Thank you, dear Cecilia. I have taught poetry writing in graduate workshops. Most students trashed everything they wrote. A few years later, two of the students published books. Only one was good... In short, I agree with you.

Warm regards, Lilliana

Hi Lilliana,

These are largely musings, and I don't profess to have specific knowledge in this area. I write not as an artist, but as an anthropologist. And, as is often the case for people of my discipline, I tend not to take an absolutist position. (That last sentence of mine is a case in point!) The beauty of art, as an 'imagined' (Anderson 1990) collection, is its diversity - something for all tastes, and for all contributors, through time and space. One cultural group's definition of great art may be another group's shame - e.g. non-Aboriginal Australians' commodification and public display of art that makes Aboriginal people cringe (see 'Bad Aboriginal Art' by Stephen Michaels 1993).

As for talent, a person is not static in his/her capacities but a being who grows, learns, adopts, adapts, forgets (intentionally or otherwise), morphs, blossoms, withers etc as they move through time and space. A skill that evaded a person in youth may be developed throughout the lifespan. Technical concepts and creative visions that may have been eluded a person at one point in time may be fathomable later in life. The reverse may also be so. It may be that a series of life experiences and exposures builds in the artist the capacity for perspective, creative skills, and even self-efficacy (i.e. the confidence to expose oneself in creative form). Again, the reverse may also be so. And a person may grow in some ways, and retract in others at the same time.

We don't need to look far to see examples of people who have 'discovered' a talent in later life, through the introduction to art classes. (Now there's an interesting ethnographic site!) We surely all know someone who had not the self-confidence (or value constructions) in youth to pursue artistic endeavours - or lifestyles. I look at the work of my aunt who worked in laboratories and clinics her whole life, then took up art in her 70s. Who knew she had a knack for water colours and acrylics but not oils? And certainly not sculpting (heaven only knows what the recipients of her crafted dentures look like!). Or her similar classmates, some who were artists their whole lives and are now attending art classes to ward off the effects of dementia - which is deftly stealing their creative capacities.

Again, I'm no artist. But maybe art classes are needed to bring out, build on, and maintain the latent talents in some people?

Keep well, and thanks for posting. It's a welcome distraction from writing grant applications!

Adele

Exploring the mind and its capabilities can help one imagine which ends up on a canvas. Teaching an individual to look into his or her world can help the individual learn much better and perform much better but for that one must believe in oneself. Acknowledging the mind is sufficient for it to perform.

My answer is: "It depends very much on precisely how/when (and especially WHERE) you define "art," as well as who is promulgating the definition." Art (like beauty) belongs not to the "real" or physical world, but exists only in the mind of the beholder. So, what may be perceived/interpreted as (good or acceptable) "art" depends upon cultural imprinting that begins in infancy. I believe that it is very difficult to (actually impossible to completely modify or erase) overcome the cultural imprinting of our childhoods (about "art" or anything else). But it is possible to accomplish further conditioned responses, and thus, it is possible to "teach" a person/student to accept/appreciate the art of an alien culture. Nevertheless, in such cases, isn't it "art appreciation" which is being taught, NOT art itself?  

Being an archaeologist, I tend to support an anthropological perspective on "art," so I appreciate and agree with the points presented by Adele Millard, above.

Contemplate the exquisite and famous cave paintings of Lascaux. Surely most present-day art critics will recognize that a true master of painting and perspective was at work here. But was this master "taught" her/his skills, and who selected and taught her/him, and just how was a specialized school-of-art possibly afforded/organized/sustained in such a primitive society? Even if these superb abilities were taught, then surely it required a very especially talented student to learn them; in such a tiny/closed population, where were such talented students found?. For every masterful student who was selected by his/her society to learn the correct methods (and cultural symbology ?) to so masterfully paint on the walls at Lascaux, how many must have tried and failed?

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/lascaux/

Dear Adele, what a beautiful and insightful comment you have shared! I am most thankful. Writing requires talent, and the best scientific an anthropological texts I have read are extraordinary: Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, Alexander von Humboldt's travel diaries he titled Cosmos, Marcel Mauss's The Gift, Clifford Geertz's essays on the Island of Bali, Malinowski's book on the seafearers of the South Pacific... Marco Polo's Il Millione... Victor Segalen's travelogs... Siegfried Kracauer's essay on traveling and dance... What can I say? Those are simply awesome records of a life on the "other side" fraught, precisely, on otherness... Our art taught by life itself.

Warm regards, Lilliana

  Dear Lilliana

art is a gift, talent and passion 

you can not teach a person to be an artist if he lacks one of the above description

Yes you can teach the techniques and skills for talents, they have to know the theoretical  background and history of art and art of the greatest artist .....etc

If you have bad hand writing I can teach you how to get  better hand writing (Rules)

thank you for your fine question

Lilliana,

Thank you for the invite. Having been on both sides of this, teaching and learning art, I hope I have a little insight. While Bob is correct that it depends on what art you are talking about, I believe that you can teach most people just about any type of art there is, to a limited degree. As with your poetry example, you can teach people to write poetry, but that does not mean that they are good at it. I was lucky in that my professor encouraged me and one of my first two submitted poems was selected for inclusion into a large poetry book.

You can teach a person to draw or paint or sculpt or make pottery or be a photographer, but you can't make them an "artist". To be an artist you have to have talent and vision. Anyone can take a photograph, but to be a true artist like Ansel Adams you must be able to frame the shot in your mind, thus deciding whether to take the shot, wait for a shift in the light, move to a different angle, or move on.

I can draw and paint inanimate objects, and I do okay with plants, but no matter how hard I try and how many lessons I take I am no good at drawing or painting people or animals.

Almost everyone can benefit from art lessons, but not everyone is can be an artist.

Dear Liliana,

Yes, art (with all its mystery) can be taught in different dimensions. It depends on the talent of the teacher. That's why the effect of such teaching becomes sometimes craft. Not everyone will be an artist because artists are born.

Dear @Liliana, of course art can be taught and we are aware of long history of art teaching, art education trough centuries. We do have famous institutions all over the world where different art disciplines were taught.

The ability of artistic expression of an individual is necessarily, like many other aspects of the personality, the combination of nature and nurture. A person can be taught techniques to achieve certain forms of artistic expression, but this teaching is bounded to trasmisible, which does not include the creative itself, although it may include creative forms considered at a given moment by a community.

Dear Ricardo and Ljubomir, I agree with you in the part of teaching art, but "art" is not what is taught, but maybe technique, method, style. Art school is something recent. Before that, a talented would-be artist would start as an apprentice, like Giotto was an apprentice to Cimabue, and in many ways Basquiat was an apprentice to Warhol. Apparently it is talent that decides who will be an artist and who will not. Many frustrated untalented artists become excellent teachers. Less than 10% of would be artist will actually become artists whether or not having been in art school.

What can art school do in behalf of talent?

Best regards, Lilliana

I think that to excel in any "art" is going to be a combination of innate talent, which leads to interest and perseverance, and education. If nothing else, the education part can let the student progress more quickly, not having to spend time discovering pitfalls that others have already discovered. And it never hurts to gain a broader perspective than just the ideas and techniques that one's own talents might have uncovered.

I use "art" generically. This holds for math and science too. Education never hurts, I'm convinced of that.

Artists have talent that teaching taps into teases and explores the capability of the individual to express themselves through drawing, sculpture, carving, painting with oil, watercolour or Acrylic. This talent is inbuilt  innate and can never be replicated except by fraudsters and crooks. Artists can be musical, writers of books or poetry. Yes you can try and teach it but unless the individual has a flare for a particular artistic method or area all that is learned is theory and background. Art by a true artist has a life and beauty of its own and each artist has an individual style. Occasionally an individual whos talent is untapped may discover through art classes that they have a hidden talent that may have gone unnoticed but this is extremely rare.

Thank you, Georgina, for your insightful comment!

Best regards, Lilliana

Something we can certainly learn always. It is advisable to put their efforts into areas in which it is a talent. But that's true for all human activities in general.

 Can art be taught?                          

We cannot see the physical difference of every brain. But the mentality is distinct from person to person. Art facility has to grow within art fertile land, and sublime to be an art faculty.

Dear all

 Can art be taught?                          

If art could be taught, James Elkins had duplicated a lot. So great are art soul!

Good article on talent and practice in art.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/creativity-is-much-more-than-10-000-hours-of-deliberate-practice/?WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20160418

Art can be performed only in the system and in the appropriate social environment with the beloved and talented parents and teachers: family- kindergarten-school-University.Chronic vulgar person (zhlob) is incurable.

Dear all

Artist needs inspiring and cultivating.

Probing Question: Are artists born or taught?

"In 17th century Rome, the Baroque painter Orazio Gentileschi gave all his children the finest art education available. But only one of them—his daughter Artemisia—developed into an artist. In fact, Artemisia matched and surpassed her father's skills, and became the first female member of the Academy of Design in Florence and the only woman to follow and innovate upon the tradition of painting established by Caravaggio.

What creates a great artist like Gentileschi, Van Gogh or Manet? Talent or training?

Artists are both born and taught, says Nancy Locke, associate professor of art history at Penn State. "There is no question in my mind that artists are born," says Locke. Many artists arrive in the world brimming with passion and natural creativity and become artists after trying other vocations. Before he had devoted himself to art, Van Gogh tried to be a minister among poor miners in Belgium. "He just frightened and overwhelmed people," says Locke. "He was too intense to act effectively in that capacity."

Artists are also made, she says. They require training, education and a culture of other artists, often an urban culture, says Locke. "Put an artist in isolation and nobody can learn anything from the work." A craftsman masters a skill, but an artist ventures beyond to innovate. "Artists have to be in touch with other artists, building on what other artists have done," says Locke..."

http://news.psu.edu/story/141174/2007/08/13/research/probing-question-are-artists-born-or-taught

Art cannot be taught but a prolific artist can guide a person for making a better artist and so that he can excel in that.

Dear all

The method and technique of expression of art need to be taught. It is kind of experience.  

Dear all

Art Can’t be totally taught or instilled.

Please people,

drop the elitism inherent in your references to what you think of as art. Art is all around. How else can it be? If all of creation is such a glorious display, why are all these conceptualizations necessary?

In my experience, there are two sorts of aspiration in the arts: one exhibits natural, apparently inborn, talent while the other needs unrelenting hard work to achieve the same ends. Which is better? That is a role for your discriminating awareness to decide, but I know who my answer tends toward.

Karl

Fine response dear @Karl. Do you think that, regardless the type of the artist (talent and hard working), artists are longlife learners in the art field? They should explore new ...!

At the outset we have to appreciate that Art is the nature gift & when this gift within us it will certainly join with our talents .In this line we cannot separate nature gift & talents as the same are to be retained in one compartment .

Art may be of any nature which we may consider the same as in the form of Music ,Fine Arts , Painting , Drama, Dancing & such other related areas . In all said areas if you are liking & nature gift with our training we can certainly master the Art .

This is my personal opinion 

I do not believe in "natural talent"

I do not believe in "talent" in general - nor that being an "artist" is something innate - when it comes to contemporary art.

first point:

What is talent?

How can you recognize it?

- Because you've seen some of that before - and you were impressed - you call that “talent”

So talented people are good in doing things that are recognizable.

They do something alike the things you like, respect, love, care, admire, conserve…

So they are not bringing something new - they are remarkable able to do admired things the right way.

-When is something new?

When you have never seen it before.

-Can you recognize a thing that you've never seen before?

No, there is no way you can know what it is

- that's what you call "total chaos!"

People go: "Everybody can do this!”

What you don’t know you cannot appreciate.

So we have two things here:

1, Being talented is being good in what’s already been done.

2, What’s new is not recognizable

- Second;

The point is that curators, galleries, critics and audiences have only to deal with "finished products" - and have no knowledge of what effort was put into it:

The trial and error, the wanderings that governed the course of proceedings by the maker.

They see the “theatre play” from the moment the curtain rises and have no knowledge of all what happened previously.

A theatre performance looks totally different seen from the top of the stage as seen from within the audience:

- There are the backsides of the cardboard sets - and the performance itself - How it has changed and grown during the preparation in previous months.

This can also be witnessed in art school. - Art students in development - open, unfinished, trying, failing - that's what's called "learning".

You can hear critics say they only can talk about a work thirty years after.

- A teacher has to evaluate a work of which the paint is not even dry yet!

Here is the difference - in education you can see the interaction, the trial and error, the doubt and the internal dynamics of an evolutionary process where critics are never aware of.

- But in the end we all belong to the public.

That is, we believe in the artists that we love - and we love the artists we believe in.

There is no more magic needed.

(It would therefore be a nice experiment for to bring for once the process into the museum. - And not only putting finished products on display, but also to show "open projects” - to show people at work. - I say "people" not “artists"!)

The hardest thing for any audience to endure is a state of doubt.

To question the foundations of their judgment.

What is this?

Anybody can do this!

How can I judge this?

Where can I put this?

No way this can be art!

How can this be understood?

Do I like it?

Well, nobody likes broken streets and diversion signs.

But afterwards the district sometimes comes out neater.

Art will be changing as long as it lives - and art schools and art education will have to grow with it.

That is: To cope with uncertainty, and not to rely too much on tradition, techniques and so called "talent"

Conclusion: we are tempted to see things in retrospect.

Art can be taught - or at least - way’s of getting to art.

And in the acces to artist training there are also a lot of social, political and economical elements involved.

You have to get a chance to become an artist.

Look at all those women since Michelangelo -

What would they have become if they had had this chance?

 sports are made for talent - because they are disciple recognizable: what you do in sport can be right or wrong, interpretation is a problem- Art is ever changing, interpretation here is the issue.