How does one define art? What is it that turns a painting into art? How can something so elusive and liquid, yet also enigmatic and magical be taught? Talent is not something that one can learn, although intuitions, curiosity, skepticism and criticism can be honed to provide prospective artists with the tools they need to think, and nuture the self-confidence to grow, both of which are crucial in the development of the student as an artist. The evolution of a creative artist is a complex process whose sources are difficult to analyze and results impossible to predict. Art continuously broadens and crosses borders. It is in a constant state of flux, always willing to adopt new media and methods, such as video art and computer technology, alongside the traditional fields of painting, sculpture and drawing.
The Bezalel Academy’s Blanche & Romie Shapiro Department of Fine Arts provides students with unique knowledge and optimal conditions for personal development by offering strong technical, historical and academic foundations, in addition to meeting some of Israel’s finest working artists and guest masters from abroad. Encounters with a wide variety of perspectives enables each student to develop his or her own independent and critical viewpoint in order to refine the means of expression and formulation most suitable for him or herself.
The artist’s natural living space is the free play of creative and interpretive forces known as “culture.” The learning process in the Department of Fine Arts brings the students, who are required to meet high-level academic standards, to a point where they can stand on their own as independent artists able to examine and critique themselves against the cultural reality beyond the academy.Bezalel’s Department of Fine Arts offers a four-year Bachelor of Fine Arts program, conferring a B.F.A. degree, and a Master’s of Fine Arts program, conferring an M.F.A. degree, as well as advanced studies that enable students to focus on individual work within a community of artists and researchers conducting an ongoing critical and academic dialogue.
The studies for a bachelor's degree in fine arts span a period of four years.
First Year and Second Year
The first year consists of compulsory introductory courses in which students are exposed to a wide range of perspectives and activities in the principal media fields: drawing, painting, sculpture, printing, photography and computers. Students also take part in a conceptual workshop. Second year students assemble their own schedule, made up of both compulsory and optional courses.
Third Year and Fourth Year
Students in the third and fourth years are to a large degree free to determine the nature and content of their studies according to their own personal preferences and can choose from the various optional courses offered in the academy in general, and the department in particular. The third year is devoted primarily to the preparation of a personal assignment under the guidance of at least two supervisors in the framework of the departmental “meeting points”, and will also include a semestrial multi-departmental course, and five optional semestrial courses (one of which can be in a different department). During the course of the first semester and towards the end of the second semester, the third year students will make a presentation to be critiqued in the framework of the “meeting points”.
In the fourth year, in addition to supervised and optional courses, a compulsory course (fourth year forum) is held. Each student prepares one exhibition during the course of the year and a final exhibition at the end of the year, which is presented before a team of external critics. Eligibility for admission to the personal workshop in the third and fourth years is conditional upon continuous utilization of the workshop as an active work space during the entire academic year.
Specialization Year
A graduate of the academy who has completed his studies in the department or in another department in the academy, who is entitled to a degree and who is interested in pursuing a fifth year of studies in the Department of Fine Arts, can submit his candidacy for a specialization year to the department committee. The syllabus for the specialization year is mainly a research study or an original composition under the supervision of at least one lecturer from the department, and submission of a thesis or individual exhibition during the course of the year.
Throughout the year lectures for all the students are held in the department by teachers and lecturers from the department's academic staff and guests from Israel and abroad (in addition to students, wherever possible). Most of the department lecturers present their own works, but lectures on diverse topics are also a possibility. The lectures are generally held on Tuesday afternoons.