The able exponent does not always make the best teacher, as students are apt to be influenced by a strong personality and to be imitative.
Influence in the early stages is quite natural, and to some extent beneficial, but if permanent, the student becomes one of the crowd in failing to develop the personality, which is the sole interest, and is the teacher’s responsibility to preserve as far as possible.
Negative criticism is not teaching, and in any suggested modifications reasons should be given, so that the teaching be constructive; to which end it is desirable that the teacher be capable of analysis and possessed of method.
Popular taste as a factor that has to be considered has already been suggested, but it is evident that the average member of the public has little knowledge of Art, and still less of design.
That Art is necessary to existence may be questioned, as life would be possible--if not very interesting--if regulated only by considerations of utility. In a less cultivated state we are satisfied with the gratification of merely physical wants; so in a more cultivated state Art becomes one of the mind’s necessities.
The dictionary definition of Art is “practical skill guided by rules,” and that of an artist as “one who practises an Art.”
Possibly the former might be better expressed by the statement that “Art is an appeal to the emotions by colour, form, rhythm and sound.”
Art exists not only in that which appeals to the vision, but also in that which is transmitted to the aural sense, as in declamation, oratory and music.
The dictionary particularises the fine arts of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, but to what extent is the possession of examples of these possible to the public at large except in the most general sense?
What is invariably lost sight of is that the personal environment, the furniture and domestic surroundings of the individual constitute the actual field for artistic expression.
It is questionable whether our present system of Art instruction is sufficiently far-reaching, devoted to the training of would-be artistic exponents rather than in the cultivation of the public at large.
There is still a superstitious belief in “natural taste,” and whereas the individual member of the public would immediately, in the ordinary affairs of life, consult a specialist, yet in a matter of artistic selection there is profound confidence in personal exercise of judgment.