The teaching of drawing and training for work at the beginning of the Argentine national education system

Abstract

In this article we analyze the origins of artistic education in Argentina’s national education system, at the end of the nineteenth century. Contrary to the traditional view that perceived its contents as limited and instrumentals, with no points in common with the art making, we sustain another reading of that moment of genesis. If we investigate the actions carried out and the debates that circulated at that time about art in elementary instruction, a wealth emerges that complicates that restricted perception. Connections also arise with the project of contemporary artists, committed to the formation of an art audience and the education of artistic taste, among other interests. In this direction, the first part carries out a historiographic overview of public education, the prevailing pedagogical model, the currents on child education and the debates on utilitarianism and humanism in order to analyze the insertion of the drawing in the educational system at the end of the century. In a second section we study the initial objectives of the subject, its programs and its connection with the formation of the popular sectors from its derivation to industrial applications. In following sections, we consider the position of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento in tension with the applied orientation of the drawing.