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Why Art Cannot Be Taught - James Elkins

James Elkins’s Why Art Cannot Be Taught discuss the history of art schools and how it has been changed for over course period of times. I find this article particularly interesting since I have a background of traditional art practice. I started my training of drawing and painting very early on and it was very much base on perfecting the technique. Working with still-life and exercising lines and how metarial works. It was interesting to read about the evolution of the art school starting from ancient to modern academies and the Bauhaus.

I personally think art cannot be taught. There is something you born with that cannot be trained. You can inquire/learn the knowledge but it’s different thing when you are translating that into art. There is certainly sensibility that cannot be taught.

The reason I enrolled in DIAP program is so I have a community and institution where I can freely explore and investigate the area of my interest and get feedback from my peers and professors(instructors) which are in the active field. I’m here to “learn” but moreover be expose myself to art community and gain connection which people who are interested in practicing art.


Highlighted Lines:
The Rebellion 
"Organic Entity" 

pg.30- Whistler Said: " I don't teach art; with that I cannot interfere; but I teach the scientific application of paint and brushes." These ideas are extreme, but they follow directly from the less radical idea that artistis are individuals: if everyone is different then there's no telling how art can be taught.
The Romantics were teh first to explore the idea that art cannot be taught, and some of their reasons are
also my reasons in this book. 

pg.36- Why not teach 4-D, then 3-D, then 2-D?

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