Priscila Lena Farias / Anna Calvera Marcos da Costa ... - Blucher

Pevsner on Design education: meeting contemporary needs through the
teaching of Art History
KONDO, Ariyuki / PhD / Ferris University / Japan
Sir Nikolaus Pevsner / Design education / Art history / Contemporary
needs
This paper examines Sir Nikolaus Pevsner’s view on design education
as inseparable from the teaching of the history of art.
Taking into consideration Pevsner’s contribution to the course of
‘democratization’ (ending of the monopoly of the élite) of design
in the post-war years, the understanding of Pevsner’s view on
design education ultimately leads to the grasp of a consequential
facet of twentieth-century history of design education.
1. Introduction
Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-83), a twentieth-century titan in the
history of architecture, art and design, never wrote a book nor
an essay exclusively on design education. This, however, does
not mean he had nothing to say about the current development
of design and education for future generations in design professions.
Pevsner, as an art historian, was well aware of the role
that he could play in terms of the practice and education of his
times. Unhindered by distinctions between different types of
artistic creation, viz., painting, architecture, decorative arts, industrial
design, etc., he considered increasingly fractionalized
branches of art to be different expressions deriving from the
same desire to give visual expression to one’s frame of mind;
and, as art historians deal with the states of minds of artists
and designers, Pevsner firmly believed that they were capable
of contributing to the education of future designers-to-be, not
only in providing knowledge of works created by forebears, but
also by shedding light on the minds of artists and designers as
wellsprings of creative power.
2. Design and the Spirit of the Age
By ‘the designer’, Pevsner said, he meant ‘a man who invents
and draws objects for use’ (Pevsner 1948: 91) 1 ; and the purpose
of the use of these objects is, in one way or another, to fulfil contemporary
needs. The contemporary needs of a society mirror
its systems, its sense of values, its religions, its social life, its
scholarship and, above all, the spirit of the age. Based on the notion
of the link of the spirit of an age to the ‘contemporary needs’
of society, and to the role of the designer in inventing and creating
objects for fulfilling these ‘needs’, Pevsner thus came to identify
design with the spirit of the age.
This consideration of artistic creativity as the ultimate manifes-
1 Pevsner delivered the Cobb Lecture for the Royal Society of Arts under the title
of ‘Design in Relation to Industry through the Ages’ on November 24, 1948.
tation of the spirit of an age was not always accepted uncritically.
Probably the severest criticism against Pevsner’s historiography
was made by David Watkin. Watkin notes in Pevsner’s writings
‘the clear assumption’ that ‘there is a “spirit” or “essence” which
pervades and dominates all intellectual, artistic, and social activity’,
and maintains that, under this assumption, Pevsner did
not consider artists and designers to be ‘individuals with unique
imaginations and talents’, but as ‘only manifestations of this allpervasive
spirit or essence’ (Watkin 1977: 75). To Watkin, Pevsner’s
historiography, which is often considered to be descended
from that of Burckhardt and Wölfflin and the tradition of Hegelian
Geistesgeschichte, appeared to be based on the belief that any
work of art, whether it is one of architecture, painting, or any other
kind of design, is ‘merely emanations of the spirit of the age’
(Watkin 1977: 74), and that an ‘individual artist’s role is merely
a voice through which the great unconscious of the age can be
expressed’ (Watkin 1977: 80).
Yet it is this very aspect of Pevsner’s scholarship which confirmed
for him that the teaching of history of art is inseparable
from current developments in design and design education.
Considering ‘the historian’s role’ to be the discernment and disclosure
of ‘the spirit of an age that pervades its social life, its religion,
its scholarship, and its arts’ (Pevsner 1988: 17), Pevsner
concentrated attention on the mind of an artist or designer as
the manifestation of the spirit of an age through tangible forms.
Pevsner’s historiography stresses the pervasion of the spirit of
an age in art and design and discerns the ‘essence’ or ‘real nature’
of art and design in the minds of artists and designers who
channel the spirit of an age through their creations.
3. The Unlimited Scope of Pevsner’s Study of
Art History
Being interested in this indissoluble connection between the
spirit of an age and the minds of artists and designers, Pevsner
naturally broadened the scope of his historical study, taking as
subjects for his research not only art and design from the past,
but also from contemporary developments in design and design
education. His own century was as worth studying as the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries.
Untrammelled by borders between the past and the present,
Pevsner came to see a strong connection between the past of
art and design and the classrooms/studios of future designers.
Based on this perception, his first major publication on modern
design was Pioneers of the Modern Movement (Pevsner 1936)
Design Frontiers: Territiories, Concepts, Technologies / Proceedings of the 8th Conference of the International Committee for
Design History & Design Studies - ICDHS 2012 / São Paulo, Brazil / © 2012 Blucher / ISBN 978-85-212-0692-7