Aesthetics for Contemporary Artists

Leonardo, Vol. 12, pp. 329-332 Pergamon Press 1979. Printed in Great Britain AESTHETICS FOR CONTEMPORARY ART1STS Elmer H. Duncan, Corrc..spontling Editor Readers are invited to draw attention to articles on aesthetics appearing in English languagejournals that are nfspecial interest to studio artists andart teachers.,forreview by Elmer H . Duncan. Dept. of Philosophj. Baylor Univcvsitj, Waco, TX 76703, U.S.A. J. Aronson, The MAT Graduate in Aesthetic Education. J . Aesth. Ed. 12, 74 (July. 1978). There is a temptation to assume that one knows very well what ‘aesthetic education’ is, but this may not be the case. This essay traces the development of one Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program in aesthetic education at Webster College, U.S.A.. described as a *. .. small liberal arts institution in suburban St. Louis’ (p. 74). The MAT program began in 1965. and nine years later, in 1974 I . . . the College received a sizeable grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to start the first in-servicegraduate program for teachers in aesthetic education in the country’ (p. 74). According to the author, the faculty was ’. .. selected to represent competence and performance ability in the various arts’ (p. 75). These faculty members began their work ‘. .. each attempting to teach his own art form on a professional level’(p. 75). The results were less than completely satisfying-’Chaos was rampant’ (p. 76). A number of faculty meetings were held to answer ’... the simple question “What does the MAT graduate look like’?”’ (p. 76). This question led to another, ‘And once you know that. how do you get them to look like that?’ (p. 76). Most oftheessayisadetailed account oftheearlyobjectives of the program and the way these objectives changed with experience . Noclaim ismade that the final objectivesare satisfied. ‘I only wish to state that these goals seemed to emerge from the program itself as the faculty came to realize what was important’ In the end, the attempt to train professional artists was dropped. ‘There is no doubt that after two years the faculty considered the first objective, perception, to be of overriding importance’ (p. 80). Similarly, the students were led to ‘. ..learn in tactile aswell as didactic ways that the artist is a problem solver and that part of the aesthetic experience and perception of the object is appreciation of the craft’ (p, 82). This is only one educational program, at one institution, and generalizations are always hazardous, but the lessons learned at Webster College should not be lost. M. Barasch, Mode and Expression in Meyer Schapiro‘s Writings on Art, Social Research 45,52 ( I 978). Aesthetics is a unique area of philosophy. because not all those who contribute to it are professional philosophers. This special issue of Social Research is devoted to the work of Schapiro, an art historian, who has been making major contributionsto aesthetics for more than 40 years. The essays include several papers related to his views on the philosophy of art, e.g. Semiotics and the Critical Sensibility: Observations on the Lessons of Meyer Schapiro by D. Rosand (p. 36ff), Schapiro. Marx, and the Reacting Sensibility of Artists by W. Anderson (p. 67ff) and Dialectical Reasoning in Meyer Schapiro by D. B. Kuspit (p. 93ff). Schapiro has often been something of a ‘maverick’ in his interpretations ofart history. Thus, he has argued that those who think of the art of the Middle Ages in Europe as completely church-oriented are wrong; rather. ‘Schapiro showed a strong (P. 79). trend of aesthetic appreciation, of the unrestrained enjoyment of beautiful forms, fascinating materials. and a variety of sophisticated skill’ (p. 53). As an art historian, he often wrote on the expressivecharacter of art. In doing so, Barasch finds that Schapiro stressed two elements, ‘Oneis the tension between the agent ofexpression.. . and the content that is expressed ....’ (p. 55). The other important point to be stressed is that ‘the expressive feature or form actually reveals what is expressed’ (p. 55). But each artist must express himself in his own way, or in a way peculiar to the artists of his school. In Schapiro’s terms, artists use different ‘modes’ of expression. Barasch considers Schapiro’s scattered references to ‘modes’ of expression extremely important: ‘It...