The Arts—a dying art

It's not much of a secret that myself and a conservative backbencher wouldn't see much eye-to-eye but I'll be honest, I'm pretty sure his party are driving a bulldozer through something I rather love.

You're really doing it aren't ya? Shitting all over the arts.

The Guardian reads "Last art history A-level axed after Michael Gove cull of 'soft' subjects" placing the very last straw onto the back of the British hopeful art students, shaking as their knees anticipate the incoming dry grass, whispering threats of death and failure to their now fragile hopes.
It's true that you're never going to walk into Cambridge just because you took an Art History A-Level and it'll likely be more useful you choose a language, so you can order various breads in a French bakery or just wow the average pub-punter with a plethora of foreign curse words. But Art History opens that doorway to creative freedom, the first step to saying "I realise this isn't the most sensible choice, but it's my best choice, it's my preferred choice" it truly is the stepping stone to studying something you love.

This action under our current government isn't something that I wouldn't have anticipated but it seems beyond backwards by all accounts—there is no single living toff that doesn't claim to love Manet and there certainly isn't a single stately home drawing room without some ghastly oil landscape that the owners "just had to buy".

The conservative government no longer need Art History because they have direct access to the museums and have sailed through their private education; so why would they continue something they no longer need?
When part of this countries artistic history belonged to your grandfather, an Art History A-Level seems a little redundant, but lets say you're an average citizen of this country and you want to distinguish your Frued's from your Bacon's where are you going to turn? You're a child of a working class family and your grandparents own little more than their council house and crippling arthritis—there is level of disconnect here, one so obviously displayed by the class differences between our government and the people who will miss out on this now defunct education system.

Some may argue that despite this, the arts have been dying for the longest period anyway; with the world moving away from artistic expression and towards technological advances. I disagree, though it may very well soon by biting the cyanid pill of blind disregard.

From 2003 to 2013, the numbers of students studying the arts in higher education rose by 23% in the UK alone, which is a promising signpost that I'm just chatting on a mouthful of horse manure—but before Theresa May can celebrate a victory of outsmarting a 22 year-old chap, she may want to consider this first. Though I haven't the data to support my argument, I'd strong suggest that the price hikes for higher education post-2013 have damaged the attendance of arts courses heavily. Spending £10,000 to follow your passion seemed like a sharp price to pay, but now once you've scrambled over the fallen pillars of formal arts education and lift yourself to the doors of University, handing over £40,000 to follow that same passion is certainly a harder choice to make.

Sure the passionate and driven will succeed, you may argue, but here is also the problem for that. As the Arts die off, the respect for the arts falls two, chained together at terminal velocity groundward bound. As it was in the past, if you were to create something monumental, something bigger than life, you would christen that precious thing with art, the final finesse. Say perhaps you had the strange idea to make a chapel in Italy, the Sistine Chapel perhaps—a tribute to the lord, how on earth could you dress something so majestic? Art. Metres and metres of art.

It doesn't require a strong argument to convey that the arts don't hold the respect that they once did. There isn't a household within this country  that isn't aware of Leonardo Da Vinci, but should you follow in his footsteps and study as he did—you'd be told about how it's a Micky Mouse degree; "What jobs that gonna get ya then?" – "What's so fine about your art then?" – "Illustration eh? Surely there are only so many children's books?"

Not only have we lost the respect, but also the understanding; for every grandfather can complain until the backs of his teeth are covered in vowels and consonants about the economy and it's failings, but should you ever stir the conversation to the creative field in which you aspire; very quickly you'd be met by more confusion than trying to purchase rare cheese at a Spanish auction house with a German translator and a bag full of toenail clippings.

As The Arts steps into it's coffin, looking back at the world that it once used to enhabit it can vaguely make out the few fighting to lift it back up, the modernists pushing ahead reinforced by a gaggle of DIY punks. There is hope that the creative youth may just be fast enough to see it's frail figure before the casket closes; but let's just hope that one of those is the next Michelangelo, so they can sculpt a new, sexier, more modern figure for the higher authorities to kill once again.