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The problem is that nobody can really define talent. Unlike technique, It's impossible to quantify. We may intuitively know when we encounter the work of someone with talent but we can't pin down what it is, nor fully trust our intuition. As such I tend to agree with This is Not Here's position only because it strikes me as being the most workable. The concept of the artist-as-creator is a relatively modern one, that does away with a massive and far longer lasting tradition based solely on technique. As such, the great problem with so much of contemporary art education is its emphasis on ideas. It prepares people for becoming artists on a conceptual level without ever providing them with the skills necessary to express those ideas in a way that does them justice. On its own, hard work won't turn you into a Caravaggio, or a Hendrix, or a Joyce, or a Godard, but we don't really understand what they were anyway, at least not in any kind of identifiable sense.
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