“Thanks to art, instead of seeing a single world, our own, we see it multiply until we have before us as many worlds as there are artists.†–Marcel Proust
The first answer, the one I gave in class, is that we are reading (English) and writing (English). It just so happens that our subject is art.
We are reading critically, by examining “Ways of Seeing†by Boorstein.
We are writing about our experience with art, what we think of art, and how art has impacted our lives. We are also writing about the arguments concerning art that the essay made.
Another point that I did not think to make in class is that art is all about the details. So is a good essay. In both the creation (looking for details to make the sense clearer) and the presentation of an essay, details matter. In a way, an essay is a piece of art, written art.
“Fine art is that in which the hand, the head and the heart of man go together.†–John Ruskin, English, 1819 – 1900