Can Artistic Talent Ever Be Taught? Nature or Nurture?

[appalachiablue]

- Drawing a blank: can artistic talent ever be taught? The Guardian, Aug. 9, 2021. While Romantics insist artists are born not made, some of the best painters, sculptors and modern artists followed conventional teaching.

Modern Toss on whether artistry is a result of nature or nurture.

Genius cannot be taught but skills can. And even the wildest, most visionary of artists relies on the techniques they were taught. If you want to make digital art, you need to learn to code. A training in film will help with moving-image art. So much is obvious. But today we’re in thrall to a vacuous Romanticism that insists artists are born not made.

The first modern artists rebelled against a style of art education that had become deadening 150 years ago. The “academic” teaching tradition that evolved in the 18th century forced every aspiring artist to learn the same rules and habits – drawing from the nude, calculating perspective.

The likes of Monet and Cézanne broke with this academicism, and by 1913 artists such as Duchamp were putting bike wheels on stools, making collages and doing lots of other things no teacher had ever taught. Now we have art schools that teach Duchamp’s readymade to kids who discovered collage at primary school. But what if there was something in the older drawing-based art education after all?

“Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master,” said Leonardo da Vinci. He outstripped his own teacher, Verrocchio, when as a teenager he added a brilliant angel to his elder’s Baptism of Christ. That’s genius. Yet the originality of Leonardo was made possible by a medieval art education. The kid from Vinci joined Verrocchio’s workshop in Florence as an apprentice when he was 17, and worked constantly at drawing and painting...

More,
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/aug/09/drawing-a-blank-can-artistic-talent-ever-be-taught



- Susannah and the Elders, Gentileschi, c. 1610.



- Fountain, Marcel Duchamp, 1917.

[hlthe2b]

1. I believe you can improve through nurture, but true ability is nature...

And science would back it up from MRI scans showing more brain-location specific activity for those with high geospatial and artistic skills.

I look at artists painting truly lifelike trees or people or whatever and I know that they are seeing it in a way that I simply do not and which translates to their use of color, shading, brush strokes--though I truly appreciate the end result.

Definitely nature--improved by nuture.

[appalachiablue]

4. Both, first the natural ability. A college friend

worked strenuously for years at improving her painting. Her mother was an art teacher in public school and a fairly good painter. But this friend, unlike her mother lacked natural talent but spent years pursuing a career in visual art.

Finally after struggling to find limited and low paying jobs in the field, she found work as a publication illustrator which worked out well. She had a very practical side, was good at business which her father cultivated. A very hard worker and determined, I don't know why she stayed in the field rather than moving into business.

[empedocles]

2. Da Vinci 'worked constantly'. Suspect that is an important clue - in many areas.

[TxGuitar]

8. Agree.

I'm not a visual artist, but I write music (guitar and piano). It's a hobby, nothing "serious". I find that when I make it a point to play every day for at least 30 minutes, my playing, my creating and my overall happiness with my output grows exponentially. If I have a period where I can't play regularly, like busy at work or with general family stuff, my playing/creating/happiness with output goes in the toilet. I suppose creativity is like a muscle that needs exercise.
I recall once listening to a Jerry Garcia album with my brother (who also plays guitar), an acoustic album, don't recall which one. My brother was remarking at what a great guitarist Garcia is (was), but I said yeah but what else does he have to do all day? He can sit and play and write for days on end if he wants. That kind of repetition makes for great skills.
I'm not discounting the 'born with it' types, I do believe they exist and it comes very natural to them. But what if they weren't channeled into their art? What if Paul McCartney never joined the Beatles and became a teacher? Of Da Vinci went into the clergy? Would their greatness have still come through?

[empedocles]

9. Agree

Two current main interests of mine are emotional exploration exercise [wife & I], and balanced physical exercise.

Some more of each compounds the benefits.

[mopinko]

3. i believe it was the sung dynasty potters

that were simply random monks, dropped off as babies.
they were all taught to throw. they created a generation of beauty.

[Doodley]

5. What is art? Is it technique? Is it expression? Is it making a connection? Is it simply calling

something art? All of these things can be learned.

[Bayard]

6. I think technique can be taught

But then the talented artist personalizes it.

[appalachiablue]

7. Agree and well said. The talent is innate.