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Students stampede to art schools to cash in on culture
By Ni Tao |
February 11, 2012, Saturday
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CHINA'S National University Entrance Exam, or gaokao, is often described as an exceptionally grueling experience as millions of students vie for admission to a few good schools.
But if you think gaokao is the most rigid and competitive of all tests, think again. The annual art exams required for acceptance in art academies are no less competitive.
Shanghai Morning Post reported on Tuesday that tens of hundreds of students, some with parents tagging along, swarmed into the usually tranquil town of Xiangshan in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, last weekend. The students were there to sit the exams held between February 4 and 6 by the China Academy of Art (CAA), which has a provincial campus in Hangzhou.
Because of the huge number of test takers, the prestigious academy was confronted with a shortage of models for its figure-drawing exam.
It coped by borrowing 300 faculty from another school to pose as models, the report said.
This year the number of applicants for CAA enrollment has jumped to 89,567, up 50 percent from last year and well above the academy's admission quota of 1,665, Wang Zan, vice president of CAA, told the newspaper.
Mass enthusiasm for higher education in art has a lot to do with the difference between art academy exams and gaokao - first and foremost that it doesn't select candidates on the basis of academic excellence.
Though there are academy exams on math, Chinese and English, they are much easier than those in gaokao.
For many candidates, the choice of art academy is inspired more by pragmatic considerations than interest in art. Since the academic bar is considerably lower, students who know little about painting can sign up for a crash course and qualify in exams after months of intensive training. Their love of art is at best questionable.
As a result, when applicants are tested on their knowledge of serious art, all kinds of laughable answers come up. Asked to name Picasso's chef d'oeuvre, one student said it was the Mona Lisa.
It's hard to imagine how students like these could possibly be groomed to become China's next generation of maestro painters or sculptors, even if there are a few diamonds in the rough among them.
Speculation
However, such pessimism belies the seemingly bright future art college graduates face in a burgeoning Chinese art market full of unsophisticated buyers.
Asked about a rumor that a student painting can fetch 3,000 yuan (US$417) even if its author is freshly out of school, inexperienced and little-known, art expert Hu Renyi said such works can even sell for 10 times that price due to speculation. In the misguided conviction about their potential earning power, many a student is keen on enrolling in art school.
Nonetheless, according to some cultural pundits, they go for wool and come back shorn, since increasingly large enrollments will lead to a glut of artists. Some will inevitably toil in obscurity, starving and poor.
Which means that the popularity of art education is by no means a sure sign of China's emergence as a top sponsor and source of art such as the United States, France and Italy. On the contrary, quite a few celebrated artists have perceived the popularity of art academies in a very negative light.
Master painter Wu Guanzhong (1919-2010) is a revered voice of reason in the campaign for cultural industrialization. During an interview with the Southern Weekend newspaper in 2008, he pointed out that Chinese art academies have failed to provide the right education for young artists.
By right education he meant not just imparting skills and craftsmanship, which of course is important, but also and more important, fostering wide literacy and broadening their horizons. This wider education helps students develop an eye for fine arts, Wu said, adding that it is artists' life experiences that breathe life into their works.
Wu said young painters now go in droves for landscape painting amid much fanfare. These frivolous jaunts, often organized by art authorities, do more harm than good to promotion of art, especially among those who regard it as a noble calling.
By contrast, artists in the past used to hike in the countryside, carrying sketch pad and easel on personal, low-key journeys where they sought tranquillity and reflection, as well as interaction with locals.
It's about time we reflected on Wu's words and pause a while in our headlong rush to distort, cheapen and cash in on culture.
But if you think gaokao is the most rigid and competitive of all tests, think again. The annual art exams required for acceptance in art academies are no less competitive.
Shanghai Morning Post reported on Tuesday that tens of hundreds of students, some with parents tagging along, swarmed into the usually tranquil town of Xiangshan in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, last weekend. The students were there to sit the exams held between February 4 and 6 by the China Academy of Art (CAA), which has a provincial campus in Hangzhou.
Because of the huge number of test takers, the prestigious academy was confronted with a shortage of models for its figure-drawing exam.
It coped by borrowing 300 faculty from another school to pose as models, the report said.
This year the number of applicants for CAA enrollment has jumped to 89,567, up 50 percent from last year and well above the academy's admission quota of 1,665, Wang Zan, vice president of CAA, told the newspaper.
Mass enthusiasm for higher education in art has a lot to do with the difference between art academy exams and gaokao - first and foremost that it doesn't select candidates on the basis of academic excellence.
Though there are academy exams on math, Chinese and English, they are much easier than those in gaokao.
For many candidates, the choice of art academy is inspired more by pragmatic considerations than interest in art. Since the academic bar is considerably lower, students who know little about painting can sign up for a crash course and qualify in exams after months of intensive training. Their love of art is at best questionable.
As a result, when applicants are tested on their knowledge of serious art, all kinds of laughable answers come up. Asked to name Picasso's chef d'oeuvre, one student said it was the Mona Lisa.
It's hard to imagine how students like these could possibly be groomed to become China's next generation of maestro painters or sculptors, even if there are a few diamonds in the rough among them.
Speculation
However, such pessimism belies the seemingly bright future art college graduates face in a burgeoning Chinese art market full of unsophisticated buyers.
Asked about a rumor that a student painting can fetch 3,000 yuan (US$417) even if its author is freshly out of school, inexperienced and little-known, art expert Hu Renyi said such works can even sell for 10 times that price due to speculation. In the misguided conviction about their potential earning power, many a student is keen on enrolling in art school.
Nonetheless, according to some cultural pundits, they go for wool and come back shorn, since increasingly large enrollments will lead to a glut of artists. Some will inevitably toil in obscurity, starving and poor.
Which means that the popularity of art education is by no means a sure sign of China's emergence as a top sponsor and source of art such as the United States, France and Italy. On the contrary, quite a few celebrated artists have perceived the popularity of art academies in a very negative light.
Master painter Wu Guanzhong (1919-2010) is a revered voice of reason in the campaign for cultural industrialization. During an interview with the Southern Weekend newspaper in 2008, he pointed out that Chinese art academies have failed to provide the right education for young artists.
By right education he meant not just imparting skills and craftsmanship, which of course is important, but also and more important, fostering wide literacy and broadening their horizons. This wider education helps students develop an eye for fine arts, Wu said, adding that it is artists' life experiences that breathe life into their works.
Wu said young painters now go in droves for landscape painting amid much fanfare. These frivolous jaunts, often organized by art authorities, do more harm than good to promotion of art, especially among those who regard it as a noble calling.
By contrast, artists in the past used to hike in the countryside, carrying sketch pad and easel on personal, low-key journeys where they sought tranquillity and reflection, as well as interaction with locals.
It's about time we reflected on Wu's words and pause a while in our headlong rush to distort, cheapen and cash in on culture.
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