1. [1] ‘Realistic’ and ‘abstract’ are stylistic, not technical, categories, but when teachers assign exercises in certain media-stained glass or collage, for example-they almost force students to work in an abstract or semi-abstract manner. Thus a style is readily converted by ‘institutionalised’ art education into one more technique, a way of doing something without attending to its significance.
2. [3] Still, there are special problems in using the modern masters as examplars. Suppose the work of Dubuffet is selected as a model: his imagery quite clearly derives from child art. Should we therefore erect standards for children's art which are based on a sophisticated imitation of children's art? Or consider Karel Appel as a model: his paintings are deliberately infantile, and often brutal as well. Obviously, the fact that an artist is ‘important’ does not make his work automatically suitable as a source of standards of theme or technique.