If a word goes back to Homer -- I am happy to concede that Homer made the
proper usage of it then, now, and forever.
But the topic under discussion here is "improving taste" -- and it's my
assertion that mentorship -- or -- OK --- a certain kind of mentorship -- has
been very important in some of the arts.
But only for some of them.
For example -- it appears to be rather marginal to the practice of modern
abstract painting -- where a recognized master, like William, may or may not
have had mentors (it depends upon what day we ask him). So it's not really
that important - he certainly does not claim to have mentored anyone else -
and it's strongly opposed by the ideology of Modernism, isn't it ? If art is
always supposed to be changing with the times, what's the point of mentoring ?
What's the point of taste ? (and - to be honest -- what's the point of an art
school?) Mentoring and taste are just old-timey ideas that must be abandoned
by progressive thinkers.
While in Japanese ceramics -- actually, in any Japanese art -- it's considered
essential -- just as it is in the performance of European classical music and
the revival of Classical Realist painting.
It was probably also essential in those arts where we recognize a shared
standard of taste -- as among all the sculptors who worked at Chartres or
Khajuraho.
We can't say that mentoring is required for high achievement in the arts
because there are notable exceptions -- like Manzu, the great Renaissance
sculptor of the 20th C. His only teacher appears to have been himself. But
since mentoring meant nothing to him -- even though he taught at art academies
for many decades -- his style died with him, and I've yet to find anyone who
claims him as a teacher.
**************
I guess that's one way to use "mentor," and your way can be just as good as
anyone else's, including the established "meaning" (sorry, Cheeerskep).
Mentor was the wise older man whom Odysseus ask to guide and protect his son,
Telemachus, when Odysseuys left his family in Ithaca to fight in the Trojan
war. The term is now used to designate a trusted friend and counselor.
You make a mentor sound like a drill sergeant picking out the best of the
recruits, or a teacher choosing a star pupil.
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