This article is a narration and dialogue between Wang Li, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Art Management, School of Art Management and Education, China Academy of Art. Although we have always criticized the poor education of the test, in fact, the college entrance examination is still the fairest test in China. First of all, congratulations on the victory in the knockout round of the college entrance examination! I believe that every freshman in the first year of college will never forget the hardships of the college entrance examination. And for me, every year the admissions invigilation, is also the hardest work, whenever I see the admissions publicity posters, Mr. Lin Fengmian's "for the art war" these four words, there will be inexplicable excitement, will forget the proctoring of the spring cold, as if they are indeed doing something for art!
China Academy of Art Xiangshan Campus
2011 China Academy of Art Undergraduate Admissions Poster
I have always thought that the luckiest thing in my life is not to be a teacher at the China Academy of Art, but to study at the China Academy of Art like everyone else. I don't want to sit here as a teacher and give lectures, but as a senior who has been a test for many years and has been fortunate to have studied at the China Academy of Art, I will talk about "what is the first grade"!
I was admitted to the affiliated high school of the China Academy of Fine Arts for two years, but I was not admitted. If I had been lucky enough to be admitted to Gome Affiliated High School at that time, I might have been a classmate with your director Tong Biao and Teacher Sheng Tianye, and I would have become a student of the handsome teacher Changqing; if I had been successfully admitted to gome undergraduate, I would have been at the same level as Teacher Tong Biao. The reality is that I was two levels below him when I went to undergraduate. Although my entrance examination was very unsuccessful, it gave me the opportunity to look up to the heroes of the previous generations of students- it was the admiration of the masters of the previous generations that made me think about what I should do in the first grade.
This is one of the benefits of our school: to aim high and to align with the best. Since you can cope with such a difficult undergraduate entrance exam, it shows your ability to take the exam. There will be many exams of this kind in the future life, and none of them will be as difficult as undergraduate exams! In fact, what we need to think about is why the future winners are always a minority, and the failures are always the majority. This actually requires deep reflection on our generation of educators. Teacher Tong Biao invited me to participate in the lecture hall of "What is the first grade", and I asked for credit on the phone and said that I had prepared a PPT for class a few days ago in a foreign country. In fact, the content of this class was prepared three or four years ago. Before, every year from the Basic Department to the various professional departments, whether it is the second or third grade, as long as it is my first class, I will arrange such a class to communicate with the students, the students know the purpose of this teacher's teaching; just like Mr. Mou Sen said, he does not welcome students who are late to go to the Media Exhibition Department, "not late" seems to be the easiest thing to do, why do we still happen! The easiest thing to do is not to do, how can you be enterprising professionally in the future.
From left, Wu Guanzhong, Zao Wou-ki, and Zhu Dequn
Every time we talk about the China Academy of Art, we should be a little proud, just like the teacher Changqing said just now that Mr. Cai Yuanpei lost his daughter - lost to our National Art College (the predecessor of the China Academy of Art). In the history of the school, there are three proud seniors: Wu Guanzhong, Zao Wou-ki, and Zhu Dequn. I looked up three of them, and each of them had twenty or thirty classmates. But why does history leave only a few of their names? When we were in the first grade, we who had a little bit of poetic fantasy ability probably secretly thought to ourselves, "I am likely to be him in the future." It is very likely that the future self will also be as dashing as the evergreen teacher, and it is likely that the future will also be like whoever is who! But have you ever reviewed yourself, have you worked as hard as they did when they were undergraduates? Have you cultivated a big mind during this time period? If there is no extraordinary self-requirement at the undergraduate level, but there are still expectations for success in the future, I can tell you three words in advance today: Impossible!
Some members of the Art Movement Club of the National Art College took a group photo in Yuhang Chaoshan
Everyone who has been admitted to the China Academy of Art, I want to congratulate you first, because it is too difficult and too strict. When you are admitted to Gome, whether your score is the first place or the sixtieth place, the gap is not too big for the long-term artistic path behind.
The real gap in the future is, what exactly did you prepare for as an undergraduate? How exactly did you spend your time? It is these that create the difference between you and your classmates. When it comes to the senior year of undergraduate, if you are mixed, then there is already a gap between you and the master of the same class, which you can't see yourself, because you don't even have the ability to judge how much worse than others. In fact, in the senior year of undergraduate, 1/4 or 1/5 of the classmates are still very good compared to their peers in the country; and the other 3/4 or 3/5 students are actually not as confident and ambitious as the moment you were admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts, because then you still have four years that are about to start like everyone else - this is the only four years in your life that will not be repeated. The moment you are admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts, you are placed at a certain level of this pyramid of peers in the country, at least among the peers who study fine arts in the country, you belong to the best group of people. In addition to secretly rejoicing, you should adjust your mentality as soon as possible to face the broader future, and the next four years are four years to prepare for your future. Mr. Liang Qichao said in the initial stage of Chinese university education: Undergraduate is to prepare for a lifetime, not to prepare for undergraduate graduation.
The art journal of the National Academy of Arts
National School of Fine Arts
In my teaching work, I found that most of my classmates read the university into a middle school, and when they read the second semester of the third year of the university, the brain door suddenly reacted, and it turned out that the academy of fine arts should not be in this way. By the time the reaction came, it was too late. The road that everyone is facing the Academy of Fine Arts, in fact, for most students, is how to go from excellent to not excellent, you are the majority of the non-excellent? Or a small part of the good? It depends on what you did at the beginning of first grade.
What exactly do you study at undergraduate level? From the first grade to the fourth grade, we face professional classes, cultural classes, campus life and so on. UNESCO has four requirements for undergraduates: learning to learn, learning to be human, learning to do things, and learning to get along. College learning is not the same as middle school learning, middle school is indoctrinated, there are parents at home, there are teachers on campus, and the management of the class teacher can be specific to the individual. The university can not use such a model to manage, each professional teacher after the class left, at most will be for your homework has not been handed in and called over, take the initiative of the students and the teacher and the teacher still have a little communication, the remaining part of the students may not know the teacher, the teacher does not know you. But the real art academy education, that is, you have to have the ability to mix teachers into friends, mix teachers into peers, this is the real sense of university education, which is not exactly where the model of secondary education can do.
In the process of our first year to the fourth year of college, in addition to professional courses and cultural classes, there are more things to think about and prepare, that is, what kind of person do we want to become in the future? And what kind of lifelong pursuit is this person engaged in? In the pursuit of a lifetime, there is also the undergraduate period to learn technology enough to earn a living to support themselves, just like a classmate just said, everyone will have their own different ideas when talking about the same employment issues. In fact, I would like to say that the educational purpose of the China Academy of Art is not to cultivate useful talents in society, that is the teaching purpose of another "China Art Vocational College", and our China Academy of Art is to cultivate talents who influence social artistic ideas or aesthetic tastes.
The profession has not been well studied, as an adult's mind is not yet mature, but every day for the future without margins to worry, you first think about what is a mentally healthy adult is the most realistic problem in front of you. Besides, if you are good at majoring, employment is not a problem at all. No Yale and Harvard graduates worry about employment every day, they think about how to build a better future for human society with their own disciplines. For students at the China Academy of Fine Arts, we should at least think about what we can do for the future of Chinese culture or the future of Chinese art! A few years ago, a classmate discussed employment issues with me, and I said that as long as you study hard, you will definitely not be hungry; you are not studying hard, and unemployment is also a normal result. To put it more harshly, China Academy of Art graduated, the profession is not as good as people, you are not unemployed who is unemployed! Sometimes, I will emotionally say to my children as every poor parent says, if you study hard and come to me after graduation without food, I will leave you a pair of chopsticks, but so far no classmates who have taught myself have come to me. I have also consulted teachers who have teaching experience in other colleges and universities, you have been a teacher in other colleges and universities, how do you see the students of China Academy of Art? He said, Alas! You are so happy, your students are so easy to teach, you understand it as soon as you say it. This is the one I face every day that I teach, and I am proud of it. Because of the difficulty of undergraduate admissions, the best students were selected to us. However, all we can give you in the classroom is the "learn to learn" required by UNESCO, and even "learn to learn" is not what every student does well, and the other 3 points are to learn to be a person, learn to do things, and learn to get along, which is to rely on the campus environment of the university to deliberately work hard.
In November 1950, the students of the East China Branch of the Central Academy of Fine Arts took a group photo with the leaders of the send-off, the first 2 Zhou Cangmi, the left 3 Mopu, the left 4 Ni Yide, the left 5 Liu Kaiqu, the back left 1 Wang Dehui, and the left 7 Zhu Baoqing
Curriculum of the Department of Painting in 1953
I admire the counselor of our school the most, a person has to face so many classmates, and when facing classmates, it is often a time of problems, such as often not coming to class and about to be punished, calling him is not easy to find him, such classmates are often very personality, our counselors are bitter to reason with him. In fact, every professional teacher in the usual teaching, to undertake a little of the work of the counselor, to remind our students to learn to be people, learn to get along with people, including with parents, with teachers, with classmates. That is to say, at the undergraduate level, while studying professionally, prepare for what kind of person you want to become in the future, and what kind of lifelong pursuit this person is engaged in, and in this utilitarian society, you still maintain your enthusiasm for helping others. You can help others, that is, you have the ability, if you can't even manage yourself, how can you help others?
Why did the college add the big lesson "What is the first year"? I think this is because the loss of education about "people" is a common problem in China's higher education, and when the basic departments of other art academies have not yet launched such a group army-style propaganda, we at the China Academy of Art have taken such a large volume to add such a lesson to everyone, that is, to tell everyone that "people" are excellent, will the profession still be excellent? When educators are worried about these problems, how do we as students see these problems, and are you willing to let others (schools and society) decide what kind of person you become? Maybe there will be wayward classmates who will ask back, Lao Tzu does not have to work a little, Lao Tzu will mess up, so that you can't produce good students at the China Academy of Art! This is what I often call the willfulness of students. The China Academy of Art, like all universities, is a school of iron, flowing water students. Every time we celebrate, we have the names of Zao Wou-Ki, Zhu Dequn, Wu Guanzhong, etc. that can tell that this brand of the China Academy of Art will never fall, and your willfulness with youth is a waste of your own personal life. Everyone faces Chinese education the same, we in kindergarten, primary school, middle school, basically parents and schools to decide our choices. But for first-year students, you then have to prepare yourself for the next four years of your future self—that is, to use all aspects of your college studies to make yourself a capital person with an independent personality.
At the China Academy of Art, we must first "learn to get along" with our classmates. For us, the future is an academic community, our students may have different future master's and doctoral paths, some at home, some abroad, after graduation, they may be teachers at Oxford University, perhaps as teachers at the University of Berlin, of course, there are also teachers at the China Academy of Art, one day an international academic conference everyone sat together again, discussing the future of scholarship, what a beautiful thing.
A book library at the School of Intermedia at the China Academy of Art, April 17, 2015
Our sages Lin Fengmian and Lin Wenzheng were middle school classmates, the students of the middle school interest group became the first principal and the first director of education of our China Academy of Art, and the first director of the oil painting department, Wu Dayu, was their classmate who studied abroad... Heroes are always out of the woods, and the whole class is really good. Higher education should be more of a person's education, in this important stage of life, through a variety of professional knowledge learning and professional skills training, gradually perfect into a mental and physical health of the person or citizen. What is citizenship? It can be summarized into two points: first, there is a desire to explore knowledge, the degree is only a punctuation mark for receiving stage education, through the formation of learning habits at the undergraduate age, in the future to graduate school or into society, we can find ways to overcome themselves; second, there is a fully conscious life. Don't go to college and say what my dad wants me to do, and my mom wants me to be. Instead, they have the ability to choose their future life, even if they choose wrong, they also have the ability to bear or correct mistakes.
Nearly a century ago, Shanghai art college students took a group photo with the model
Often in the second semester of my junior year, students will ask me what major I should take for graduate school. In fact, when you ask this question, it shows that you have not yet figured out what profession you want to engage in in the future. What you do and think in this campus of the China Academy of Art is very important, and only at this stage can you grow wings to fly. The photo I show you is of a shanghai art college student with a model 100 years ago, and this is how the Academy of Fine Arts came about 100 years ago. At that time, that generation was the same age as us, why were the heroes of that era so young, and we still don't know what major to take for graduate school?
I remember the writer Yu Hua said in a lecture at Zhejiang Normal University that undergraduates should cultivate some ambition, ambition Another word is actually ideal, in addition to professional study, it is more important to cultivate a lofty mind, what kind of person you want to be in your life, basically established at this stage. Hearing this, everyone also understands that people with independent judgment ability are not what others can give you, but what they find on their own, many things that others can't give you, including schools and classrooms, if you wait for schools and classes to give you these, it is estimated that you will read the middle school in college, it is very easy to read the first year into high school, and some people read the sophomore year into high school, and it is not uncommon to be a middle school student on a college campus. In teaching, as a teacher, I want to face a student who is an adult. In the work of the Academy of Fine Arts, I have also met some boys like teenagers who do not understand things, and there is nothing wrong with people, that is, the laziness of teenagers who are immature. I can only use the method of dealing with middle school students to deal with him, I can't be responsible for myself, then let your parents come to talk to me, parents may be in Shaanxi, may also be in the northeast, you do not complete my homework outside the classroom, your parents are busy no matter how far, you have to take leave to fly over to meet me as a classroom teacher. The boy watched me fight so hard, asked me to watch him do next week, and if he couldn't do it next week, let his mother fly over to see me. It's a big surprise to see a college teacher forced to see his parents like a middle school teacher.
In 2018, the scene of the special exhibition of China Academy of Art in San Francisco
So what exactly should I do in my studies at the Academy of Fine Arts? I briefly listed the following points: First, think about what kind of person you will become in the future, and think about what kind of artist you will become in the future. Don't think that after being admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts, you are already a professional talent, the requirements of the so-called professional talents are more accurate and more meticulous, you must reserve more knowledge for accurate professional requirements, and your mind should be able to pack the cultural history of the East and the West, the history of art, and the understanding of the current situation of society. Don't say that I studied Chinese painting, what does Western art history have to do with me? What does the history of Chinese art, which I studied design, have to do with me? I studied printmaking, what does Bauhaus design have to do with me? If you are so narrow in your profession, you do not have the prerequisites to become a good talent;
Second, think about what kind of artists, designers and other art practitioners you will become in the future. What kind of artist is an artist? What kind of designer is a designer?
Third, we must also understand what kind of era we are in, and can our thinking cut into the reality of this era? Do we know anything about this era? These are the basic ideological reserves from the beginning of our first year of college to the beginning of undergraduate graduation, and it is too late to think about these when you graduate, so that you have laid the groundwork for your lifelong pursuit, and it is not a problem to enter the graduate school of what major you want to enter by the senior year. How many years of undergraduate teaching, I encountered such and such problems, I once wrote a book "Can't help the expression", from the perspective of a grassroots teacher, criticizing the shortcomings of the art college education, everyone is interested in online shopping to read it, the first article in the book talks about what is a good major of the university, everyone will face professional diversion next semester, I believe that after reading this book there will be some thinking. I was not very confident in facing the topic of employment before, and now I am very confident to say that employment is not the teaching purpose of the China Academy of Art, if you are in such a good campus, all day long just thinking about the narrow topic of employment, you really failed this beautiful campus! I advise you to withdraw from school and go to the Vocational And Technical College. So what is a good major in college? I believe that all majors, as long as you learn it well, will definitely be a good major. For example, the oil painting department of the China Academy of Art is very popular, you can learn to be like our evergreen teacher, and the oil painting major is of course a good major! You have to learn very poorly, and when you graduate and create, your works are embarrassed to hang on the wall, and even the best majors are also read as bad majors by you! We have been thinking about external things, and do not know whether they have the ability to face this profession, I know more about some disciplines of painting, the design class is not too understanding, just listened to Yu Jiadi teacher about design, there is a sudden sense of cheerfulness, from the text graphic design a small point to expand such a large world, the so-called professional is actually a small dot to expand a large academic world, just like the ancients said "Mustard Sumiya". Choosing a major is only the beginning of many choices in life, the ability to choose depends on our 4 years of college to cultivate, the university classroom can actually give you not much, the remaining half of the time in addition to sleep, as well as campus life, the library of the Academy of Fine Arts, various lectures, these campus activities, is an important source of your ability to reserve future thinking, a lot of classes can not give things, you must find on the university campus. What others stuff you, no matter how sweet it is, is not sweet, and the bitter melon you took the initiative to win is also a good melon.
In 2015, the French philosopher Stigler (left) came to the China Academy of Art for the first time to teach
November 7, 2011 China Academy of Art Gombrich Memorial Lecture Poster
The last picture shown to you is a poster for a one-year Gombrich lecture. The advantage of the China Academy of Art is that it can invite first-class scholars in China and world-class scholars. Every year, our school has Gombrich Lectures and Pan Tianshou Lectures, as well as various lectures from the Faculty of Humanities and various colleges, which are open lectures that can be freely attended, and listening to the lectures of top scholars is their guide to the classics. We must cultivate curiosity about unfamiliar fields and thirst for knowledge at the undergraduate level, and I hope that everyone will not let go of these lectures around us. It's an honor to be here to express your thoughts, thank you all!