An article in the Guardian newspaper (Friday 14 January 2011) was brought to my attention the other day. Hermione Hoby wrote about the amazing Vivian Maier.
This is a fine case of where someone was truly engaged with what they did and got good at it because they were passionate. For the love of photography and the fascination of the world around her Vivian Maier became a great photographer producing thousands of images which further inspire and move other people.
Being quite interested in education and the arts, a passage from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (384 BC – 322 BC) jumps to mind:
"...Moral virtue, like the arts, is acquired by repetition of the corresponding acts.... Again, it is from the same causes and by the same means that every virtue is both produced and destroyed, and similarly every art; for it is from playing the lyre that both good and bad lyre players are produced. And the corresponding statement is true of builders and of all the rest; men will be good or bad builders as a result of building well or badly..." Book II
This suggests to me that one theory of learning is practice. How do we learn to be what we want ? What makes a successful author a successful one ? By what yardstick are we to measure people ? These are huge and complex questions which I have no plain answer for, however passion is something which always leaves the greatest impression.
It intrigues me people who have invested in knowing about something - all that time to understand the in's and out's of the life of a footballer or painter; all those moments absorbed in knowing how you can fix a combustion engine or get a certain sound from an instrument; all those years ferreting out the understanding of how to put a perfect finish on some wood or a large plaster wall...
A great writer who I am impressed by in many ways is Samuel Smiles who wrote Self Help. I think he was an admirer of people and human culture. I think he saw possibility in the world around him because he admired the embodied capabilities of people. All of this inspires what the Ragged University is.
For me, people are what they do and when I see people enjoying what they do it makes me think they will not tire of the task, therefore they will tend to excell in their field because to them there is no mundanity. They want to understand each little minute detail and are prepared to do what is necessary to achieve that. There are many perspectives on the theory of learning, and we are always learning more. An excerpt from Samuel Smiles' Self Help (1859) which I like is as follows:
...Sir Joshua Reynolds was such a believer in the force of industry, that he held that artistic excellence, “however expressed by genius, taste, or the gift of heaven, may be acquired.” Writing to Barry he said, “Whoever is resolved to excel in painting, or indeed any other art, must bring all his mind to bear upon that one object from the moment that he rises till he goes to bed.”
And on another occasion he said, “Those who are resolved to excel must go to their work, willing or unwilling, morning, noon, and night: they will find it no play, but very hard labour.” But although diligent application is no doubt absolutely necessary for the achievement of the highest distinction in art, it is equally true that without the inborn genius, no amount of mere industry, however well applied, will make an artist. The gift comes by nature, but is perfected by self-culture, which is of more avail than all the imparted education of the schools.
Some of the greatest artists have had to force their way upward in the face of poverty and manifold obstructions. Illustrious instances will at once flash upon the reader’s mind. Claude Lorraine, the pastrycook; Tintoretto, the dyer; the two Caravaggios, the one a colour-grinder, the other a mortar-carrier at the Vatican; Salvator Rosa, the associate of bandits; Giotto, the peasant boy; Zingaro, the gipsy; Cavedone, turned out of doors to beg by his father; Canova, the stone-cutter; these, and many other well-known artists, succeeded in achieving distinction by severe study and labour, under circumstances the most adverse.
Nor have the most distinguished artists of our own country been born in a position of life more than ordinarily favourable to the culture of artistic genius. Gainsborough and Bacon were the sons of cloth-workers; Barry was an Irish sailor boy, and Maclise a banker’s apprentice at Cork; Opie and Romney, like Inigo Jones, were carpenters; West was the son of a small Quaker farmer in Pennsylvania; Northcote was a watchmaker, Jackson a tailor, and Etty a printer; Reynolds, Wilson, and Wilkie, were the sons of clergymen; Lawrence was the son of a publican, and Turner of a barber.
Several of our painters, it is true, originally had some connection with art, though in a very humble way,—such as Flaxman, whose father sold plaster casts; Bird, who ornamented tea-trays; Martin, who was a coach-painter; Wright and Gilpin, who were ship-painters; Chantrey, who was a carver and gilder; and David Cox, Stanfield, and Roberts, who were scene-painters. It was not by luck or accident that these men achieved distinction, but by sheer industry and hard work.
No comments:
Post a Comment