The Arts in Schools - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

22 The arts To have access to these new truths and to participate inand the their creation, one has to get 'on the inside' of the cornopenmunity in which such explorations take place and are undersocietystood. However, the world of the arts exemplifies all thevirtues that Karl Popper praised as characteristic of an'open society'. For every painter, writer, musician or sculptoris permanently on trial; every exhibition, publication orperformance, it has been wisely said is far worse than anypublic examination. In this community, the only aristocracyis one of excellence. It is open to all provided their workcan withstand the critical scrutiny of others. The arts, asmuch as any science are exercises in rigour and criticism ofthe most searching kind; every artefact or performance isopen to comment, to evaluation and re-valuation.23 Unity We have emphasised the need for balance and wholeness inand education and individual development. The arts are signifiintegrationcant here in two ways. The first of these is evident in acrucial feature of the arts. Ehrenzweig (1967) refers to thisas their function of 'de-differentiation'. That is to say, inone work of art there are numerous layers of meaning entwinedinto one organic unity. The meanings of Guernica,or of Blake's Sick Rose, can only be fully understood andappreciated by attending to the work as a whole. 5 Theactivity of what has been called 'stripping away the layers'of the work may transform our vision of the view of theworld and of human nature that the work embodies. Thisprocess — what Broudy (1966) calls 'enlightened cherishing'— can have another transformative effect. For attending toa work of art, letting its meanings emerge slowly and suffuseour own understanding, is to undertake what Arnaud Reidcalls:'. . . to learn to address the individual work of art, almostas though it were a person, in what Martin Buber hascalled the I—Thou relationship.' (Reid, 1957, p47)The arts promote a very real integration in our sense andappreciation of the range of meanings that are present inone organic whole. This characteristic of synthesis is to befound in no other mode of discourse. Elsewhere the generalthrust — in some, the whole emphasis — is more often onanalysis and dissection than on synthesis and unification.24 The The second way in which the arts are essential for balancedobjectivity development is this. Mathematics and natural sciences areof art sometimes alleged to be the only true sources of knowledge.All else — and particularly the knowledge to be found in the23