Artist in Training

I am getting emails every day about various art fairs. There is the European Art Fair known as TEFAF, there is a drawing fair in Paris and the Outsider art fair in New York. The latter term is usually in reference to artists who have had no formal training, but like everything else, there are exceptions to that as well. This had me thinking about how the visual arts were taught in Western European cultures through the ages.

Did the caveman have formal training? Of course not. One looked at the object drawn by another earlier and developed their own way of creating what they saw. Maybe if one drew a horse, the other thought, well, I could draw a deer, or even the image of my friend over there. It is thought that the first images of a person in drawing or sculpture were 40-50,000 years ago.

Through most of the history of European art, people learned their craft through an apprenticeship. The word comes from the French, ‘apprendre’, to learn or, further back, Latin “apprehendere’ meaning to take hold of or grasp. The word just puts a more formal name to do what we all do to get ahead,… we learn from others. You have to crawl before you walk, and then you can go your own way.

A formal guild system for all crafts, which included what we consider art, originated in the Middle Ages. You became an apprentice, then a journeyman, and then, if you were good enough, a master. The journeyman was employed by a skilled artist, and in another step along the way, often travelled to learn more on the road to becoming a master. A contemporary image of work being created at the sculpture guild.

During the Italian Renaissance, artists moved from rendering flat images to show depth and distance using geometry and perspective. They studied anatomy to learn how the human “machinery” worked. Leonardo and Michelangelo observed and performed human dissections, all in the advancement of their craft. Here is a drawing by Leonardo with his study notes.

Out of the guilds came the academies, the earliest being the Accademia del Disegno, the Academy of design, established in Florence in 1563. It was founded by Cosimo I de’Medici at the instigation of Giorgio Vasari and the co-founder Michelangelo. They wanted to oversee Florentine artistic activities and elevate the status of artists, who were defined as painters, draftsmen, and sculptors, so they would not be considered merely as craftsmen. It is an argument that continues to this day, where anyone creating furniture, ceramics, textiles, glass, and metal work, including gold and silver, is thought to be in a subcategory known as the “decorative” or “applied” arts!

In the twentieth century, paintings and sculpture departed from the academic tradition with Impressionism, Cubism, and Abstract Expressionism. In architecture, it was the Bauhaus. Later in the century, universities offered courses and Fine Arts degress. Today, the aspiring artist can take courses on how to use technology such as Photoshop and programs for 3D modelling and animation. Coming into these academic programs is that dreaded word, AI … not meaning that AI will create the art, but rather become a tool in creating it.

Through art, we communicate new ideas and emotions. The same work of art can be interpreted differently by every viewer. I like this opinion offered on OpenAI, which can be applied to art education:

If you only study, you stagnate ...

If you only create, you plateau ...

If you combine both, you accelerate ...

But I would add that if you want to stand out, you need to innovate ...