The foundation of art: Maharishi Vedic Science and the role of consciousness in art education

The foundation of art: Maharishi Vedic Science and the role of consciousness in art education

I want to express my approval of the basic approach of Dr Lee Fergusson, namely the assumption that any fruitful art education must be based on a set of objective principles, which derive ultimately from the laws of nature, laws whose knowledge is always evolving but which must be basically independent of the day’s fashions.

I basically disagree with the current belief that our culture can replace with impunity the traditional adherence to a set of objective principles with a pluralism relying on the mere accumulation of unrelated axioms and approaches. Obviously, different periods of art and different places vary in their social and psychological conditions, but this cannot touch the basic principles on which they must rely.

I [therefore] find in this work a relation of art education to the fundamental experiences of human awareness and responsibility without which even the most skillful art instruction remains superficial playing with techniques and stylistic fashions. This is precisely what I find often lacking in other competent dealings with our subject; and this is what I consider the particular value of Dr Lee Fergusson’s work.

In his text, he is giving a thorough presentation of the various approaches now characteristic of American art education. His detailed description of a Foundations of Art Program [at Maharishi University of Management] has obvious parallels to what is done at some good places elsewhere, but it distinguishes itself by the broader philosophical approach to which I am referring above.

His description of the evaluation process—a crucial problem right now—recommends itself by including qualitative criteria and methods, often neglected elsewhere. And the 20 case students of students offer a welcome indication of what [Maharishi University of Management’s] practical work in art education is achieving.

I believe that [Maharishi University of Management] can be well pleased to have [generated] so productive a piece of scholarly research.

—(the late) Dr Rudolf Arnheim
former Professor Emeritus of the Psychology of Art,
Harvard University

Files associated with this item cannot be displayed due to copyright restrictions.