Why are drawing skills seen as diametrically opposed to writing now when they were once seen to be both critical parts of a persons and in specific an artists education, as seen in William Blake?
Why have we gutted those skills from our education system and relegated them to an extra break time for kids?
Factual and functional, fussy accuracy and concision are qualities that are most often respected in writing these days, the equivalent of technical drawing. Creative writing that is actually artistic and beautiful is significantly out of favor so writers and drawers have mostly parted ways. Then again a lot of what people call drawing these days is shamelessly repeating anime and similar tropes
>>8213711
>Factual and functional, fussy accuracy and concision are qualities that are most often respected in writing these days, the equivalent of technical drawing. Creative writing that is actually artistic and beautiful is significantly out of favor so writers and drawers have mostly parted ways.
You know, I was just talking about this same thing:
>>8213702
I am glad to see I am not alone
>>8213657
Where to start with Blake? Innocence and Experience, Heaven and Hell, Urizen?
>>8213742
Heaven and Hell is considered his best.
>>8213711
Technical drawing has been thrown out the window too, it used to be combined with Biology classes to help with learning anatomy.
I'm a visual arts teacher.
I don't know where you get two things. First, that drawing is "diametrically opposed" to writing, or seen in that way by some people. I'd agree that drawing is seen as something separate from writing and would agree that it is often neglected in schools or in life by most people, but I don't think they clash with each other and I don't think people believe in that either. Second, that an artist's education involved that much interaction between drawing and writing ever in history. Blake is not an example, he is exception, just like Da Vinci is an exception. It's not about educational systems, at least not as directly as you put it. These "great men" come from a specific class of people, involved in a given circle of cultured friends, with specific interests.
We would have to make a parenthesis to ask ourselves who were even educated in the 18th century or prior to it. Society is sufficiently different from that time as a whole to render a comparisson like that. We have transformed our access to education along with what it means to be educated, as well as who creates art, what for, and what art is, the role of visual arts, the role of literature, what are our priorities in life and so on. All of that changed dramatically and it wouldn't be wise to just assert something of it without further talking about all of those things.
On your second question, I'd also say you should be careful about talking of "our education system", because there are several ways in which education is handled these days and it sounds a bit like saying "the problem with our society..." or "the world today is...". Too vague. That being said, speaking just as a general tendency on how education handled arts, I'd point specially to the industrial revolution and what it brought to us: ease of printing, photography, higher velocity for information... It was also a revolution for the arts, as you can read more extensively in Benjamin's "the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction". And the more the schools expanded in its reach and the more it served capitalism and the creation of productive workers and dumb consumers, the more you'll see that the arts are left to the side as something completely unimportant. You'll see this in all fields of art. Reading and writing remained, not only that, it expanded fiercely, because the industrial world demanded people to read more newspapers and documents, and the best way to escape from a laborous job was to get a desk job. The written word is a code to be decyphered, it fits the mechanical age perfectly. That doesn't mean people are taught to be poets, or artistic authors, just like they aren't taught to be visual artists, that is still seen as irrelevant, or at least merely collateral.
cont
>>8213657
commodification of labor
>>8213824 cont
It's very common that children cease to draw between the ages of 8-12, save exceptions. There are plenty of factors involved, but one of them is that schools begin to demand more reading and writing from their students at that age. It's only natural that drawing is seen as a childish activity in that scenario.
But I don't think it suits to have a romantic view of the past. The press also gave us the possibility of doing comics, concrete poetry and all sorts of experimentation with graphic arts. It gave us the ability to see a painting from the other side of the world or to show an european how a building was like in Japan. Photography led to new artforms as well as made painting and other figurative techniques to change entirely about their role in society. Museums began as a thing and the whole context of art changed with it (for better and for worse, to different measures).
There was never in the past this much possibility for one to access a library and publish a book as well as learn how to paint and develop it as a ttrade. We are, in a very broad and general way, much more "multiple" people than the common folk from the past.
>>8213824
Drawing lessons, especially technical drawing, were once standard in school curricula a century ago, teachers were also required to pass examination in drawing.
It wasn't until the 1920s when drawing was removed as apart of the standards.
What OP is getting at is that drawing has been turned from a skill that was properly taught to everyone much like writing, into a "talent" that is only cultivated if a student is born with innate skill.
>>8213657
>Why are drawing skills seen as diametrically opposed to writing
Why are you pulling things out of your ass?
Whats the best way to learn how to draw?
>>8215070
What do you mean by draw? There's a difference between drawing and art, I think. It's pretty easy to learn how to draw, just buy a step-by-step book, watch tutorials or take an art class or course. They'll teach you about proportions, perspective, color, etc., you know, the "right" way to draw stuff. Art... art isn't really somethings you can learn, it's feelings and images you take from your own mind and there isn't a "right" way, and no one can teach you. You can combine both the study of art and art itself, or choose one. Raw art isn't just drawing, it reall has no end or beginning.
>>8213657
>education system
Do you know how to draw on the geometry of the trivium and quadrivium?
>
Pic related
>>8215160
The seven liberal arts were taught in two groups: the trivium and the quadrivium
