British Education

 

Op Art is a style of abstract painting that made use of optical illusions and other striking visual effects. Emerging in the United States in the mid-1960s, op art generally took the form of brightly colored, tightly patterned geometric abstractions that greatly influenced fashion, commercial design, and other aspects of the popular culture of the era.

A chief inspiration for op art was German American artist Josef Albers, in particular his Homage to the Square. In this series, produced over 25 years, Albers painted squares nested inside one another to study the effects of variations in color, size, and placement. But Albers, a veteran of the avant-garde Bauhaus school of art and design in Germany that operated from 1919 to 1933, stood for the artistic values of an older generation. The younger painters who pioneered op art promoted livelier, more eye-catching uses of color and pattern. Many early works of British artist Bridget Riley, for instance, involved curving parallel lines that seemed to undulate in waves across the painting’s surface. Hungarian-born artist Victor Vasarély, considered one of the founders of op art, used warped geometric forms to create powerful spatial illusions, including dizzying descents into the “depths” of the painting.

A 1965 exhibition called The Responsive Eye, which was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, helped consolidate the op art movement. But because of these artists’ allegiances to other movements with widely divergent philosophies, op art flourished only briefly; also, many artists resisted op art because they saw it as overly commercial and dependent on visual gimmicks. Its advocates, however, emphasized op art’s pioneering exploration of the mechanisms of perception and how these mechanisms can influence – and distort – our picture of the world. “We know how hard it is to distinguish between seeing, thinking, feeling, and remembering,” curator William Seitz wrote in the exhibition’s catalogue essay. It was the intent of The Responsive Eye, he explained, “to dramatize the power of static forms and colors to stimulate dynamic psychological responses.”

After a long absence, the techniques of op art were revived in the 1980s by a small circle of abstract painters who were sometimes labeled NeoGeo for their new take on geometric abstraction. Among the best-known painters of the group were Americans Peter Halley, Peter Schuyff, and Philip Taaffe.

In the wake of the Neo-Dada movement with its happenings and performances, many artists had left their studios to produce either transitory ‘Land Art’ in the countryside, or to pursue ‘individual mythologies’ with different materials. Photography or the new media of video and computers stimulated artists to innovative, experimental art forms.

Another group, the ‘Minimalists’, dissociating themselves from the shrillness of Pop Art, constructed sober spatial installations with geometrical bodies. Even more sparse than these expressive forms, which were already reduced to a minimum, was the work of the ‘Conceptual Artists’, who just gave the audience their ideas for an art work in writing. In many instances the work itself was not even made. The mere idea was held to be art. “This is a portrait if I say so”, Rauschenberg once proclaimed. In the attempt to involve the viewer as far as possible in the production process, art became increasingly intellectualized. This process had accompanied the artistic development of the 20^th century as a whole. Now ‘viewer participation’ had progressed to the point where the second link of the chain ‘artist-artwork-viewer’ was removed: the artwork that was perceptible to the senses had served its purpose. From now on it existed only in the viewer’s imagination. Art dissolved, so to speak, in the extended concept of art. Integrated within reality in this way, it necessarily lost any chance of having any effect on it. Thus it had also lost its function as a bearer of utopias, alternative designs for a better world.

In the early 80s, this sobering experience aroused a real hunger for the great illusion, the appearance of pictures. Painting returned. Freed from any social and political ambitions, freed from the attempt to harmonize art and life, art could now be unburdened art once again: the beautiful illusion, the ‘fiction’ which the viewer can consider with disinterested pleasure, was resurrected.

 

 

 

British Education

The British education system is confusing to natives – to the outsider it looks almost impossible to understand! Read this and hopefully all will become clearer…
What are the main types of schools in England and Wales?
There are many different types of school in Britain. There are, however, only three main systems:

The comprehensive system. More than 90 % of children who go to state schools in England and Wales go to schools in the comprehensive system – a system introduced in the 1960s. Children go to a primary (or first) school at the age of five. Depending on the policy of the Local Education Authority, they may go directly to the upper school – usually called the comprehensive school – at the age of 11. Alternatively, they may go to a middle school for three of four years before going to the upper school. The comprehensive system is non-selective. This means that all children go from one school to another without taking any exams, and without being selected according to their abilities.

The selective system. In some areas of Britain, you can still find a different, and older, system of education (introduced in 1944). This is a selective system – children are selected for certain schools according to their ability. All children go to a primary school until the age of 11. They then take an examination called the 11-plus. Those who are successful go to a grammar school, where they receive a more academic education. Those who fail the exam go to a secondary modern school, where they receive an education which is less academic, and more intended to train them for a job when they leave at the age of 16.

The private (independent) system. About 7% of children go to private schools. There are three levels of private school – primary schools (age four to eight) and preparatory (prep) schools (eight to 13). At the age of 13, children take an examination. If they pass, they go on to public school, where they usually remain until they are 18. Many prep and most public schools are boarding schools – the children live at the school during the school terms. Be careful – although these schools are called “public”, they are, in fact, private, and it can be very expensive to send your child to such a school.
Within the three systems, there are several varieties of schools.

For instance, you can find:

1. Schools for boys only

2. Schools for girls only

3. Mixed schools – for boys and girls

4. Voluntary schools – often with a religious background – such as Roman Catholic schools.

You can see that the British education system is rather confusing. This chart will help you: follow the arrows to see the possibilities which are open to a British child up to the age of 16.
Examinations. The public examinations taken by British schoolchildren are: GCSSEs (the General Certificate of Secondary Education). Pupils usually take their GCSEs at the age of 16. Some children take three or four; others take as many as ten or eleven.