In academic art teaching representation is the starting‐point. This means
that one must first of all “learn to draw”, as power in art is thought to
be based upon ability to represent accurately and truthfully either
nature’s facts or historic ornament. I use the word “academic” to define
all teaching founded upon representation. The theory may be summed up in
two points:
1. Store the mind with facts, to be used in creative work later on.
2. Technique is best acquired by the practice of object and figure
drawing. The first is a purely scientific process, a gathering up of
data, with no thought of harmony or originality; hence drawing with
such an end in view is not strictly art‐work. Nor does the artist
need to lumber up his mind; nature is his storehouse of facts. The
second point has more reason, but when the aim is for mere accuracy,
only a limited amount of skill is acquired and that often hardly
more than nice workmanship—not art‐skill. The powerful drawing of
the masters is largely derived from other masters, not from copying
nature. It is an interpretation with the purpose of attaining a high
standard. Such drawing aims to express character and quality in an
individual way—a thing quite different from fact‐statement.
Nature‐drawing, wrongly placed and misunderstood, has become a fetich in
our modern teaching. Our art critics talk of “just” rendering, “true”
values, “conscientious” painting and the like; terms that belong to
morals, not art, and could not be applied to Architecture, Music or
Poetry. These stock‐phrases are a part of that tradition of the
elders—that eighteenth century academism still lingering. Representation
has but a small place in the art of the world. This is roughly shown in
the two lists below: