Through the Eyes of Art by Isabelle

Through the Eyes of Art by Isabelle - September 2017 Scholarship Essay

I had heard the stories, the legends.

Word on the street was that she was the best - master of all, fail-er of none.

I would be beyond lucky to have her, unquestionably, regardless of how difficult the journey might be.

So I signed up for AP Art History, taught by the distinguished Mrs. Jean Peters.

Mrs. Peters was not only an incredible teacher - with a household name and a career spanning over three decades - but her AP Art History class was an experience, one which I doubt I will ever have the pleasure of repeating again. There are some teachers whose reputation alone serves to fill class rosters to the brim. Peters was undeniably one of those teachers. Her enthusiasm and playful energy was always able to effectively catch and hold the attention of her students’ sleep-deprived minds.

The year I took AP Art History was Peters’ last year teaching the class before she retired, and there were about 60 students total - a class that at any other high school would barely scrape together a sufficient number of students for one class saw enough to pack two classes.

That year, I was one of the mere four juniors who had signed up for the class, the rest being seniors. Since Peters used to be a language arts teacher, she was more than knowledgeable enough to make connections between certain pieces we encountered and topics that the seniors had been studying in their Lit classes at the time. Her ability to create ties traversing several subjects thoroughly impacted the way I viewed different art history pieces as well as my surroundings.

It’s due to this quirky ability of hers that I now see art history in everything. Writing an essay about existentialism seen in Catcher in the Rye? My mind easily supplies Gauguin’s “Where did we come from? What are we? Where are we going?” Come across a test question about the end of Lenin’s rule in Russia? My thoughts immediately sidetrack to Stepanova’s “The Results of the First Five-Year Plan.” See a lonely soup can sitting in the pantry? I have flashbacks to Michel Tuffery’s “Pisupo Lua Afe” (which is a life-sized bull made from flattened tin cans of corned beef). It seems art history is a disease I can’t get rid of. That being said, never have I been more excited to be infected. It has spread and contaminated all parts of my life, including - most prominently - my education.

In regards to my education, I feel that my experience with art history has given me a serious leg up. Having been exposed to countless and very distinctive global outlooks, I am able to take into account many aspects of different cultures and their history to determine how that has affected them in their development over time. This class has allowed me to see world history through the eyes of art - all the cultural, philosophical, mathematical, economic, and religious changes that occurred throughout history can almost always be tracked by corresponding changes in art. It’s because of these changes that I have been able to spot the ways in which everything connects: how art is intertwined with history, how history is intertwined with the future. Everything we learn and encounter and experience are tied together in some way and will so impact us moving forward. Individuals influence other individuals, and some of those individuals will change the world.