Introducing the Fine Arts

Fine Arts 13, a whirlwind survey of four thousand years of Western painting, sculpture and architecture, introduces the world of visual art to over four hundred students each year. Though it may demonstrate well the sweep of the West's artistic achievement, it is questionable if the history of so broad a field can fulfill the course's avowed purpose--"to increase the student's perception of works of art."

The fault lies in the assumption of the Fine Arts Department that the way to initiate students to the wonders of the visual arts is to present those marvels in an epic survey. The problem of how to look at a work of art must be studied very carefully if an introductory course's value is to be permanent, if it can serve as a meaningful guide to the student's subsequent visual experiences.

Instead of Fine Arts 13, a new full course should be substituted whose main concern would be to acquaint the student with the many different ways an art work can be approached. The first term should study intensively and unhistorically selected masterpieces of painting, leaving out the added complexities of the architectural and sculptural disciplines. The emphasis would be placed entirely on art appreciation.

The second term would undertake a close examination of the stylistic metamorphoses of Western painting as reflected by a small number of works of the greatest masters from Giotto to the decline of the Baroque at the end of the seventeenth century. Here, the ways of looking at a painting as discussed in the first term would give depth to a historical study of art styles. The student at last would have a chance to emerge with a deep familiarity with a significant era in art history. What is far more important, the course will have made a thorough attempt to "increase the student's visual perception of works of art."