Visual Arts
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Visual Arts
Classical educators understand the importance of truth, beauty, goodness, and perfection and there is no better way to cultivate a love and appreciation for beauty than by learning to create beauty for oneself.When a student learns to make music or paint, they also learn to see and enjoy the details and skill in someone else’s music and art. The fine arts also overlap, perhaps inextricably, with the liberal arts. For instance, the fine arts of painting and music also express ideas — the goal of rhetoric — and music is itself listed as one of the liberal arts.
Art Department Dual Mission
Foster Great Minds
Art History: Having historical knowledge allows students to see themselves and the world within a greater context. Art History broadens literacy and provides students with their cultural inheritance.
Art Analysis: Students observe art closely and communicate their ideas and judgments about art to deepen their appreciation and refine their artistic decision-making.
Studio Skills: Through guided artistic practice, students become better craftsmen with a greater attention to detail. Creating art allows them to see the world with “artist’s eyes."
Foster Great Hearts
Beauty: Through the practice and study of art, students gain an aesthetic sensitivity to beauty and the sublime. Students find wonder in masterworks and discover beauty through artworks of their own creation.
Truth: Rich class discussions and thoughtful critiques foster prudence and justice. Students reap lessons of virtue from stories and characters across art history.
Goodness: In crafting artworks, students craft virtue. The self-control and perseverance required to create an artwork develops the virtues of temperance, fortitude, and gratitude.
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