  we live in worlds that we create. perspectives are skewed and realities are distorted. what we think we see is never the truth because of how we have learned to interpret images for our own benefits. two people can look at the same painting and more than likely they will gather completely different information from it - unless they have been "told what to think". which brings me to my issues with art history. as an art major, i spent many years in classes telling me what the artists meant by their choice of strokes and color. i was informed of the right answers and wasn't allowed or taught how to interprety the choice of color on my own. that was a "skill" that i chose to focus on myself. even then, red can mean different things to different people. some see it as anger, some joy and some even passion. there are volumes written on color theory.
different authors and psychologists telling us how we react to varying hues and patterns. some things hold true, very basic information, that is. blue is a very neutral color. everyone can feel comfortable with a blue. however, yellow is said to be a bight color reflecting joy. i am not personally a fan of the color yellow. to me, it brings warning, caution. it's subjective.
so, how can teachers instruct students on what color "means" when it is subjective? who are we to think that we knew what artists were trying to portray, without the information from the artists themselves. colors, shapes and textures aren't as direct as words. saying "i am angry" means i am angry. however, a distorted circle in hues of reds and blues can cause many assorted reactions by those looking at it. the best artists i have known aren't "classicaly trained". they aren't ones whose heads are filled with unimportant, so-called facts.
the best people i have known are ones that have experienced life for themselves instead of relying on the stories of others and images in two dimensions. yes, scholastic study is important, but knowledge isn't contained in merely books. we need to be balanced human beings, intelligent and world-wise. we need to understand the actions of each other and they only way we can do that is to understand the actions of ourselves. if we don't move around we won't understand action. if we don't understand action we are missing a valuable part of the human existance. 
