The early classical mode of teaching was to produce geometric and beautiful-modernists pieces of work, later on there came a contemporary art schools, they love the investigation of meaning and being independent artists from the state, and the students have there own unique style.
Bauhaus 1919-1933, there was emphasis on perceptual experimentation coupled with commitment to universal principle, they wanted there students to increase sensitivity to phenomena, and belief in formal and universal rudiments of practice and the resistance to theory. Sometimes there's a cross over between Bauhaus and black mountain college because they were interested in the same concepts mainly material problems.
James Elkins
He was an early speaker of the academics research in the arts.
In 1991 the higher education act, it amalgamated colleges and uni's, which generated a lot of noise and had a narrower conception of knowledge. Then Elkins comes along with his two books called "artists with PhDs" and "why art can't be taught" where he says that art is an irrational activity and he celebrates this idea as it operates as a cultural critique. However he says what does art have to do with university anyway. There is an emphasis on the issue of irrationally and rationally drive his approach and opinion. He says the crit situation is a form of psychodrama and this can be really emotionally charged, one thing you can do is be quiet and let the tutor babble on, or you can be really confrontational which makes the tutors job hard and maybe sometimes can go badly of you can have the positive mediation, for example explore concept of "lightness" from kitsch, so trying not to take the critique so hard as it's not important as you think it is. Kitsch work doesn't have a serious agenda so the concept of the kitsch its used as an insult but can be good for post modernism. Lions tries to use this idea of the psychodrama and starts to try and apply it to art school teaching and its still applicable today in a studio situation of work. He thinks that painting and alchemy is an irrational way of working but it's really beautiful and its the only way to really have something different as its unstructured.
He's making the case of art cannot be taught but if the practice of art can't be structural taught them what can, so art can be taught but nobody knows quite how, maybe art can be taught but few students become outstanding artists great artists have dropped out of institutions. What does get taught that can be fit into a curriculum is mainly the theory of history of art, criticism and philosophy, visual acuity, how to get along in the artworld (professional practice. Elkins thinks that teaching is actually directed towards the reasons that we we value art not art itself things like expression, control, self-knowledge and meaning. These are vague concepts that depend on silent learning as opposed to learning a set of rules.
