When Josef Albers stated “we have to change method in art teaching”
“Science and life are not always the best friends. They are sometimes competitors, even as are theory and practice. In school we can see this in teaching the science of nature. We as children had to learn natural history, which tried to classify or dissect the phenomena of nature. But soon we underwent
the experience that pressed herbariums are not nature at all and the herbalist is a dry man, like his specimens; or, that anatomy has to do mostly with dead bodies.
After this funeral experience with dried leaves and stuffed owls and squirrels, we felt a deep need of going out-of-doors to get, instead of the separated parts, the connection between them; instead of scientific systematizing, the events of life, the vital functions, the conditions essential to life –
in short, to get life. Life is change – day and night, cold and warmth, sun and rain. It is more in-between the facts than the facts themselves. Rules are the result of experience and come later,
and discovering the rules is more life-full than their application. Linnaeus, the botanist, built his classifications after many experiences and much investigation. How could we have begun children’s botanical studies with his final results!
I believe it is now time to make a similar change of method in our art teaching: that we move from looking at art as a part of historical science to an understanding of art as a part of life. Under the term ‘art’ I include all fields of artistic purposes – the fine arts and applied arts, also music, dramatics, dancing, the theatre, photography, movies, literature and so on”.
(In «Progressive education», 1935, from a speech by Josef Albers at Black Mountain College. Courtesy Silvana Editoriale, “Josef Albers”, 2011).
Artist’s works are now on show at Fondazione Stelline, Milan Italy, “Josef Albers. Sublime Optics”. Highly recommended.
January 30, 2020
