Art Criticism - The State University of New York

So far I have noted that our current classroom formats prohibit the
modeling of community. I have also indicated that the activity of teaching
involves a heterogeneity of obligations, most of which are non-educational.
Now, even if we are successful at inventing classroom formats that foreground
educational imperatives, the establishment of community is not without its
difficulties. And this has to do with a certain tension between the regulative
ideal of equal power among all participants in lieu of the obligation to speak the
truth of art.
As discussed above, students cannot and do not readily become
autonomous thinkers and doers when they are performing within a predominantly
authoritarian situation. Passive learning is ineffective in nurturing ways
of thinking and seeing that are conductive to becoming a "good citizen."
Classroom dynamics need to de-emphasize the teacher's institutional authority
as expert, and in its place sustain an atmosphere of rational dialogue and
exchange where the students among themselves become active constructors
of the course work. This approach empowers students, respects cultural;
racial, and gender differences, and develops a sense of good will. It opens the
way towards establishing community in the classroom.
But the necessary rationale of the art history survey is to speak the
truth of art. And in this regard the teacher's greater experience with art-historical
matters is simply requisite for guiding discussion and modeling learning.
Striving to establish a classroom community must de-emphasize the teacher as
authority, yet the pursuit of truth can lead one to exercise that institutional role.
These two trajectories are in a constant state of tension. Nor is some final
resolution possible; we instead must constantly devise ad hoc strategies to
negotiate these poles. 19 We must intuit when it is proper to interject key
information, redirect the flow of a conversation, correct blatant falsehoods, or
(what we academic find hardest of all) just keep our mouths shut
Towards the Classroom Community
To begin incorporating these educational ideals into classroom practice,
we need to delimit lecturing; its purpose should be restricted to modeling
art-historical skills and offering pertinent information not found in reading
assignments. The vast majority of class time is to involve active student
participation. Depending on the number of students in the course this can take
a variety of forms. For the 25 or so students in my classes, I initially use the
Socratic method for exercising the rudiments of visual explication (having them
read beforehand Meyer Schapiro's landmark essay "On Some Problems in the
Semiotics of Visual Art").20 During the first two or three class meetings, we
explore the differences among: (1) analytic descriptions of an artwork; (2) synvol.
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