The study of art should focus on both art appreciation and rendering, preferably in different media (chalk, paint, charcoal, etc.) since art is tactile.
Art study in both senses should foster an appreciation of beauty, not merely as a subjective preference, as pretty or pleasant, but as an objective feature of reality that expresses the deep truth of what things are. Students should understand this objective beauty as desirable for its own sake. They should be able to identify its features and think about its effect on the soul, for example, why it is desirable or how it can be profound. Students should be able to explain this for specific works of art (e.g., by being able to say why Cezanne’s apples are essential).
Art studied in both senses should therefore be understood not as amusement or individualistic creativity, but as aiming for a real, objective beauty. It is, though, appropriate to study how changed understandings of what art is (away from this notion) are reflected in works of art themselves and reveal differing cultural attitudes about the nature of the human person and the objectivity of truth, goodness, and beauty.
Therefore, the study of art should complement and be part of history. It should consider how the art of culture provides that culture’s answers to deep human questions and how changes in art reflect changed understandings (e.g., by appreciating the differences between Byzantine iconography and the paintings of Giotto).
The study of art and the practice of rendering should be used to train children to attend closely to detail, study shape and proportion, and, in short, see both art itself and the objects it depicts. The study of art is also training in the art of attention and adoration.
Saint Luke the Evangelist is the patron saint of painters. According to tradition, he was the first icon painter to paint portraits of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ. As one of the earliest known Christian artists, he has been considered the patron saint for painters since the Renaissance era.