| This dissertation examines the nature of "high" art and the position of the artist in the late twentieth century. The location of the education of artists in the university sphere and the subsequent art product, a fully rational form of art, are analyzed through historical antecedents of art education, and through theoretical constructs formulated in art and in such areas as science, philosophy, and sociology.;Part One identifies the events leading to the formation of the academy of art in Renaissance Italy, which posited an intellectual basis for art and began contemporary concepts of art education. An account of the academy model and its doctrine through the centuries is related as it transitions into the contemporary collegiate-based studio art programs in the United States. Part Two examines theoretical thought, historic and contemporary, in various disciplines as it influences art practice.;The historic academy of art elevated the social standing of the artist, fostered the artist-as-genius construct, and separated art produced in the academic setting as "high" or "fine" art from the manual arts practiced in workshops. Contemporary artists' desire for fame and uniqueness and for academic affiliation and validation, as well as their scorn for artforms produced in commercial and industrial settings, have their origins in the founding of the academy of art.;Higher education, an institution which seeks to provide answers, has assisted in the academic art project of creating a scholarly form of art. The intellectual proposition has become, in this environment, paramount to the art product. Innovative movements in art, which have historically developed outside the academic setting, have been repeatedly subsumed into the academic curriculum and standardized by academic practice. The art movement produced in the university--art-as-thesis--developed within the academic setting, producing an art largely devoid of aesthetic content. The examination and recognition of these issues calls for a restructuring of art programs in the university to allow the cultivation of an aesthetic vitality in art education. |
