Guess who's the new Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy of Art

[Tarka the Duck]

Here is an example of the manipulation of the consciousness of society...a blatant dumbing down.

Let's play a guessing game -
which two of the following drawings do you think were done by the newly appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy of Art in London?

[777]

Haha. I'm guessing 2 and 5.......you know.......the primitive ones bereft of any tangible skill?

[Mare]

On the contrary, I would argue there is wonderful skill in 2 and 5. Evidence of an artist who observes and thinks about the subject. Primitive eh?

[Arrowwind]

Well, 2 and 5 can be produced by most any moran.. the others, no.
If I were to study art, and I have studied art, I would want an instructor who knows anatomy
and the application skills of the medium he works with. I see no indication that the creator of 2 and 5 has any such skill.

Now, if that person can do it either way, then fine... let them instruct.

The thing that made Picasso so great was that he had a deep knowledge of fine art technique. Thats what made is abstracts so exceptional.

[Kristin]

All of them.
Wormhole

[modwiz]

Two and five. They are crude at every angle of approach. They reek of contempt for art and are a thinly veiled attempt to hide under the banner of 'art as a form of expression'. The statement made here is blatant, IMO.

[Zampano]

I think the guy is the new Professor...just a thought

[Unified Serenity]

In today's world and it's contempt for anything traditional, art is whatever someone says it is. It's worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. If the controllers want to push an agenda they will lift one up, herald them as a genius and that person will become the new norm. Ever wonder how we lost the amazing information and items we love to find in hidden archeology? They were suppressed and other things were brought forward.

on a side note:

I had to take art at my university because if was renowned for it's fine arts despite my being a business major. I took two courses in theatre lighting which I loved, and two courses in watercolor and one in drawing. Our artist in residence was Mun S. Quan, and he was a master. He'd stop by my work and in five strokes of his brush he'd turn my ho hum water color into art that was not only beautiful to see, but tolerable at five inches away. I do not have the art gene for painting. Sculpting is my pleasure and metal working.

Two of my beloved professors works:






I loved his landscapes. I hope this is not viewed as derailment. It's just my view of beautiful art in a very tough medium. My guess is #2 and 5 were the right answers to the OP questions. Those look like crude beginning points some find of famous artists works before they actually draw or paint something worthwhile. My attitude is if I can do it with a paint brush it's probably not art.

[Midnight Rambler]

Posted by Zampano (here)
I think the guy is the new Professor...just a thought

Actually the "gall" is the new professor. I'm sorry I had to Google it.

I wouldn't hang this art in my living room, but art and skill are not the same thing IMO. The original thought behind art is often more thought provoking than a very skillfully made portrait.

[cloud9]

OMG! Nowadays people call art any mamarracho! (Sorry, a two years old would do it better). I think it's pornography and the work of a dark perverted mind. I am a painter.

[Tarka the Duck]

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone!
And most of you got it right, which is telling. You all recognised how we are being manipulated, confused and confounded!

Drawings 2 and 5 are by Tracey Emin, who is well known here in the UK as a controversial "wild child" artist, whose - often sexually explicit work - has been adopted by the rich and famous. Her stage-managed rise to fame and fortune has been interesting to watch, and she is now recognised as a key (and very wealthy!) member of the establishment.

The other drawings are by young contemporary artists who feel a need to learn the tools of their trade at schools such as the Florence Academy of Art or the London Atelier of Representational Art (both privately owned art schools) following the atelier system: they concentrate on the teaching the 'craft' of painting and say that "Art" is what students do with their skills after they leave the school.

Here in the UK, there are no mainstream universities or art colleges that teach these traditional drawing techniques any more. The skills have gone.

Whatever your thoughts about contemporary versus traditional art, it's a fact that in the UK, students now have no choice when applying to study art at degree level. They can't choose to follow a more classical programme even if they wanted to - which apparently, many of them are now asking for.

What is the situation in other countries?

It's all very suspicious. It keeps the public confused - so many people are embarrassed and fearful of expressing any views when discussing their taste in art because nothing they are bring told by the so-called critics and art establishment makes any sense to them.
It's the Emperor's New Clothes...

[avid]

Thank goodness I've retired - the honesty and naivety in the young has long been creatively 'wrung out' of them in the earlier school years. As a lecturer in graphic design we encouraged total freedom of thought for illustrative/graphic purposes, yet temporing of ideas to target groups. We won many many awards with our students, some of whom are top designers today, yet there was none of this urge to excess - a 'stamping of controversial feet' in which such artists as Damien Hurst and Tracy Emin excel. Yes - it IS THE KINGS NEW CLOTHES!!! If it looks like an unmade bed - it IS an unmade bed..! Could well be yours.... So why pander to it and it's innuendos.... Look at your own 'unmade bed'.....
'Whomsoever' takes over has a lot to learn, and has a lot of humble pie to eat as there were so many much more brilliant than thou dear lass, and your messy boudoir is so boring compared to many more talented 'messy boudoirs' of centuries past... Our students of today are being 'pornified', as is the culture of the MSM (TV/music/cinema/press) WHY???? Even the 'pat-downs' of the TSA are moving towards an even worse and ghastly culture. Who is driving this? The paedophiles of the great handshaking clubs? No doubt they are instrumental in this and of course there is the Club of Rome..... I feel sickened by this whole charade

[Unified Serenity]

Wonderful poetic slam avid! Nice piece and true.

[TelosianEmbrace]

This topic reminds me of two other blatant attempts at dumbing down in the arts. Remember the big popularity of 'Pop Art'? A few years ago we had a pop art exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. It was planned to desensitise people to the uplifting aspects of art. The other is the increased (Cultivated) popularity of atonal music, music without a 'clear tonal centre'. Give me Beethoven any day.

[Lancelot]

It seems this dumbing down goes on in every aspect of todays education, archaeology, architecture, music and art. In fact anywhere that creativity and freedom of thought can be expressed in works of immense beauty and inspiration or discovery can be forwarded by lateral thinking.

Lets face it...they won't allow that will they- people will be inspired to start thinking for themselves then where will the institutions be! Their job is seemingly to surpress freedom of thought and discourage creativity, to stem all right brained thinking.

The institutions can only control those who subscribe to them so choose not to subscribe, to create, inspire and be inspired.

[buckminster fuller]

Posted by Tarka the Duck (here)

Here in the UK, there are no mainstream universities or art colleges that teach these traditional drawing techniques any more. The skills have gone.

Whatever your thoughts about contemporary versus traditional art, it's a fact that in the UK, students now have no choice when applying to study art at degree level. They can't choose to follow a more classical programme even if they wanted to - which apparently, many of them are now asking for.

What is the situation in other countries?

Technicality in arts is an ever evolving process. Recipes that form the core of what is now academic drawing schools remain open to new findings, processes.. It is the very definition of artistry that wants this.
I know a guy at the Royal College of Art that gives drawing courses who has a great awareness of those "traditional" drawing techniques. PM me if you want details.
I think any art student should be taught techniques from the past, so that they can use that in their art. Yet, I see no artistic point in the desire to be able to copy what has been done, both aesthetically and technically. Art becomes a hobby if you think there IS any kind of "art tradition". There is none. It's called academism and should serve the conservation of art works, not their production.

[wolf_rt]

even if those two drawings were done on an etch-a-sketch.... they still suck.....

the only think the evoke, is the lack of skill in the artist....

i have seen better 'art' done in crayon on lounge room walls. what a joke...

3+4 are incredible...if not particularly 'artsy' at least someone has skill.

[Mare]

To put this into context what we see here are two sketches by one artist sandwiched between 3 finished pieces by other artists. You are then asked to decide which are the sketches drawn by the new drawing tutor at the RCA. A bit of a visual joke really isn't it? A bit of a cheat. Of course anyone with a sense of irony will point to the sketches and bemoan the state of the world! Pornographic and crude? I don't believe so. Could be done on an etch-a-sketch? Try it.

Personally, the other drawings while displaying an abundance of craft and skill, say nothing. They have been done a thousand times before. No one will ever go into debate about those. If that is what you want from your art then there is plenty there for you.

[w1ndmill]

Posted by Tarka the Duck (here)
Here is an example of the manipulation of the consciousness of society...a blatant dumbing

Let's play a guessing game -
which two of the following drawings do you think were done by the newly appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy of Art in London?

Attachment 12227
Attachment 12228
Attachment 12229
Attachment 12230
Attachment 12231

Is the Professor a monkey? The reason I ask is that even an elephant can draw better than that!

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy9kKxJJpug

down.

[Laura Elina]

I've gone through so called academic training in aesthetics/fine art... What I took away from it was that I am grateful for being able to draw different shapes quite fast and if I dare say... At times quite accurately, lol. I was into realism and photorealism in drawing (and painting), I wasn't anything special though when it came to that. My talent is geared towards expression, I can make drawings look exciting, but yet again, they are technically inferior to.. I suppose quite a lot of people/artists. Not to even mention the "great masters" that have been canonized in the western culture. Then I met my significant other.

My significant other received no academic training in drawing and painting... He just drew and painted ever since he was a kid, he even made his own oil paints from scratch (which is crazy, lol).

When I saw his work... I hung my head and was so embarrassed of my own skills that seemed so lacking now. His "technique" was far ahead of mine (if you're thinking in terms of photo realism), and it's something I eventually became very jealous of, and then I became very competitive, hell bent to outdo him. That was my goal from that point on. I was driven out of jealousy, anger and that's where I betrayed myself.

So I abandoned my budding artistic identity I had begun working on, I wanted to become a technical monster, a machine in other words. So what I was producing was something that a photo copy machine could have produced, just to show that I can. Kind of a stupid reason to do it I guess. My significant other saw that and... He asked: "What's the point?" And I got so mad at him, I thought he was saying I had inferior artistic skill. That I pretty much sucked as an artist. I took offense.

What he then went onto say that he enjoyed my free handed ink drawings much more, because they were original, authentic, that's where he could see my fingerprint ...When I "drew like that", I found a zone that made my works come alive, I was free to produce what I pleased without worrying about who I'm gonna please with my lines and who's gonna dismiss those drawings as lacking in skill and understanding of what art is. Well, I quit drawing for quite a while, because I was so pissed for not conquering the beast in my opinion. It was a touchy subject. I guess I kind of lost it in a way. I'm slowly getting back to it.

You can fine tune a realistic drawing till the end of time, that's what it's really about... Fine tuning, once you "nail the basic forms", or more like the ability to identify the basic forms in the "things" you draw ...And you're able to construct, well let's say a human figure by using "just" circles, squares, maybe you even get to the point where you do a bit of shading with lines to point out muscle groups, then you got it. That's without references. Now that's good job and well done, it takes some mad skill to be able to do that. I've tried many a time and failed a good bit of those times.

And good luck with spending the rest of your life making those forms look like the actual subjects they're supposed to depict.

I like uber realistic drawings, I do, I mean.. I respect passion for having the patience to do it, and having developed the skills as well, it's a lot of work. And it's one way of showing your "artistic credentials", a way of "paying your respect to the tradition", I mean... We're human, we wanna know if you got "mad skills" or not, lol. And I'm talking just western tradition here.

I also like art that is not reminiscent of "renaissance", like some graffiti. I appreciate a bit of a laugh every now and then. I'm sure the owner of that wall doesn't most of the time.

What I look for in a work of art that I find myself drawn to, is balance, a balance of technique and artistic expression. It becomes a matter of aesthetic judgement, and the jury's out on that, we don't have an answer. High brow, low brow, you be the judge, but I'm glad that I get to make that choice what I like with so much art out there. I don't have to like everything, I don't, but I can't deny someone else's liking to it. Honestly... After going through the academic meat grinder, I'm not sure I "know" any more than a 5 year old. Honestly.

So... Suppose my point is, if the students of that academy are receiving lesser education now, because they're being mentored by someone, who has lesser skills (and this is a question of comparison as well, lesser skills compared to whom? Raphael? He was pretty darn good... I hear, lol, suppose he was able to ace the perfect circle with a free hand), well... They can choose to pick their pencils up and go to a place, where they can study for example statues of antiquity, or they can study the drawings by "the great masters", if that's "denied" from them, which I doubt. Young people can be a smart bunch, if they don't find, they seek. Besides, it's good to seek outside the boundaries of the golden canon. Or at times academia.