Abstract

Visual arts courses, like all studio courses, include subjects such as painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, drama, and the like, all of which started off as apprenticeship programs, and later developed and integrated other academic subject areas into its knowledge base. However, the gradual development of studio courses over time from apprenticeships to academics has raised doubts about their modus operandi in academic quarters, thereby creating a mistrust of their systematic methods of developing knowledge. This article examines the visual arts as a specialty in the humanities, where the fluidity of human imagination and skills are concretized in painting, drawing, sculpture, and several other subgenres. The article explores the conceptualization of the visual arts, their strengths and weaknesses, as well as the nature of scholarship they project within the academia, especially in the university community. Every subject in the university system develops its knowledge and methodological theories particular to its discipline, and the visual arts as an independent discipline is no exception. Broached from a tripodic position, this article draws its impetus from the assumptions of three artist-scholars and analyzes their thoughts and writings about art in order to establish if the knowledge and scholarship emanating from the visual arts streams in the university community can be explicated and situated. These artist-scholars are James Elkins (b. 1955), Jacob Jari (b. 1961), and Yusuf Grillo (1934). In conclusion, this article proposes that the assessment of the artist within the scholarly space be balanced within the concept of making and writing to ensure a commensurate output in the production of knowledge. PhD certification should enable the artist to reposition the perception of the studio and textual matters, and connect the university with the studio with a view to highlighting the relevance of the studio as a source of knowledge in the university.