Abstract
This chapter begins with the premise that the “facts” we teach students about the pillars of visual art instruction—the elements and principles, proportions of the figure, linear perspective, and color theory—are frequently and flagrantly false. Utilizing Jean Anyon’s landmark study “Social Class and School Knowledge” (Curriculum Inquiry, 11(1), 3–42, 1981), this chapter argues that access to learning and unlearning related to such traditional falsehoods promote class, race, and gender biases. To begin to address the continued proliferation of inequitable visual arts instruction, this chapter takes up the essential question, “What’s the point of it all?” This chapter includes mentions of numerical bases, Einstein’s violin, Picasso’s napkin, and great-aunt Gladys to frame the essential question: what does art teach?
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Notes
- 1.
For anyone objecting that the first pragmatic example in a text on art education comes from mathematics, I have to say this: art includes everything. What subject isn’t implicated in artistic practice or divorced from aesthetics? Anatomy? Physics? Literature? History? Chemistry? Not only is it all there, part of art, but all inquiry is entangled in the aesthetics of being and derives from human experience—even mathematics.
- 2.
He didn’t, but it’s a decent meme and would look good on a poster or a throw pillow. Who would check the attribution of a throw pillow or dispute the words on a classroom poster when the sentiment is widely shared?
- 3.
Or a brick-sized lump.
- 4.
Thus eliminating the need to read the rest of the book.
- 5.
And should probably hang their head in shame.
- 6.
There are actually four versions of “Picasso ’s Napkin” that I have heard over the years.
In the first, Picasso was loitering at a café in Paris, having spent most of the morning eating baguettes and drinking wine. When the manager approached to ask for payment, Picasso wiped his mouth on the napkin, signed it, and said, “There. I have not only paid my bill, I have bought you a new café!”
In the second, the manager offers Picasso a meal in exchange for a sketch. At the end of his meal, Picasso quickly sketches a picture. When the manger asks Picasso to sign the sketch, the artist snaps, “You asked me to pay the bill, not buy the café!”
In the third, Picasso was drinking at a bar when he was approached by a wealthy fan who asked for a quick sketch. Picasso complies, but instead of handing the paper napkin to the fan, asks for many thousands of dollars instead. “But it only took you a moment!” the fan exclaimed. “No,” Picasso said, “it took me a lifetime.”
The final version sees Picasso back at the Paris café where he was served by an especially beautiful and charming waitress. They chatted throughout the meal and, at some point, he asked her why such a beautiful woman would wait tables at a café. “It is for my children, monsieur,” the waitress replied, “Their father perished in the war and I wait tables so that they may eat.” Picasso was so taken with her that, at the close of the meal, he sketched a picture of a dove. He signed the napkin, pressed it into her hands, and said, “There! Now you can afford to send your children off to school!”
- 7.
That isn’t, if we’re honest, not very new at all.
- 8.
Yet.
- 9.
Even if she does pinch their cheek and smell of mothballs.
- 10.
Most of us probably don’t remember what a Punnett square is.
References
Anyon, J. (1981). Social class and school knowledge. Curriculum Inquiry, 11(1), 3–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.1981.11075236
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Babulski, T. (2019). Introduction. In: What Art Teaches Us. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27768-0_1
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