What claims are made for the study of Visual Arts in the Objectives of the course? Based off the text, “what good are the arts” I can gather that the claim made by the author John Carey was that “art put us in touch with the sacred” this claim could be taken in different contexts and viewed from different perspectives due to an individual’s opinion on something they considered sacred. The author states that this ideology can lead to dangerous results as this claim is applied to different aspects of life, one comparison being 9/11. Another claim of Careys that provides evidence that art does in fact provide good for “us” is that he writes about how a novelist was attempting suicide but heard some music on the radio that convinced him to not kill himself. As well as this he mentions how art has provided therapeutic aspects to people with mental illness’ and people in need of stress relief. Careys counterclaim to the good the arts provide was the discussion of Hitler and how to a extent the art may have shaped his inhumanity. Carey see’s the art’s as the main reason Hitler was the monster he was as he stated that he saw bombing cities as a interesting form of architecture.
The claims made for the text “Why art cannot be taught” by James Elkins are based off his belief that art is unable to be taught. He makes a claim that the teaching of art is just like any subject such as science or history and he says that just like are these subjects cannot be taught either. He then continues to state that all teaching is not impossible but the important and critical aspects of the subject cannot be taught. Elkins provides evidence based on a quote from the historian Paul Kristeller stating “art teachers are involved in the curious endeavor to teach the unteachable.” He then provides more evidence, from schools who have taught famous artists like Georgia O’Keefe and Richard Estes. He states that each school made a similar claim along the lines of, the artists did study in their school they deny the responsibility for their success.
Are these consistent with the content of the texts? The claims made by John Carey are mostly consistent with the content of the texts, I say mostly as the author does seem to swerve off into different areas and discussing different topics. The claims made by James Elkins seem to contradict each claim as in different paragraphs he agrees with the title of the article but then defend the opposing claim that art CAN be taught