by humanodon

Hey all, ghostoffuffle and I got into a discussion some months back about our views on art in which we held opposing views. What came out of it was pretty interesting (to me anyway) as both of us were pretty firmly entrenched in our viewpoints and I believe for valid reasons. For my part, I know I had some trouble seeing it ghostof(fuffle)'s way.

In any event, I saw that fuff was back around and in the process of reconnecting via a pm, I mentioned an encounter at work that got me thinking, so I asked for fuff's thoughts.

I met an artist that's working the same short contract as me and we were talking a bit on our way out today and she mentioned her experience in teaching art. She said something along the lines of, "I don't know if art is something that can be taught." I've heard other people say something like this before, but it did get me thinking: I feel like she's right in a way and I'd be interested to get your take on it [. . .] We can learn the mechanics of music, art, writing, dance, etc. but at the end of the day, we can learn everything there is to know about what makes something work and still never be able to do it ourselves. I don't know if it's a sense of taste or style, but I think both are necessary to make art work in addition to that technical knowledge and those are things that can't really be taught, only cultivated.

To reiterate the question: Do you think that art can be taught?

In our discussion, we included all expressions of art and ventured a bit into the connection between art, math and science and the viewpoints they can offer us on the universe we exist in.

Anyway, we were having some trouble coming up with anything concrete, so we've decided to ask everyone for their ideas on the subject.