March 9, 2020
A Parable
Ah, da Vinci! He has taken on an apprentice—no, a whole cadre of apprentices—to share his lifetime’s work: a beautiful network of discoveries and technique that can only be handed down by recreating, in the mind of his learners, those same experiences which occurred during the moments of discovery within his own mind. Da Vinci, the weathered master, whose notebooks barely begin to reveal the depth and breadth of his grasp on the universe, prepares his initiates for the mysterium cosmographicum. How—if we deal simply with the art of painting—can he relay to his students the way the eye takes every point of light and inverts it into a whole, and flips it again, to create visual perception? How can he teach the nature and extent of perspective, the gradations of sharpness and color as objects grow distant, the effects of different light on objects and their shadows, the inherent geometric progressions in the growth of living things, the animistic liveliness of inert things, the foundational structures of the human body, the arcs of motion and their conveyance in the placement of figures, and their pose, in a composition? How, by heaven’s name, can he pass down the mastery of foreshortening—a technique that flies in the face of realism to create that which is more real?
How?
Carefully. Methodically. Intuitively. He must know his apprentices better than they know themselves. He must build up their knowledge, like he built his own, but with more precision and efficiency (for now he can see the whole plan at once). He guides them through years of practice, lands them into intentional mistakes, grows them like the lotus in the mud. His pupils begin to catch glimpses of a hidden world as they strive toward the practices he requires of them. Though no one will be a da Vinci, da Vinci knows they are growing into themselves, all the better for what he has bequeathed to them.
Then, suddenly, a patron of the arts comes along. “Leonardo,” he says, “we need results. We need more paintings—paintings like the ones you’ve done for us. We have a guaranteed technique, developed by successful artists in the north. It is called paint-by-number. It produces exactly the same results you have given us, but quicker, and with more consistency. Moreover, it is reliable, predictable, and easy to teach. It is, Mr. Da Vinci, the epitome of financial stability and success for an artist. We will now require you to use this technique with your students.”
“But,” begins da Vinci, but he doesn’t finish. There is no use.
And what is the use of you, dear teacher, who are reading this, trying to argue against methods that get results--methods that are proven, reliable, and consistent?
A Parable
Ah, da Vinci! He has taken on an apprentice—no, a whole cadre of apprentices—to share his lifetime’s work: a beautiful network of discoveries and technique that can only be handed down by recreating, in the mind of his learners, those same experiences which occurred during the moments of discovery within his own mind. Da Vinci, the weathered master, whose notebooks barely begin to reveal the depth and breadth of his grasp on the universe, prepares his initiates for the mysterium cosmographicum. How—if we deal simply with the art of painting—can he relay to his students the way the eye takes every point of light and inverts it into a whole, and flips it again, to create visual perception? How can he teach the nature and extent of perspective, the gradations of sharpness and color as objects grow distant, the effects of different light on objects and their shadows, the inherent geometric progressions in the growth of living things, the animistic liveliness of inert things, the foundational structures of the human body, the arcs of motion and their conveyance in the placement of figures, and their pose, in a composition? How, by heaven’s name, can he pass down the mastery of foreshortening—a technique that flies in the face of realism to create that which is more real?
How?
Carefully. Methodically. Intuitively. He must know his apprentices better than they know themselves. He must build up their knowledge, like he built his own, but with more precision and efficiency (for now he can see the whole plan at once). He guides them through years of practice, lands them into intentional mistakes, grows them like the lotus in the mud. His pupils begin to catch glimpses of a hidden world as they strive toward the practices he requires of them. Though no one will be a da Vinci, da Vinci knows they are growing into themselves, all the better for what he has bequeathed to them.
Then, suddenly, a patron of the arts comes along. “Leonardo,” he says, “we need results. We need more paintings—paintings like the ones you’ve done for us. We have a guaranteed technique, developed by successful artists in the north. It is called paint-by-number. It produces exactly the same results you have given us, but quicker, and with more consistency. Moreover, it is reliable, predictable, and easy to teach. It is, Mr. Da Vinci, the epitome of financial stability and success for an artist. We will now require you to use this technique with your students.”
“But,” begins da Vinci, but he doesn’t finish. There is no use.
And what is the use of you, dear teacher, who are reading this, trying to argue against methods that get results--methods that are proven, reliable, and consistent?
Education with a Purpose
ducation should be a natural and joyful part of life, yet considered with careful deliberation. For on it depends one's personal future and the entire course of society.
