We will deal with the second aim first, and it may be termed roughly
“Education”--the process of increasing a man’s ability to enjoy
better art. The last phrase embodies our idea of the function of
art-education. If education does that--improves the range and quality
of his pleasure in the beautiful--it has performed its prime duty.
Needless to say, we are not speaking now of that branch of education
which concerns itself with the training of practitioners--creative
or executive artists. That is quite a different matter, and one of
our first quarrels with the present system is that these two types of
education are not as clearly distinguished as they need to be.
There are two classes of people who will benefit by education--those
who wish to enjoy and those who wish to practise. The needs of the two
classes are quite distinct, yet he who would enjoy is often given the
instruction provided (or which should be provided) for the others. The
disadvantages of this are: (_a_) the enjoyer approaches the subject
from quite a different angle, and practical instruction will sometimes
depreciate his appreciative faculties. The outsider sees most of the
game, and, moreover, one with knowledge of technical matters will tend
to allow technical questions to come before purely aesthetic ones;
(_b_) He will spend a great deal of time to no purpose, and will waste
opportunities and leisure which could be more advantageously applied;
(_c_) As he might be, and generally is, entirely devoid of sufficient
creative or executive ability to practise to his own satisfaction a
certain disappointment and disillusionment will colour his regard
for the artistic; (_d_) It is useless and wasteful to give technical
instruction to those who cannot and do not desire to apply it. Neither
does the practitioner gain. There is a tendency to compromise, and so
he does not always obtain the special purposive instruction he needs,
and the personnel and institutions fitted to instruct the practitioner
cannot devote all their energies to this essential work. Any increased
love of art, be it remembered, will cause a much greater demand for
professional creative and executive artists. And (_e_) he probably has
neither the time nor the inclination for practical studies, and so,
if there are no schemes specially for his benefit, he will receive no
education at all.
Therefore there is a great need for systematic education in the
appreciation of art. Many more attempts are being made to-day than
there were a few years ago; yet the subject--a very difficult one--is
still in its infancy. The methods and aims of such education have not
yet been adequately formulated and must exercise educationists in
the near future. Failing a well-defined plan, they have taken refuge
in aspects of art-instruction which are not those best calculated to
stimulate genuine enjoyment. This explains to some extent the confusion
of practical and appreciative ends. It explains also our addiction to
historical and theoretical studies. He who would study the graphic arts
must try to draw and to paint; the music-lover must acquire some sort
of executive ability, and so devotes enough time to the routine of
“practice” to kill all his enthusiasm; and the student of literature
must become versed in its history. The art-lover is probably not
getting much harm; the music-lover is now often relieved by mechanical
instruments from the necessity for technique; than the historical
studies of the last-named, however, nothing more dreary and futile
could be invented.
Improvement in the methods of education in appreciation must involve
the total abolition of the Examination system. Examinations may be
able to show whether a man can draw “correctly”, play the notes of
a composition, or is versed in the dates of a number of writers and
able to list their important works. But it cannot possibly give any
indication whether the education in appreciation is achieving its real
aim--the increase of the student’s ability to enjoy more and better
things, to find greater happiness and richer artistic experiences.
Those who would develop the appreciative faculties of others must take
the results of their labours for granted.
As before said, our ideas of how to instil a love of beauty, how
to awaken interest in and arouse perception of artistic values,
are still vague. It is a matter which cannot be taught by rule of
thumb. It is not concerned with ascertained facts, nor discoverable
by ordered experiment. It is an individual matter. Largely, in
practice, such instruction will be exemplary rather than explanatory.
Much of the time spent will be devoted to introducing to students
actual examples of the art, and thereby the obstacles of ignorance
and prejudice will be removed. In addition to this, however, some
systematic instruction in the principles of aesthetics, of the general
criteria of works of art--completeness, congruity, balance, and
proportion, the subordination of details, the relation of means to
ends--will be evolved. I would suggest as a starting-point the study
of _form_, of the anatomy or architecture of art. Apart from the moral
value of cultivating a sense of proportion, of perspective, of the
inter-relation of parts--a sense which is as essential to a sane life
as to the appreciation of a picture or a musical composition--nothing
could lead more readily to an understanding of the artist’s aims and
plan of campaign. In music, for instance, a brief account of the
sequence of the main themes, which could be memorized, would render
intelligible and _whole_ a composition which otherwise would seem
meaningless, shapeless, and dreary.