Painting, an individual, independent activity, grows out of the artist’s awareness of his environment, and out of his innate capacity to be aware. The artist has some special ability for expressing uniquely, his emotional reaction to life. As a teacher, I try to understand the artist as an individual, developing his expression out of factors both explicable and inexplicable.

This paper is an attempt on my part to understand some of the factors in the development of an artist. They are, the art impulse, the aim of the artist, the tendencies in all creative expression, and the influences of our immediate culture on the artists of today,

The material in this paper is the result of my thinking about a number of articles, essays, and books that I have read on the psychology of art, on art education and esthetics, and on other topics related to my subject.

No solution to a problem is given here. Rather a number of problems have come out of my reading. One that I wish to investigate further is the associative value of subject in painting.