Yet, it seems that the craftsmanship mind still predominates the art academies in Turkey. These institutions, which train craftsmen rather than artists, cannot renew themselves within the vastness of technical (technological more likely) and intellectual possibilities that art has today, yet they keep on producing a reactional reflex by becoming more introvert.  In order to test this, it is adequate to look into the students' graduate works of any academy.

There are plenty of art academies in Turkey, but most of these academies follow an academy model, which remains from the the second half of the 18th century.  This model, which is organized around the concept of "fine art", functions in the traditional atelier order that is constructed in the form of master-apprentice relationship. Application of oil painting technique by looking at a naked model, which was invented at the end of the Middle Ages and has come up again in Renaissance, but had been more popular in 18th century, is seen as the fundamental art education.  This understanding still expects far too much hand craft from the student. This education is concurrently supposed to be theoretically supported by teaching Gombrich style progressive and storytelling art history knowledge at the same time.  It has been quite a long time since this model, which has been largely disused by the European modernism starting with the end of 19th century, has given its way to a form of art and art education that encourages predominantly experimental and conceptual productions and can be formed around various knowledge types.

In fact, the concept of "academy" as in the first form that Plato has designed, certainly did not foresee a technical education.  Plato, who has ostracized all kinds of artistic activity from academical education by categorizing it as technical/crafts (techne), has presented an intellectual education model, which requests his members using their 'logos' (reason or discourse) rather than their hands or bodies (because this fits best for the slaves).  An understanding of art that was vaguely imitating Platonian academic model - especially Leonardo da Vinci in person-, was suggested during Renaissance. As is known, a new Platonian academy that was formed by the mid 15th century in Renaissance Italy -in Florance- and supported by Medicis, has made a big contribution to European humanism by alienating the European thought production slowly from the church's scholastic logic and monopoly, and paved way to the improvement of subsequent scientific thought. Although Leonardo da Vinci was not very successful in reading writings and texts (or although he had a unique way of artistic reading style), he didn't want to remain as a handicraft labourer, who used only their hands and were despised by the humanists. According to him, just like philosophy or mathematics art was definitely the product of a mental activity  and it should have been subjected to training. In other words, the craft activity in master-apprentice atelier should have given its way to a more intellectual education - to an academical style.  In short, Leonardo da Vinci was dreaming to approximate art and sculpture to 'artes liberales', that is to say that he was dreaming to transform them into a unrestrained activity, which is the product of free thought and research. 

With the gradual proliferation of this idea, art academies emerged in Europe together with academies of science.  But unfortunately art majorly kept on following atelier mentality in these academies, yet it did not neglect to set a distinction in between crafts and itself.  Instead of being intellectualised, art was made aestheticised and was turned into institution as fine arts. In the 18th century, art was henceforth the aesthetic knowledge of what is 'beautiful' and it has built itself a unique place of its own exclusive not only from ethical or political areas, but scientific area as well. Yet, Leonardo da Vinci was aiming to converge art and science more, and reciprocally feed from each other.[1] One of the main reasons of European avant-gardes' hatred on academy  from Picasso to Malevich or Duchamp being so intense is the reduction of da Vinci model only to aesthetics - the general disregard of mental or intellectual dimension of art.

In today's contemporary state of art, form production follows the laws of aesthetics less, the results of free thought's researcher and experimental exercises more.  Within this direction, the art education in our academies in Turkey has to open themselves to the experimental productions of thought and has to concentrate more on teaching necessary conceptual knowledge for these productions. This is not something that will occur only with the practical knowledge of art and art history education. Sociology, philosophy, psychology or politics within art can only be manifested by teaching the conceptual framework of these areas.

Artist can not be trained like a craftsman. Today, technique is not an extension of hand - has transformed into the extension of what is the hand's extension.   Artist not longer benefits from technique, but from technology. From Tony Craig to Damien Hirst, from Carsten Höller to Richard Serra and to many others, a lot of artists realise their material productions by benefiting from the possibilities of science and technology and this situation harms their mastery in technical level. Here what actually stands out for these artists is to place the foundations of artistic creativity onto a more solid intellectual base with the intention to achieve adding (a) meaning to life. In that case, art education should not think that it is loosing time learning the semantic frame and historical context of ideas and/or concepts.

The most impressive side of contemporary art today is that it does not limit itself; it considers everything as thinkable and can be experienced.  This is the main reason why the philosophers such as Benjamin, Foucault, Deleuze or Guattari are so alluring for today's artists. As well as the limits of these philosophers are never narrow, they let the thought perform experimentally by not fully engaging themselves to one ideology.   Categorically there is no right or wrong thought for a Deleuzian or Foucauldian.  There is rather a deficiency or excess, power or weakness of a thought from certain angles.  This is also valid for art as well. Today,categorically it is probably not true to remark an artist as good or bad; rather the good or bad productions of an artist are ought to be mentioned

[1] As an introduction to Leonardo da Vİnci's ideas on art and science see also Paolo Rossi, The Birth of Modern Science, p. 39-42, translated by  Neşenur Domaniç, Literatür Yayınları, İstanbul, 2009.

So, it is ought to start an art education with a mentality transformation. This would mean to accept that the artist makes a fundamentally conceptual  production. Art produces conceptual forms, which can be sensed or sensual forms, which can be perceptible.  These forms will predominate sometimes from sensual, while they will from an intellectual perspective on occasion. But form's intellectual base would be there either way. This indicates us how the philosophical knowledge is important in any case.

​We should definitely use philosophical knowledge (and other types of knowledge) in art education. The usage of this knowledge would also have introduced the person, who is having an art education, ultimately to the general 'ethics' purpose of university education.  According to us the final aim of this ethical purpose is to create individuals, who have internalized individualism, can think and act by him/herself, and do not take place in totalitarian organizations (congregation, fraction or political party), can contribute to the common areas of society in real terms by using his/her power as ethical and aesthetical subjectivity against a society and culture that is organised around charismatic personality cult,  where individualism is tyrannised by congregations, political parties or fractions. In that case, consequently we need to make more effort to actualise an art education, which adjoins different areas of knowledge such as art, philosophy, science, ethics that were separated elaborately from each other by modernity, in our academies.