Reading Miller reminds me how wonderful it is to be a professor emeritus. wc ________________________________ From: Chris Miller <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 7:54:20 AM Subject: Trivial Pursuit
Is trying to match mystery details to artworks really a trivial pursuit and unworthy as art study except to promote some fairly inane looking? (as William has asserted) Following the lead of Professors Immanuel Tingle and Joseph Immersion, I would disagree. Because familiarity is incremental -- and whatever enables it is a good thing. (Or -- at least -- familiarity with things that are good, and, as I recall, William, like myself, is willing to distinguish good art from bad, even if we may disagree with each other as well as with the canon) Sending kids (or, actually, anyone) through a museum to look for the fragments of great paintings sounds like a good idea to me -- much better, say, than asking them to write some pseudo-profound essay about the "real meaning" of this, that, or the other. >There used to be a famous course at Columbia Univ. where a final exam consisted of slides of details of artworks studied in the course. Students were expected to id the artist, etc., on the basis of the fragments shown. Sometimes, one finds students running through the museums with pictures like those Miller showed. Their quest is to locate the mystery works. None of this trivial pursuit is worthy as art study except to promote some fairly inane looking. It is a feature of canonical art study. (WC) ____________________________________________________________ Simple and Easy. Click here to wipe out your debt in 12-36 months. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/BLSrjnxQr8tJYZRD9faK8r946rxBMr ikdk58MvE3ls4CAS7XctBhxMbYOO0/
