[CondoleezzaProtege]

It should be integral to any education, not just Catholic. For some public school students, Art History class is the only place students are confronted with religious subject matter and questions. It's unavoidable.

[miss marmelstein]

I grew up in the New York school system which every Friday handed out a postcard of a classic painting. I clearly remember the Vermeer which fascinated me. The teacher or nun would give a little explanation of it and then we were required to write a little essay.

How much could that have cost, I wonder? And yet it set off a lifelong interest in art. Kids today have no idea unless their parents drag them to a museum.

[onedoug]

+1

#MAGA

[Jamestown1630]

An interest in art also often leads to, and enhances, an interest in history.

[Paal Gulli]

Art history? You mean the history of sexual deviates bribing their way out of Purgatory for sins ranging from from sodomy to murder by buying indulgences from church officials with their works of art?

That art history?

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

It's unavoidable.

No it is not.

And in fact it has been scrubbed in public school.

Pagan religious art is fine. Christian art is verboten.

[Albion Wilde]

Scholars suspect that these fantastic drawings must have had some spiritual meaning surrounding the importance and success of the hunt. Perhaps they were associated with ceremony and prayer. We will never know their exact purpose, but the likely function of the cave paintings was probably religious.

I'm a rather religious person, and I'm also an artist, and was an artist from birth. I can tell you with assurance that having the ability to see proportions and perspective clearly and draw realistic pictures as a result of that gift is not experienced as religious by the child so gifted. He or she might use the gift for spiritual purposes eventually, or even experience spiritual feelings while using the gift, but for the most part, it is like picking up a guitar if you are born musical -- you just do it because you can.