By Karen Parkman, Intern, Spring 2012
I had no idea I had a passion for art until I offhandedly signed up for
an introductory class on it, but now I have taken every art history
class I can fit into my college schedule. I’ve also visited most of
Boston’s museums enough times that I feel at home in them. I’m lucky to
have had this opportunity because art museums sometimes have an
exclusive, even elitist quality. Whether they are marble-columned houses
of revered works, or hip, converted warehouses full of contemporary
art, museums can make a tentative explorer of art feel out of place. In
the hallowed halls of a museum, art seems sectioned off from
society—something for collectors, curators, and art students to look at
and understand. I can’t imagine a better remedy to this than the
integration of art museums into the education process.
American universities have started to do just
this,
and not only for art history majors. Museums are opening up on campuses
all across the country so professors in a wide range of programs can
integrate art into the learning process in unexpected ways. Now students
in sustainability and forestry programs at Michigan State University
study landscape photography; while at Duke University, geology students
examine the aging process of artwork carved from stone; and graduate
students in the social work program at the University of North Carolina
write detailed descriptions of artworks to evaluate how they describe
and perceive things. This exposes students to the art world in new ways
and makes the works
relevant to every field of study.
It also shows how art can be instructive and teach the artists’
audience a great deal about how they perceive the world. The study of
art also involves the study of visual communication, creative thinking,
and interpretation. Alison Doernberg, a student at University of North
Carolina, says of her experience learning in a museum: “The lesson is
that it’s not just what I am seeing in a piece of art or a client. It’s
also thinking about why I perceive things the way I do. Are they coming
from things in front of me or from other sources in my life? It feels
very transferable to me.”
If this trend continues to grow, it could change the role museums play
in society and the role art plays in education. I may be a little
envious that I’ll graduate before it reaches every campus, but I’m also
excited to see art used in college classrooms in such creative and
integrative ways.
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