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An argument to support the importance of teaching fine art in schools is to define Fine Art as the universal language, a language that needs no translation, a language that conveys time both past and present, and a language that inspires. After numerous classes in French as a student, the best I ever got was a critique pointing to my innate southern accent inserted into my elementary level conversational French which reinforced why oral and written language remains a barrier across cultures and geographical areas.
One of the areas that have distinguished Man from animals is his ability to create art. With early tools we have a record of civilization, drawn and painted on walls of caves, homes, and monuments through today. These images occurred world wide before oral and written languages were developed with help from these visuals. I still don't think there is a country, state, or even a county where my textbook, southern Indiana accented, basic French would be understood but I can speak visually.
To study art is to study history. Art is visual record of history that needs no translation, illustrates the answers of who, what, when, why, and how while teaching the latest techniques and tools used to create that visual history. Proof is on the wall of any large art museum, natural history museum, and decorate iconic architecture around the world. This remained true until the modern art era and the universal language of Fine Art went rogue for many reasons and I think part of it is stuck in a rut.
The industrial revolution parallels the modern era of art evolving in the direction of technology with the invention and use of the camera, the expansion of pigments in paint allowing brighter and more numerous color choices, improvements in affordable printmaking of artworks, the actual processes of creating art being examined, and theories of art for art's sake were being explored. Generations of art knowledge and art skills veered off course from an universal language towards a scientific study of perception, process, and psychology. These are all important studies of Fine Art and some are visually amazing but fall short of the communication effectiveness accomplished by the universal language standards of the past. The artist and the art critic are now the translator of this new art language which like my southern Indiana French accent touches a much smaller audience. Shouldn't the goal of an artist be to expand the communication power of the visual domain? How can you communicate anything when you don't know the language or change the language?
In college I took two art history courses that clarified this idea for me. First was the 19th century landscape artists throughout the world as a logical continuation and a deeper dive into the art history that I had previously completed plus my professor was a published expert in this field. Second was Modern art because I simply did not understand any of the who, what, where, or why of it if Fine Art is indeed an universal language. I tried to learn the new language and what I discovered personally is a lack of realism, a skill deficit, and a communication confusion in many of these artworks. I saw splattered paint as an experiment in gravity and movement. I saw the art elements as subjects of artworks instead of tools to be used for production and perfection of artworks. The 19th century landscape artists created artworks that document the discovery and settling of this country in real time with some of the most breathtaking scenes I have ever seen and previously did not know existed. Some of these magnificent landscapes were used to lobby congress to create our National Park system to conserve these areas for future generations. How can these masterpieces be deemed less important than Modern Art is beyond me yet some say realism is no longer needed because it is un-creative while a large monochrome canvas merits the title of being creative. I still believe that artists communicate through ideas, thoughts, beliefs, events, and human experiences but to effectively communicate means using realism as the universal language which has never gone away only pushed aside for the shock and awe of art for art's sake.
I did have a couple of good instructors that helped improve my skills but mostly I was taught that everyone can draw realistically and it is a dead end as far as an artistic pursuit. I was always confused by that Modern art philosophy, that art elements make Fine Art subjects, that cameras replaced realism, that realism has only one interpretation and that one interpretation has already been done, and that you need a translator to decipher Modern Art. After all of that I still continue to be drawn to realism as it's a challenge with frustrations and rewards.
I feel that most aspects of the Modern art philosophy are just tools of the universal language which help to expand the communication effectiveness but are not more important than the actual visual communication of our time from where we came, where we are, and where we are going. In deciding to become an artist, my goal is to get better at interpreting nature by improving my art skills, my art knowledge, and my art experiences with the goal of sharing the expanded meaning of the serenity of nature. The fact that I can use today's tools such as a digital camera, walk through an age old patch of woods, find a new perspective on a familiar and recognizable subject, use the knowledge of art elements to enhance it, and create a serenity of nature that the viewer, in all languages, will understand today and tomorrow still excites me.

Thanks for reading,

Pamela Clements