‘Yale University is abandoning one of its core courses, a comprehensive survey of 700+ years of Western art. It has been deemed too Western, white, and male – and now the art canon gets thrown under the woke bus.
Yale University has announced that it is scrapping the course “Introduction to Art History: Renaissance to the Present”. This course is an overview of the development of Western art, forming a handy survey of the visual culture of Europe and North America.
From this autumn, the course will be discontinued despite being popular and oversubscribed. Some students expressed disappointment, stating that the current course is a valuable primer in culture.
Course tutor Tim Barringer said: “I don’t mistake a history of European painting for the history of all art in all places.” He also called the teaching of Western art history in isolation as “problematic”. In effect, Yale believes a course about Western culture is too Western. Barringer’s statement echoes that of the director of undergraduate studies, Marisa Bass, who said: “There has never been just one story of the history of art.”
Rather than teach one that does not fit the multicultural outlook of American university teachers, Yale has decided to abandon the most effective method of comprehending and memorising Western art. Instead it will teach thematic courses.
Yale is turning its back on the means used for five centuries to frame visual culture, the canon.’
Read more: Woke Yale stops teaching ‘problematic’ European art canon, proving we no longer deserve the classics
