This presentation seeks to explore three fundamental iterations of the discourse on the benefits of the arts to education and the constitution of personal identity from the early Renaissance to the present day. Our aim is not to determine whether the Renaissance, or any other period in history, was the turning point for the conception of the modern subject (Burke, 1997), but rather to examine how different projections of this discourse influenced and shaped the persisting notion that it is highly desirable, useful and reputable to be(come) a creative individual. 

First, we examine the discourse on fine arts, artistic attributes and the cultivation of creative talent conceived by Renaissance artists in the quest to elevate the status of their craft from mechanical to liberal. In the early Renaissance, painters and sculptors were viewed as executors of ideas provided by patrons or their humanist advisors – they were not considered inventors but imitators. The discussion on ingenium was closely associated with poetry but not typically mentioned in regard to painting or sculpture. Artists strove to change the perception that visual arts involve intense physical toil and sought to replace it with the image of a rational, contemplative endeavour instead. To this end, the perceived logical procedure was to emulate the prestigious humanistic model in newly established art academies, present creative activity as intellectual and embellish artistic professions with the mystical quality hitherto ascribed to poets. Figures such as Alberti (1404-1472) – the first humanist to write a treatise on painting – or Vasari (1511-1574) – who in his Lives presented ideas on how to cultivate artistic ingegno – were, more importantly, responsible for conceptualising the figure of an artist in its modern sense.

Second, we analyse the discourse on the benefits of the arts to education in its relationship with the specific objectives of the mid-to-late 18th century science of police (Polizeiwissenschaft), using the Portuguese case as an example. Police, as understood by political theorists, was a science of state administration that sought to correlate the well-being of each and every element of the population with the expansion of the sovereign’s power (Foucault, 2007). A late importer of these instruments of modern statecraft, Portugal became a prime example of the increasing convergence between police discourse and the principles of modern pedagogy as espoused by the likes of Rousseau, Verney and Sanches (Vallera, 2019). Both police theorists and leading pedagogues agreed that governing the will meant producing conformity as an intimate conviction, an exercise that could only be carried out in the controlled environment of a total institution (Goffman, 1991). Nowhere was this intent more explicit than in Lisbon’s Real Casa Pia (1780- ), an experimental orphanage and workhouse founded by the General-Intendancy of Police whose goal was to regenerate the marginalised into enlightened subjects by training them in a variety of mechanical and fine arts (Martins, 2011; Vallera, 2019). 

The relation between art and education found further expression in the contemporary conviction that society and individuals should be continually rebuilt in accordance with the ever-changing expectations and challenges of the future. In the rhetoric produced by international policymakers such as OECD (2018) and UNESCO (2015), a wide range of transformative competencies are specifically modelled on the artist’s aptitudes, which have become incorporated into the universal archetype of the pupil, overlapping the earlier principles of policing and reformation (Szawiel, Ó & Vallera, 2021). At present, the ideal of a creative individual is embedded in educational policies in such a way that aesthetic self-fashioning is presented not as a possible path of self-enhancement but as a universal way of successfully functioning in society.

This presentation proposes a genealogy insofar as it aims to pinpoint and briefly examine three fundamental variations of the same topic in disparate historical contexts and connected to different kinds of problems. We will try to show how the discourse on the value and benefit of the arts – which has been historically linked both to aesthetic experiences of the self and the making of specific kinds of ethical subjects – was produced, and then further consolidated, as a legitimising vindication during the Renaissance, a regenerating mechanism by the late Enlightenment, and a universal principle behind international policymaking in the educational field today. The selected materials for the Renaissance are quattrocento and cinquecento texts on the value of visual arts in general and artistic ingenium in particular. These consist of two categories: (i) humanist treatises in which the question of including visual arts in the curriculum is discussed, and (ii) artists’ treatises, biographies or autobiographies, which outline the profile of an ideal artist apprentice and discuss how to train and cultivate their talent (ingegno), covering topics of conduct, decorum, nobility and benefits of the profession. The source materials for the second half of the 18th century include (i) police manuals and treatises where the topic of educating the poor and marginalised is increasingly addressed (Robinet, 1780; Vasconcelos, 1786; Des Essarts, 1790), (ii) leading pedagogical texts in which the ideal conditions and procedures for the fabrication of an enlightened subject are discussed at length (Verney, 1746; Sanches, 1760), (iii) official documents and bibliography pertaining to the integral education of the orphan or child at risk and their moral transformation into useful, well mannered and cultivated artists in Casa Pia de Lisboa (Castro, 1788; Academia Real das Ciências, 1821). In the present context, the analytical corpus consists of documents produced by international policymakers such as the EU (Eurydice, 2009), UNESCO (2015) and OECD (2018). It is further supplemented by Portuguese governmental documents like the Students’ Profile by the End of Compulsory Schooling (Direção-Geral da Educação, 2017) and the National Plan for the Arts (Direção-Geral da Educação, 2017). The selection criteria on both global and local levels were determined by descriptions of principles and values, key competencies and objectives related to the benefits of educating through art, and critical and creative skills that respond to the exigencies of an uncertain future.

By highlighting these historical iterations (legitimation, regeneration, dissemination) we hope to understand how the narrative on the benefits of the arts both to education and the constitution of personal identities was at first connected to a legitimising discourse for visual artists in the Renaissance and, later on, to a governmental discourse of salvation and regeneration during the late Enlightenment, only to combine both the aesthetic and biopolitical aspects in present-day global educational policies aimed at producing the flexible, problem-solving and creative citizen of the future. Through these narratives of individual self-realisation and the enduring belief in the moral value of artistic practices, what was once aimed at and restricted to the unique and exceptional – an upper-class privilege or a regenerative mechanism for the sublimation and redemption of institutionalised subjects – eventually permeated the mainstream educational discourse’s underlying aspiration to regulate how average individuals could and should shape their lives. The goal of this presentation is thus to succinctly identify and describe this perennial conviction as it acquires different dimensions in specific historical contexts, providing a number of sources and references, drawn from our own research inquiries, that may contribute to a broader understanding of how and why it has become such an indisputable, universalised and self-evident narrative in contemporary western societies.

Academia Real das Ciências (1821). Memória da Comissão encarregada de visitar o estabelecimento da Casa Pia. In História e Memórias da Academia Real das Ciências de Lisboa, tomo VII. Tipografia da Academia Real das Ciências. Burke, P. (1997). The Renaissance. Palgrave Macmillan. Castro, J. M. (1788). Discurso sobre as utilidades do desenho. Oficina de António Rodrigues Galhardo. Des Essarts, N. T. (1790). Dictionnaire universel de police, tome VIII. Moutard. Direção-Geral da Educação (2017). The Students’ Profile by the End of Compulsory Schooling. https://cidadania.dge.mec.pt/sites/default/files/pdfs/students-profile.pdf Direção-Geral da Educação (2019). National Plan for the Arts. https://www.dge.mec.pt/sites/default/files/P Eurydice (2009). Arts and Cultural Education at School in Europe. Foucault, M. (2007). Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977-1978. Palgrave Macmillan. Goffman, E. (1991). On the characteristics of total institutions. In Asylums: Essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates. Penguin Books. Martins, C. S. S. (2011). As narrativas do génio e da salvação: A invenção do olhar e a fabricação da mão na Educação e no Ensino das Artes Visuais em Portugal (de finais de XVIII à primeira metade do século XX). [Doctoral dissertation, University of Lisbon]. OECD (2018). The Future of Education and Skills Education 2030: the future we want. https://www.oecd.org/education/2030/E2030%20Position%20Paper%20(05.04.2018).pdf Robinet, J-B-R. (1780). Dictionnaire universel des sciences morale, économique, politique et diplomatique, tome XVII. Libraires Associés. Sanches, A. R. (1760). Cartas sobre a educação da mocidade. Centro de Estudos Judaicos/Universidade da Beira Interior. Szawiel, W., Ó, J. R., & Vallera, T. (2021). “Governmentality and the Arts That Matter: Producing the Conformed, Flexible and Creative Pupil Since the Turn of the 20th Century”. Journal of Science and Technology of the Arts, v. 13, nº 2. UNESCO (2015). SDG4-Education 2030, Incheon Declaration (ID) and Framework for Action. https://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/education-2030-incheon-framework-for-action-implementation-of-sdg4-2016-en_2.pdf Vallera, T. (2019). «Torna-te o que deves ser»: Uma história da polícia como genealogia da escola moderna (meados do século XVII – segunda metade do século XVIII). [Doctoral dissertation, University of Lisbon]. Vasconcelos, J. R. V. (1786). Elementos da polícia geral de um Estado, tomo I. Oficina Patriarcal de José Luís Ameno. Verney, L. A. (1746). O Verdadeiro Método de Estudar, tomo I. Oficina de António Balle.