is the classic choice (it's a two volume set, unless that's changed since I graduated undergrad in 2011). You can rifle through it to find artists that you like, and if you read it through, then you'll get a very solid introduction to all of art history. You can then find books about particular artists and eras you enjoy most.
I don't think it's necessary to go through art history in chronological order, by the way. You'll probably go farther if you follow your interests, so it doesn't start feeling like a chore... unless you're the kind of person who prefers to read from start to finish! Then I'd say read Janson's from beginning to end.
"The Romantic Revolution we are discussing brought with it a new interaction of poetry and music, in fact, of all the arts. It's as though the arts became more interested in one another, as did the artists themselves. They began to intermingle, their diverse artistic media drawing closer together in mutual influence. Artists were now painters of words, composers of pictures, poets of tones. Any aesthetic innovation, such as heightened chromaticism in music, would immediately find its counterpart in painting, or exert an observable influence on poetry. The chromatic outpourings of Berlioz are mirrored in the slashing expressionism of Delacroix, or in the multicolored visions of Shelley. We begin to see a movement taking place, the Romantic Movement. We begin to see artists as interrelated groups: Berlioz with Byron, Chopin with Georges Sand and Delacroix, Schumann with E.T.A. Hoffmann and Jean Paul. Stendhal was writing of Mozart and Rossini; Schubert and Schumann were setting their favorite poets, especially Heine. Composers like Liszt and Wagner were omnivorous readers. And they not only read, but they Wrote - Words! - criticism, memoirs, poetry, and, in some cases, the entire texts of their own operas. This was a Romantic breakthrough." - Leonard Bernstein, Charles Eliot Norton Lectures
**
William Carlos Williams, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus"
Yes!! We need interdisciplinary study! I also wonder if some of this is a result of the advent of the internet. We no longer have a set prescription of these are the pieces of art, literature and film that make you a well-cultured or learned person. Now everyone has their own frame of reference. In many ways this is good because we now have a more diverse, inclusive range of texts to go on. But rather than expanding the list of things that are culturally important we’ve kind of siloed off into niches
I think this problem started before the internet (I have argued elsewhere that the art world has been in decline since Duchamp), but you may well be right that it was an accelerant... although on the other hand, it enables autodidacts like no other technology!
Loved this! ♥️
Thanks for always being so supportive, Sherry!
Fine essay. Thank you.
Even though I’m a painter and trained 20 years ago, It is only very recently (maybe in the last 5 years) that I have become really interested in art history and the broader historical picture and I often wonder whether for some people it really does take this long to ‘get it’. I have sympathy for kids and young adults who say they are just not interested, because that was me. I just wanted to paint and draw, I didn’t particularly want to think about the work of other artists. When people say we should be focussing on teaching history in schools I half agree as I know how important it is, but practically speaking, I also know that in order to learn and retain knowledge, one has to be interested. That said, I was given quite a good liberal arts education (rather against my will!) by my parents and in good schools and so I had Shakespeare (for example) drilled into me. I heard someone recently (I think it might have been the comedian Andrew Doyle) say that we should be teaching children Shakespeare even if they don’t really understand it and I think he might be onto something. Now that I have become more interested in wider questions about Great Art and how concepts transcend art forms I am so thankful for my basic knowledge of Shakespeare which I can relate to the elements of Great Art that I am realising are most important.
Haha I'm glad you were forced to learn Shakespeare. Did you have any teachers who tried to inspire excitement for a liberal arts eduction, or was it just "now you must study this"? I'm sure the vast majority of my university students would resist too. Perhaps a twofold issue:
(1) History is a riveting story! So much fiction people love is based on it for that reason, but students likely aren't taught it by good story tellers often enough. Any art student learning about Renaissance painters in Florence who aren't also taught about the power struggles, intrigue, and sexual affairs of the Medici, and that crazy monk Savonarola trying to burn it all down, are missing out on so much juicy drama. Educators have a responsibility to try to show students why history is worth learning.
(2) Students have a responsibility to treat their education as serious work, and even if they have the best teachers, of course it will still feel like work sometimes. Not every point in history can be AS riveting as Florence in the Medici Era (although I do think most are fascinating). If a physics student said, "I just want to contemplate the nature of reality. Math is boring," then we would say, "I guess you won't become a physicist, then, and you won't learn how to contemplate the nature of reality very well without math skills." But we don't hold art students to the same expectations as STEM students, and that's a disservice. Studio art students aren't learning painting techniques as well, if they aren't taught how the Masters painted.
Most young students are by their nature immature and unappreciative — this is just what it means to be young! It's a description more than a criticism; how could they know better? This is why I list this as the second part of the problem, because ultimately this responsibility of the student also becomes the educator's responsibility: it is their job to require students to measure up, but humanities educational standards have slipped.
Substack has a couple people who recommend a "Great Works" list for literary classical education, but I haven't seen any recommendations for people who want to self-educate on the arts as a whole. Are there any suggestions on how to integrate other artforms (such as paintings, etc) for self-directed learning? Thanks!
Maybe I should start doing art history explainers like how Liza breaks down poetry and literature. I am working on a piece about Impressionism, so stay tuned! It's not meant to be an explainer, but you'll learn about Impressionism if you read it; it won't be out for quite a few weeks, but it's definitely coming relatively soon.
The best approach to self-directed learning about visual art is visiting museums like the Met, the Louvre, and the Philly art museum with the Rocky steps; most cities have smaller versions if you can't easily or often visit the big name museums. Start by taking a snapshot of artwork that wows you + its wall text, then you will have the information handy to look up that artist later to read in more depth than wall text can provide. Read a lot about the artists who grip you, then about the era they belong to and their contemporaries. Rinse and repeat!
If visiting museums in person is not feasible, then visit your local bookstore and pick up fine art books that catch your attention (you can also get a vetted selection of art books at the museum giftshop if you can visit in person, and if those aren't in your budget, look up the books you're interested in online for a cheaper used copy). Follow the same process of going down rabbit holes about the artists that you gravitate towards.
If you want a survey book about all of art history, then Janson's History of Art is the classic choice (it's a two volume set, unless that's changed since I graduated undergrad in 2011). You can rifle through it to find artists that you like, and if you read it through, then you'll get a very solid introduction to all of art history. You can then find books about particular artists and eras you enjoy most.
I don't think it's necessary to go through art history in chronological order, by the way. You'll probably go farther if you follow your interests, so it doesn't start feeling like a chore... unless you're the kind of person who prefers to read from start to finish! Then I'd say read Janson's from beginning to end.
Thank you for the thorough response!
Oh, and of course, if you really don't want to drop money on art books... there's also the library!
Towards the Gesamtkunstwerk then? ;)
Sure, Wagner had some good ideas... and one really bad one.
I should probably say my wife is German and her mother studied German literature in Karlsruhe before teaching it in England.
Mostly I am hearing about Goethe, but Wagner arises too
"The Romantic Revolution we are discussing brought with it a new interaction of poetry and music, in fact, of all the arts. It's as though the arts became more interested in one another, as did the artists themselves. They began to intermingle, their diverse artistic media drawing closer together in mutual influence. Artists were now painters of words, composers of pictures, poets of tones. Any aesthetic innovation, such as heightened chromaticism in music, would immediately find its counterpart in painting, or exert an observable influence on poetry. The chromatic outpourings of Berlioz are mirrored in the slashing expressionism of Delacroix, or in the multicolored visions of Shelley. We begin to see a movement taking place, the Romantic Movement. We begin to see artists as interrelated groups: Berlioz with Byron, Chopin with Georges Sand and Delacroix, Schumann with E.T.A. Hoffmann and Jean Paul. Stendhal was writing of Mozart and Rossini; Schubert and Schumann were setting their favorite poets, especially Heine. Composers like Liszt and Wagner were omnivorous readers. And they not only read, but they Wrote - Words! - criticism, memoirs, poetry, and, in some cases, the entire texts of their own operas. This was a Romantic breakthrough." - Leonard Bernstein, Charles Eliot Norton Lectures
**
William Carlos Williams, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus"
According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring
a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry
of the year was
awake tingling
near
the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself
sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax
unsignificantly
off the coast
there was
a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning
**
Beautiful!