Learning About Art: Economic Values (1)

Thinking about a world without art would seem inconceivable because art permeates our personal lives, and is a primary transmitter of our multicultural heritage. The contributions that art can make to our intellectual development and to understanding the past and other cultures, while offering an alternative to a banal and pervasive pop culture, forms the bases for asserting that studying the fine arts should be a part of everyone's education. While these reasons are indeed substantial, the "super practical" among us may still contend that art is not essential since it has little to do with the economy and the workaday world. Art is viewed as something we reward ourselves with only after more fundamental needs have been met. Art is seen as the frosting on the cake, not basic "bread and butter stuff" like science and mathematics.

The practical rationale for studying art is no different than for studying math and science. We must educate the mathematicians and scientists of the future because our lives and the economy are dependent upon having talented workers in these areas. A population that is sufficiently quantitatively and scientifically literate to function as supporters and consumers of their efforts is also required. In addition, math and science are essential in the education of workers in many other areas such as medical fields, engineering, and marketing.

If we substitute the term "visual arts" for science and math, it can be demonstrated that the study of art is also essential in our "practical" and highly materialistic society. Consider the number of individuals who earn their living as artists or in art related fields. The chart in the next section, Careers and Occupations Associated With the Visual Arts, lists several hundred occupations that require knowledge and skills in the visual arts. Can we function as a society in the 21st century without workers in these fields? Their basic education must occur at all levels of schooling, just as such education is provided for future scientists and mathematicians.

An audience for what these artists and designers produce must also be educated. Without a population that has achieved a reasonable level of art literacy, many shoddy and marginal products will be manufactured, marketed and purchased. What will this do to our economy, to the balance between imports and exports? If we do not have an aesthetically literate society and workers in the arts that are skilled and innovative, how can we compete with nations that include art as an essential component of everyone's schooling?

The questionable notion that art exists for its own sake (and is thus nice but not necessary) is a very recent phenomenon. Prior to the industrial revolution, which resulted in the separation of the fine and applied arts, the visual arts were viewed as very practical indeed. It is believed that the magnificent animal drawings produced at Lascaux and Altamira caves some 15,000 years ago were created for rituals concerned with insuring the hunter's dominance over animals used for food, clothing and bartering.

These are examples of the many drawings to be found at Lascaux. The caves are in the Dordogne River Valley in Southern France, and were accidentally discovered in April, 1940 by four French boys, ages 15 to 17, chasing after their dog. One can readily observe the apparent sophistication in these works which achieve illusions of both animation and volume.