For Thursday’s class we were asked to read Josef Albers’ piece Art as Experience. In class we learned about the history of Albers’ life and from where he got his inspiration to teach. He was a teacher at Black Mountain College, and in his piece he describes his views of progressive art education. Albers makes a few points in his article. One of the views he talks about is, how can you say you “experience” art if you casually see art at an art museum a few times a year. He relates it to religion saying, how can you experience religion only going to church a few times a year. I think this is true. In order to fully experience art you need to submerse yourself in it to truly get an understanding of a piece. This belief also ties into the idea of artistic living and artistic seeing. Albers thinks that you should remove all aspects of decorative art in schools place it in the center of education. Personally, I think this would be a great idea. I think there are definitely some things that are better described by art than science, which gets back to the whole science vs. art debate. He also says that we over emphasize art. He says that we need to understand that they do not belong to our time. Is it safe to say after all this time that the Mona Lisa is still the best painting of all time? No. What about all of the modern painting that has taken place sense then. Those pieces may be far better than some of the famous paintings of the past.
Art as Experience
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