Can art be taught?
This is a question that has baffled people for ages. In my opinion, art can be taught but only to an extent. Just like how physics or chemistry has some rules that govern the, art has some basic principles too. You can teach someone how to hold a brush, how to compose a picture in order to make it aesthetically pleasing (the Gestalt principles) or even how the color wheel works. That is, you can teach someone the principles of art but not the artistic instincts or inclinations. It is obviously important to have a balance of talent and hard work to make a difference in the world, but one can always tell the difference between a natural “born” artist and a “well-trained” artist. Even if a person with, say, no talent whatsoever, trains for years and learns to perfectly duplicate The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh, he/she cannot compensate for the creativity of the original artist.
Creativity, imagination and inclination are the fundamentals for a good artist. And these are like natural instincts, that is they can’t be taught. You either have it or you don’t and it is very hard to acquire these even after years of studying. Also, art is a very subjective area, and something so subjective is very hard to teach. Vincent Van Gogh was, for example, not recognized when he was alive, rather he was shunned by society. But after his death, his artworks became the inspiration for so many people. You can teach someone to use a color wheel but how that person chooses to integrate that into his/her work is completely up to him/her. A large part of art comes from within the artist, a part that can never be taught and this is what distinguishes him/her from the rest.
