You can't teach perspective without implementing it visually. The manner in which it is implemented engages taste. The same is not true of the alphabet. I don't intend to stretch the word taste so far as to drain it of utility but I will maintain that any instruction in art, where teaching and learning involve visual doing, is blended with taste -- a sense of the beautiful. You may say that all taste is a matter of personal expression but I would argue that the social and the normative , not the personal, is by far the larger part of any artistic taste.
Also, the so called rules of perspective are easily and often manipulated. Even as early as Masaccio, he and others were using multiple vanishing points to lessen the distorting severity of orthongonals zooming to the vanishing point. Further, artists also curved receeding lines, often those parallel to the picture plane in one point perspective, to "correct" the distortions of strictly applied perspective. And take a look at Northern painting in the 16-17C., especially the interiors of cathedrals. Artists chose those subjects partly to entice the viewer to imagine a walk around into the pictorial space, and greatly distorted perspective, not easily noticed, was employed. Artists use perspective to ensnare feelings, just as they do with all other pictorial systems, etc. Because any use of any visual system involves feelings/emotions,evocations, it also involves taste. Show me a recognized high art painting that is exactingly correct in perspective. Don't bother, it ain't there, not anywhere. And I could say much more about anatomy, the "rules" and history of anatomic proportion, the selectivity of art anatomy, its distortions, all analogous to tomfoolery with perspective . I'm left with color mixing as the least taste-infected process for the painter, right down there with sharpening pencils and keeping clean brushes. Yes, I affirm that I taught taste as a teaching artist. Even in color mixing and sharpening pencils, I taught a kind of exactitude, a touch, a feel for materials, an aesthetic of artmaking that is imbued with the whole process from beginning to end. Finally, Miller is right about a difficult issue. He is right that art instruction is indeed taste instruction. He might say that taste is one side of beauty. And the rest of you are not really wrong on the issue but you don't go far enough in your notions of taste. You use the word in its most banal and limited sense, as reflecting mere persoanlisms, unjustified, unphilosophical and common, exemplified by such phrases as "my taste is for loose women, fast cars, cheap wine" WC --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > William writes: "Perspective is a system based on > geometry. There are > other perspective systems that > don't rely on the vanishing point. It depends on > your taste." > > Remember the question in this thread at the moment > is this: Is everything you > teach in art school a matter of taste? For openers, > I think you're confusing > choosing a topic with teaching the particulars of > the topic -- and you spend > most of your time teaching the particulars of such a > topic as perspective. > > There are also different systems of geometry. But > once you choose the system > of geometry you will teach, taste does not come into > it, any more than when > you choose to teach an alphabet. Once you set out to > teach the Modern basic > Latin Alphabet -- the 26-letter one you're looking > at right now -- it's silly to > say it's "taste" moving you to teach that B comes > after A. But that's the sort > of thing you'll be spending most of your time > teaching. If you decide to learn > all the known alphabets, your course of study is not > a matter of taste. Same > with systems of calculus, or symbolic logic. > > Suppose you as a teacher know several different > systems of perspective. And > you feel it's your duty to teach all these systems > to the students. I think > it's a bad linguistic decision to call that > pedagogic decision a matter of > "taste". Which system you employ in your work may > depend on your taste, but if > you're going to teach any perspective at all I > myself wouldn't call it a matter > of taste whether or not you teach at least Western > standard graphical > perspective. And once you begin teaching it, do you > really want to say it's "taste" > that prompts you to teach zero, one, two, and three > point perspective? And as > you teach the "rules" of Western standard would you > tell the students, "Don't > worry, when I quiz you on it you can't get anything > wrong because this is all a > matter of taste"? Such a promiscuous use of the word > 'taste' will eventually > drain it, the way, say, those who call everything > they don't like "obscene" > have exhausted that word. > > You demean yourself in claiming all you could ever > teach in art school was a > matter of taste. For my example, I could have > eschewed perspective and chosen > anatomy. How you apply what you learn in anatomy > class may be a matter of > taste, but not the facts about muscles, bones, > tendons, ligaments. > > You go on to say: > > "Perspective is false in demonstrating reality. > People in the distance are > not really tiny." This is foolishness, William. > Perspective is concerned with > appearance, not "reality". "People aren't > two-dimensional like that false > portrait of whatzername in the Louvre!" I rather > think Hokusai never believed that > Fuji was only two-inches wide "in reality". > Euclid's parallel lines never > meet, but do you think he would dismiss one-point > perspective because it's > "false"? > > > > > ************** > Planning your summer road trip? Check out AOL Travel > Guides. > > > (http://travel.aol.com/travel-guide/united-states?ncid=aoltrv00030000000016)
