4 Disadvantages of taking the art exam for "Art Knowledge"

Nowadays, the "disadvantages of exam-oriented art" are so well known that even those "criminals" who are engaged in teaching routines have slogans such as "avoid learning painting through routines", but that is true. ? Chen Danqing said, "I want to die when I see Chinese-style sketches." There is a reason for this, and I used specific examples to explain why this is so, so that even people who know nothing about art can understand a little bit through these analyses. Clues.

Examination-oriented art is a deformed education method produced for the purpose of quick art and opportunistic attempts to pass the exam. His essence is to seek quick success and quick gain. However, when everyone does it, it becomes the norm.

For example, the teacher asks us to memorize Chinese language test questions and memorize a large number of articles and poems that we do not understand at all. These things can allow us to take shortcuts to pass the exam, but make our learning more and more mechanized. , and I am increasingly losing interest in literature. This kind of fraud is easier to do in painting, so the development of "examination-oriented art" has completely reached the stage of "letting a hundred flowers bloom".

Some friends from the Academy of Fine Arts told me before that on the first day they went to college, the teacher said to them: "Now we are studying and forget everything you have learned before."

Like This "examination sketch" (pictured): The character's cheekbones, the depression between the eyebrows, the orbicularis oris muscle, etc. are all extremely exaggerated. It looks like they are drawing structures, but in fact, none of them are correct, because these structures It's different under different lights and angles. Otherwise, is there a person next to you who looks like this? You need to understand that structure serves aesthetics, rather than painting to show that you understand (seem to understand).

This is like a chef shaking the pot so that the dishes are heated evenly. After you see it, you imitate him and shake the pot even louder, even if the dishes are shaken in the end. It doesn’t matter when you get to the ground. Anyway, as long as others think “you seem to be good at it”, no one will eat those dishes. (Is it possible that the marking teacher will enjoy looking at those paintings? Or someone will post those ugly exams that make people cry. Sketch as decoration at home?).

Obviously, spending a lot of time drawing lines that don’t help your shape (might as well spend more time observing) is a waste of time and wrong habits. If someone insists on justifying it by saying "at least I have learned some structural knowledge", I am afraid that "the time it takes to learn that knowledge" is shorter than "the time it takes to correct bad habits after you develop them".

I remember once, I passed by a gallery in Hangzhou with a friend who was studying painting in China and saw some examination sketches and colors on display. A friend said: "Our aesthetics have been distorted by exam-oriented education."

Yes, I remember more than once, I saw someone mention on the Internet, "Why do those people draw beautiful women as aunts?" "They are obviously ugly. "Why do you insist on telling me that you are beautiful? Is it because I don't have enough aesthetic ability?"

I sometimes feel that the aesthetic abilities of many people who have received art education in China are far inferior to those netizens I saw in "" who update every day and teach themselves how to draw based on their interest. At least I feel good when I look at their paintings, and I also appreciate and enjoy their growth. Just like when I looked at the paintings of the great European painters when they were young, although their skills were extremely immature, you can feel that they saw beauty and tried to express it (pictured). The process of learning art is not that after you learn some techniques, you then find a sensational theme and express some so-called expressions. The methods and purposes of learning art should be unified.

It may completely destroy your talents and interests. Let me tell you about my own experience: "I worked as an art teacher at the local Chinese school in Barcelona, ??the Confucius Institute. In order to avoid using the exam-oriented teaching books they brought from China, I spent a lot of time writing my own teaching materials, and also targeted them at different interests. , preparing different materials such as sketches, comics, etc. in the same class. There are almost no children who don't like drawing. Later, the number of my students continued to increase. Before each class, the door was packed with people before I even got there. Children in other classrooms ran out of breath waiting for class. After three months, the classroom could hardly fit in. "I have been teaching at Hangzhou xx Online Children's Art Training School for several months. For children who do not need to take the college entrance examination. Generally speaking, there is still room for teaching non-exam-oriented students (but they also need to take the so-called "grade examination" whose meaning is purely to make money and give parents face). So I also had to go through some difficulties before I had the opportunity to teach non-exam-oriented students. way to teach.

The result of that teaching was that their number of students increased by no less than one-half from the time I arrived to the time I left. I remember that at that time, I asked the veterans who had been in the studio for a long time why they didn't like painting. They said, "You won't like it after you've been in the studio for a long time." No wonder the students once discussed me there, saying, "This teacher really likes to draw." ” If all this is not brought about by exam-oriented education, what is it?

(As shown in the picture) When I was in the xx online studio, I would paint for them whenever I had time. (I'm sorry to say that because I often drew them, they started to avoid me~)

I say "contemporary" and "our country" here because this phenomenon did not happen a few decades ago. In our country, it has not happened in Europe and the United States now.

Some people say that examination sketches focus on tone, while European masters focus on lines. This may be why examination sketches that focus on lines have appeared in recent years. In my opinion, this is just changing the soup without changing the medicine. European painters also paint a lot of tones and pay attention to long-term sketches, such as the sketches of great painters such as "Piazzetta" and "Pluton" (pictured). This is especially true in the early stage when the modeling ability is mainly trained. The early long-term sketches of great painters such as "Klimt" and "Fortuny" are completely different from the later ones.

Some people blame this phenomenon on those painters who were the first to develop Western art education in China, especially Russia. However, when we looked at Xu Beihong’s work or some students’ work from the Repin Academy of Fine Arts that we could find online, we did not paint everything black, emphasize the boundary between light and dark, or paint out the things we couldn’t see or understand, as we did. The structure also insists on depicting such routines. Even compared to the more pure European art, Russian painting pays more attention to skills and structure and lacks the concept of art. This may have a certain impact on our country, but their art education is completely different from ours. This is the result. You can see it. I think this situation was probably caused by our own clever ways of transforming (distorting) their teaching experience.

The methods of learning painting are actually not that different. In China, geometric painting is done on plaster, while in Europe, geometric painting is done on plaster. The biggest difference is mentality.

During my 10 years of studying painting in Spain, or my short teaching career, I did not have many methods for learning painting. I only had relatively simple purposes. I don't think it needs too many methods, and it shouldn't have too many purposes. If it weren't for giving children a so-called purpose (grade examination, college entrance examination), and then creating a lot of methods for this purpose, how could they draw with a sad face? Most children will probably never engage in art work in their lives, but they will have a boring time drawing. Is this something extremely stupid?

In my opinion, the emergence of "Chinese-style art education" is just a manifestation of the society's "eager for quick success" culture in the field of art. Similarly, similar manifestations can be seen in many fields. For example, nowadays, the production technology of film and cartoons is more sophisticated, but masterpieces like "Calabash Baby" and "Baolian Lantern" can no longer be produced. No wonder Hayao Miyazaki, who admired Chinese animation very much at that time, finally had the opportunity to visit the Shanghai Film Studio, the birthplace of many outstanding animations, and said with great disappointment, "I will never visit China again." Because when Hayao Miyazaki went to the "former animation mecca" with his passion for animation, he found that it had changed, and the people there only knew how to make money with him.

But how to change it? My own experience and opinions are as follows:

I received a little domestic exam-oriented education and later immigrated to Spain. Once, for some reasons, I wanted to try to go back to China and do pre-examination art for a while. The result was: I applied to many Hangzhou studios, but almost all ended in failure. Finally, I gave up the industry completely after working in a children’s art training program for a few months. Giving up is not a matter of money, because this industry seems to be more popular. The main reason for giving up was that I felt very sad after understanding the current situation. I didn't want to spend time in my life for this kind of thing, let alone work hard to distort the art I loved.

It’s easy to complain. However, if we really want to change something, we can start with ourselves. There is no choice at all. A preschool teacher who cannot give up his job can choose to follow the trend, or he can choose not to give up his job and spend time improving his aesthetic accomplishment.

Otherwise, even if you have the opportunity to work for a real art career, what preparation will you have? Just like overseas Chinese schools use domestic pre-examination art teaching materials, it is naturally because the teachers they find have studied art in China, even if they do not need that abroad (because they do not know anything else).

A parent can choose to only care about the grade test paper and whether he can enter a higher school, or he can choose not to give up on those things and also pay attention to his child's interests, whether the child really likes what he is studying, and whether he is happy. Learning those things.

And for those friends who teach themselves how to draw. Aren't they an integral part of "Chinese Art Education"?

Well~so I'm writing these~

I don't like writing this article, but I know I can't avoid it this content. Because the idea of ??"art knowledge" is to provide necessary art knowledge and common sense. And this is the poor actual situation at the moment, so this piece of content must be included.

After talking about the pessimistic, let’s talk about the practical. In fact, when we talk about exam-oriented art, it’s just a broad concept. To be specific, some people have received exam-oriented education, but later corrected it, or partially corrected it, in college or other places. For example, during the training at "X Eagle Studio", the teacher there told me: "You can draw and create like this, but you can't teach before the exam." This teacher knew about Western art in his spare time.

How to judge if someone who does not need to take an exam is looking for a teacher? I think the simplest way is to see if the teacher loves art, and see if you love art more and become clearer after studying. If the answer to both questions is "yes", then you don't have to worry about going the wrong way.