Art History

Have signed up for an Art History class at Glasgow University, partly because it's something I've wanted to do for ages, and partly because I have a hankering for somebody to teach me something, rather than the other way around! I looked for something closer to home, but all the local classes seemed to be vocational: modules with tests and homework. I wanted a bit of the real lifelong learning that the government is always banging on about. Except that they lie. They don't really subscribe to the idea of lifelong learning at all, or only insofar as it's a way of making people more employable. Which is all very worthy. But it's just possible that we may occasionally want to find out about something for its own sake, to learn for the sake of learning, and not for the sake of the piece of paper at the end of it.
The lecturer on this particular course is in his eighties. He is gentle, non didactic, and brimming with the wisdom of his years. This will be his last course, so I'm lucky to have signed up. In the first class he burst into song, in a beautifully melodic tenor voice - 'she was just the sort of girl me boys that nature did intend, to walk right through the world me boys, without a Grecian bend..' Did we know what a Grecian bend was? No but all of us knew the song, and all of us had wondered. He explained, and proceeded to use it as an introduction to a lecture on Greek art and architecture. Not sure what he's planning for next week, but I can't wait.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good for you. That sounds brilliant. I know exactly what you mean about feeling the need to be taught something - almost like a relaxing idea...Opposite of school - lol. I've been hankering after learning recently and although I have painted for years and done all the courses and the college and the rest of it - thinking about doing an art course. Just because it feels different sometimes to go somewhere and be forced to do exercises or use different mediums. Rather than perfecting your usual style. I also have a yen for screenwriting. If you hear of any good ones let me know. Been thinking about that for ages...