As a trainee or professional artist, nothing beats seeing art in person and seeing lots and lots of it. I am always surprised as an art educator when, on first encounters, my students tell me they have never been to the National Gallery of Art (NGA), Castellani House or that it has been such a long time that they cannot recall when they last visited. And these kinds of admissions were not due to Covid closures, as they were made before Covid raised its troublesome head.
Just as surprising, has been my students’ inability to identify local artists (who do not teach them) or works by local artists (again, who do not teach them), past or present. I usually understand this to mean that they are not looking at art in the flesh and that perhaps they are only doing so mediated by someone’s photographic skills (or lack thereof) and a screen. I usually don’t assume they are looking at art in artbooks or similar printed formats. Why? Because there is a misguided notion that to study art means one does not need to read and instead one spends one’s time drawing and painting and tapping into one’s inner consciousness, whiling time away. After all, it is the student who does not show a strong inclination towards academic subjects who is sent to the CSEC Visual Art classroom (if not the Technical Drawing classroom). But effective art, past and present, has been grounded in intellect and intelligence. Without it, the work will be vapid.