Art at BMC

At Black Mountain College, art is considered as educational as language, mathematics, philosophy. It is accepted here also that practical, manual work is as essential in education as it is in life. To us, education means more than a teaching which merely extends memory and trains mainly intellect. We realize that human development depends on other human faculties equally or more important than those two mentioned.

Academism has coined the stereotype Theory and Practice, but life works in an opposite order. It points first at practice of which theory is a result. Here we may conclude also that application alone is more appropriate to industry and trade than to education.

Creativeness and productivity imply more action and, therefore, more life than mere possession. Therefore, to us, the fulfillment of ability is a higher aim than knowledge. Knowing and understanding do not necessarily result in action, creation, production. Consequently, to realistic education—which is to adjust the individual as a whole to community and society as a whole—the development of the will is the first and last concern. In short, doing something—even if it may prove a failure—counts educationally more than merely knowing something.

As to learning and studying, life confronts us with problems and tasks which cannot be solved by intellectual procedure alone. There are activities and situations we cannot encounter through verbal and oral information and which, therefore, actually cannot be taught.

The ultimate approach is experiment which leads us to the most decisive factor in education—experience. Experience is not the shortest and often not the easiest way of learning, but the broader and most far-reaching way. What we have experienced belongs to us; it will remain with us longer than what we have only read or heard.

All these considerations lead us to the conclusion that in schools, art should be studied as science is being studied, namely, through laboratory work. It appears as a matter of course that we study chemistry through experience, through handling chemicals. In order to make clear what is not as natural, apply the usual way of teaching art to the teaching of science, then in many schools there would be mainly and probably only history of chemistry.

Art does not exist on a material, but on a spiritual level. It rests within us instead of upon a canvas or marble. Seeing art is more than an optical projection, it is a psychological process. Optically different people see alike; emotionally and intellectually they react differently, individually. Someone has said, “We don't judge art; art judges us.”

Art as a creative process is discovery and invention. We consider it a creative rather than productive process, as creation leads to spiritual effect, and production to practical result.

Discovery and invention depend on imagination and vision both of which we probably are unable to teach. What we can teach toward their development is observation and comparison. These both aim at open eyes and flexible minds, both desirable not only for art.

At Black Mountain College, art studies are first a means of general education, second, a foundation for later specialized and individual art work. Basic courses in drawing, painting, design, and color offer studies aiming at disciplined seeing and sensitive reading of form. They exercise syntax and synopsis of visual articulation. So in each course the learning of the principles of the craft of the field is the first objective.

In drawing, we practice graphic formulation; in painting, special relationship of two-dimensional color, composition. In the color course we experience the relativity of color, how color is influenced by color, light, shape, quantity, placement. Basic Design is practicing planning. Here through the use of various materials (voluminous, flat, linear) we study appearance on the one hand and capacity on the other. Through exercises in combination we experience and understand surface qualities of material—of matière (structure, facture, texture). Through construction exercises we study mathematical and structural conditions of form (shape, space, volume).

Besides these basic disciplines, the College offers workshop courses in textile design, woodwork and bookbinding. Architecture and printing are temporarily discontinued. The community work program—and soon the building program again—provides a large variety of practical work experience. Concentrated studies in various fields of design are offered at Black Mountain College Summer Art Institute during July-August. Besides the art faculty of the College, guest artists and scholars of reputation give courses and lectures.

As indicated before, the aim of our art studies is not self-expression but articulation in visual form. Since expression is purposeful, aiming through selected means at definite effects, it is the result of self-control and mastery of medium and tools. Therefore, to consider children's and beginners' work as self-expression is a misunderstanding if not a fundamental psychological error. It is misleading and leads either to strangled creativeness or conceit. Of course, man-made form reveals always qualities of its originator, but we should not confuse self-disclosure with self-expression.

Expression implies communication. In art, it is visualization of our emotional reactions to life and the world, and depends, as in any language on articulation. Articulation is distinctive formulation as it implies decision about purpose and also selection of appropriate means. Therefore in art, as in all communication, precision—as to the effect wanted—and discipline—as to the means used—are decisive. Both can be achieved through experience, through continuous and repeated experimentation.

To study only finished works of art—unfortunately possible mainly through printed reproductions—deprives us of the educationally most important experience of trial and error. It ends too often in factual description and sentimental likes and dislikes instead of in sensitive discrimination.

The danger of studio courses, namely to produce would-be artists, can be eliminated by teaching which is concerned with the process of seeing and formulating instead of producing final results. In schools we can only prepare for later artistic work. Work of significance and lasting value usually is a result of many years if not of a life-time of concentrated study—in art, in science, or in any field.

The more basic our studies are, the less we will be in a hurry for finished results. The more our practical exercises concern fundamental problems, the more we will avoid mechanical application of technique as well as imitative discipleship. The more we develop understanding of and respect for material, the more we can expect that both production and evaluation of form, of art, will be approached with honesty and responsibility.

Such practicing studies mean in the end a study of ourselves, of our handicaps as well as our assets, which is the concern of any serious creative mind.