Learning to Appreciate Art

The Connoisseur, by Norman Rockwell,
oil on canvas mounted on board
(originally published on the cover of
The Saturday Evening Post, January 13, 1962)

The top thing teachers want to accomplish during the course of a semester is to have the material they teach retained and preserved over time in the minds of their students. This semester, I put the following question on my Art Appreciation final.

Discuss five things about art/art history that you will take with you as a result of taking this course and discuss what is memorable about them.

I put the question on the test to not fish for compliments or engage in shameless self promotion, but to find out what students might say after a rather intensive semester of looking at and discussing 35,000 years of art in the equivalent of a blink of an eye in a standard semester. I put the question on the test to find out how individuals would be impressed by art. I put the question on the test to punctuate the semester and send them on their way with the question as the last topic of discussion. The following is a selection of insightful remarks from the class. The names are not listed to protect the privacy of the individuals.

The persecution of Christians, and the transition of catacombs to cathedrals is very memorable to me. It's amazing to think about how Christianity has changed throughout time. Before, people were worshipping and praying in dark, damp, smelly places such as catacombs. Christians really appreciated what they had. Then Christianity was o.k., and cathedrals flourished and Christians worshipped freely. I think ancient cathedrals are one of the most beautiful things on this earth. To think about how much time was spent making them so breath-taking with the resources they had is amazing. The artwork which was created in cathedrals is truly fascinating. After learning about the production of cathedrals, and the work put into them, it makes them even more memorable to me.|

[The last thing I would like to mention] is the necessity of art-- confirmed. I always knew life would be boring if art did not exist. But that's not true, life would lack a heartbeat.|

In the past, viewing an abstract piece I wouldn't have looked twice at it, thinking it was a ten-minute work that a famous guy did for a few thousand. While this class didn't make me fall in love with abstract art, or artists, it did help me realize there is a method to the madness, and went a long way to help me with my closed-mindedness.|

The thing I will take from the class forever is the way critics react to new ideas. So many artists that we now call "great" went unappreciated in their own time. The "pioneers" of a new movement were cast aside for more "traditional" works. If these people wanted to be pure traditionalists, they would only observe cave paintings, for art has done nothing but evolve and change (over) time. |

[The last idea I take away from this class] is the understanding of Hitler's artistic talent. Though not a world history class, I've learned a good deal about what drove the man.|

I love photography and enjoyed learning about the origin and progression of it. I never knew it wasn't considered art at one point! Also, it seemed crazy to me that artists were trying to make their photography look like paintings! |

Learning about so many artists and their style(s) really helped me distinguish what I like and don't like. I loved learning about the different artists' crazy lives and now I want to go buy works by some of them! |

...I realized how to appreciate art for what it is. Whether it's a cave painting, or Marcel Duchamp's Fountain it has an underlined meaning and should be appreciated. I will use this by NO ASSUMING (of) the meaning. |

[The fifth thing to take from this class] is the overall knowledge of art that I did not have or think I was interested in. I enjoyed going to the art exhibit in Springdale to see art that I would never have seen or been exposed to. Although I found it rahter weird, I was able to look at it with the knowledge of how it was made, what it was made of, and what the artist was trying to portray. |

[Second, the discussion and video around "Degenerate Art."] I had no idea that Hitler's intolerance extended beyond his hatred for ethnic groups, but even extended to expressions of art and and any art he deemed "degenerate." |

[Third], is the way art compliments nature. I typically thought of art as a portrait or sculpture, but didn not have the thought of art complimentary to nature as in Stonehenge. |

Another thing I will take is that women are not really talked about in art. An example, is the Guerrilla Girls--they were trying to be recognized and to this day, a lot of women artists are overlooked. |

I also learned about what the masters of the Renaissance were really about. I had heard of Michelangelo, Raphael, and Da Vinci, but I didn't know some of the magnificent things they were responsible for. For example, Michelangelo's ceiling in the Sistine Chapel is probably one of the prettiest things I have seen. |