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That forum member must be one savvy dude!
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Or dudess. A number of members have spoken well of Harold Speed's books. The painting volume was revised to include an anti-modernism chapter. I should think that alone would elevate it above suspicion here, Dover publication or not. Even if not, reading outside one's specialty or ideological tracts is thought by some to be one of the hallmarks of the university education. More should try it. It's fun -- and bad for wars, international, internecine, and interpersonal. But "treasonous"? What an odious epithet and how unworthy.
My kids have been in a variety of public and private schools, in the U.S. and abroad. The amount of classical art they've been exposed to, and the kinds of art technique they've been taught, amazes me, because I'd always heard that no such things happened in traditional educational venues. I've learned firsthand the untruth of those claims. With no input from me, my 14-year-old son will often select a realistic exhibition catalog from one of my shelves and spend an hour or two working through it. He's a little more reluctant to wander with me through galleries and exhibitions, but only because I've dragged him through so many, and his young teen mind is on skateboarding and guitar riffs.
My daughter's at university, and upon first arriving at campus, I was hoping that a tour through the art building would be enligtening. It was, but disappointingly so. Apparently the resurgence of interest in realism hasn't successfully assaulted the citadels of academia. Were she an art student, we'd have had a pretty serious discussion about whether a degree in that program would be worthwhile. Certainly we wouldn't have decided that, well, it's awful stuff and you're not going to like the curriculum and it's four long years, but at least you'll have a degree -- and then professed outrage at its being worthless. Last I heard, no one in this country is compelled to stick with a course of study they consider worthless. Choices have been made. (Though, from another perspective, if the "worthless" degree makes one angry and frustated enough to take responsibility for finding the education and training he or she now wants, the degree isn't in fact worthless. It's a motivator, no accident. It was exactly what the student needed to develop maturity, make more discriminating choices next time, progress to the next level.)
Even with my children's good experience with art instruction in their schools, I don't abdicate my responsibility or privilege to try to enhance that classroom experience. If I want my kids to have an appreciation for the arts (visual, musical, literary), I don't say, Gee I hope they learn it in school, and unless I've been on the school board or an activist for changes in curriculum, I don't hold schools accountable for not teaching higher levels of art technique and appreciation that most adults have trouble with, if not disinterest in.
My instructors found artists to teach them, and those artists sought out their own instructors, all in an era in which such instruction has supposedly been unavailable. The people who were not to be turned away from their passions found their teachers, they didn't find excuses. In that respect, this vocation isn't any different from any other.
There's perhaps too much whining and scapegoating and mongering in all manner of prejudices and bogeymen, and not enough individual initiative and hard work.