Wittgenstein’s and Gombrich’s Parallel Therapeutic Projects and Art Education

This article explores parallel tendencies in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s and Ernst Gombrich’s thinking that aimed to dissolve misconceptions about mind, culture, and art that emerged in modernity but that continue to influence current art education. Section one gives an overview of Wittgenstein’s and Gombrich’s therapeutic projects, which drew on perspicuity and genealogy to eliminate confusions in thinking, rather than advance new theories. The second section illustrates Wittgenstein’s and Gombrich’s curative response to modern misconceptions about mind and culture. The analysis is extended in a thematic way to dissolve similar misconceptions that prevail in current art education. The aim of the article is to provide conditions for sustaining better practices of art education.