Mary Ann Stankiewicz

The Eye is a Nobler Organ: Ruskin and American Art Education.

Although utilitarian justifications for an industrial art education were effective in introducing art into the common school curriculum in 1870, another sort of rationale for art education was present in contemporary writings. This romantic idealist view of art education was a precursor of the conception of art education that expressed itself in schoolroom decoration and picture study at the turn of the century. Although derived from the aesthetic theory of John Ruskin, the English critic, the set of beliefs about art and art education held by men like Charles Eliot Norton, James Jackson Jarves, James Mason Hoppin, and George Fisk Comfort was consistent with the American experience of art. These beliefs emphasized the value of art for the education of morals; close ties between art, nature, and spiritual experience; the importance of art as a cultural study; and the role of imagination and genius in art. Ruskins writings both reflected and helped to create a climate of opinion in which art education came to be considered a kind of moral education.

Capitalizing Art Education: Mapping International Histories

geopolitical entities, nationalism, networks of international influences, topics, or themes each might provide a framework or be combined to shape international history. Following Pearse’s (1997) speculation about the history of Canadian art education, one might use a geographical, political scheme (examining art teaching and learning in turn in European, North and South American, Asian, Australia and Pacific Island, and African countries) or structure a story into historical periods. Such periods might include: (1) a prehistory of informal means of art education up to the Renaissance in European-dominated nations, roughly ca. 100 BCE-ca. 1600, later in the Pacific Rim or tricontinental sites (Young, 2001, 2003)1; (2) artist education and liberal art education for elite amateurs in the context of national formation, ca. 1600–1800; (3) emerging capitalism and middle-class aspirations, ca. 1800–1850 and later; (4) industrial drawing systems, dominated by South Kensington in English-speaking countries and colonies, ca. 1850–1910; (5) ideology of the self-expressive child artist, ca. 1910–1960; (6) turn toward intellectual rigor, ca. 1960 to the present. A third way of framing an international history of art education might be in relation to forming or maintaining national identity, a theme found in a number of written histories (Arano, 1992; Boschloo, 1989; Kraus, 1968; Masuda, 2003; Petrovich-Mwaniki, 1992). A fourth approach might be to map the complex web of influences from Western to the Pacific Rim and tricontinental countries, and, in some cases, back again (Barbosa, 1992; Boughton, 1989; Chalmers, 1985, 1992b; Foster, 1992; Okazaki, 1987, 1991, 1992; Rogers, 1992; van Rheeden, 1992). Freedman and Hernandez identify several waves of European influence on international art education, and, like Efland, position art education as a school subject, making history of art education a subset of curriculum history (Efland, 1990; Freedman & Hernandez, 1998).

A Picture Age: Reproductions in Picture Study.

The picture study movement was, in part, the result of the late-19th-century development of printing processes capable of reproducing works of art. Picture-study advocates favored using these photomechanically produced halftone reproductions which shared the qualities of line and tone found in older intaglio and relief printing processes. This historical description of the reproductions used in picture study illustrates how popularist attitudes toward art and technological changes set the context for a curriculum movement in art education. At the same time, traditional assumptions about appropriate aesthetic qualities for reproductions prevented many art educators from making the best use of new technologies.

Between Technology and Literacy

Art education exists between technology and literacy, that is, between the methods social groups use to equip themselves with material objects, to shape and control their environment, and the mastery of specific technologies used to communicate ideas and values. Technology and literacy also function as metaphors, implied comparisons between the visual arts and realms of contemporary education generally seen as possessing higher status in Western cultures. My intent in this historical essay is to examine both terms in historical contexts grounded in North American art education in order to reveal elements of political and social control in these metaphors. While art-making is a means to technical literacy, responding to visual images has been used as a means to maintain social groups and continue particular cultural traditions. Art education itself can be considered one of many technologies useful in managing a complex society, at the same time as it is perceived as a means of human liberation.

Community/Schools Partnership for the Arts: Collaboration, Politics, and Policy

F Tom 1988 through 1995, arts education in the Sarasota County, Florida, School Distlrict faced a crisis. The position of fine arts coordinator was eliminated. Site-based management contributed to program and budget inequities. Art was not perceived as essential to children’s well-being. An apparent lack of pditical support made it easy for the scbroql board to eliminate from the elementary and middle schools art and music clabses taught by specialists In response to this crisis, the Arts Bducaboq Task Force of the County Arts Council developed an advocacy campaign to restore art and music teachers to scbools. Volunteers, arts educators, and community arts organizations worked together to draft a message about the1 importance of the arts in education, Community art organizations demonstruted their support of curriculum-based art instruction by qualified specialist teachers, explaining that their programs could only supplement, not replace, ychool arts instruction. A new superintendent of schools formed a think tank of school and community representdives, which became the Community/Schools Partnership for the A r t s (C/SIPA). Guided by co-chairs from the school district arid the arts council, C/SPA provided leadership to strengthen arts education. Not only did art and music teachers return to all schools, but their numbers also increased, and some schools added dance and theatre as well. C/SPA developed a booklet and multimedia presentation that informed principals about the value of arts education, described expectations for school art programs based on state and national standards, and provided guidelines for program evaluation. In 1997, C/SPA began brainstorming with representatives of all the groups with a stake in arts education: arts teachers, students, parents, community artists, and arts organizations. The resulting long-range plan for world-class arts education was approved in concept by the school board in April 1999. By avoiding factions and building trust, collaborating to develop a vision of arts education that could be communicated to all, and taking action to solve problems, C/SPA changed public perceptions of art education in Sarasota.’ The story of Sarasota County’s Community/School Partnership for the A r t s illustrates three ways that national standards and related initiatives can serve local policies and politics. First, local groups can cite these national initiatives to affirm the importance of the arts, a kind of argument from authority. Second, the National Standards offer models of broad goals for local arts education programs. Finally, the national Opportunity-to-Learn Standards offer benchmarks against which local conditions can be measured.

Middle Class Desire: Ornament, Industry, and Emulation in 19th-Century Art Education

At the beginning of the 19th century, the arts were ornamental subjects in the education of young ladies and gentlemen. Artistic accomplishments were displayed in pleasing social performances that appeared effortless but demonstrated good taste and idea! values, knowledge, and skill. Art education was one component of a process of vernacular refinement that spread from the wealthy to the middling sort and included the beautification of houses, churches, and eventually school buildings. As an American middle class coalesced in the contexts of industrialization and urbanization, education in the arts was positioned as work for self-improvement not as social display, as industry rather than ornament. This change coincided with the institutionalization of schooling as a technology for class and gender reproduction. Here I examine the emergence of the middle class as a precondition to formal arts education. I will argue that art education affirmed traditional social hierarchies, aligned young people with emerging cultural values, and contributed to the construction of the North American middle class. In the metaphors of ornament and industry, we find art education for social advancement and art education for social control. Both of these ends relied on the dynamics of emulation, a process through which members of the emerging middle class sought to equal or exceed their aristocratic exemplars in genteel refinement while encouraging members of the lower classes to imitate their middle-class behavior.

A Great Art Awakening

When Charles E. Bailey visited the statehouse in February 1883, Secretary of the Commonwealth Henry B. Pierce handed him a circular for the normal art school, saying: ‘You have a boy, I believe, who might be interested in that.’ Henry Turner Bailey (1865–1931) graduated as valedictorian from Scituate High School the previous June. The boy dreamed of becoming a preacher, but the destruction of his father’s shoe business in Boston’s 1872 fire left no money for advanced education.

Thoroughly Sound and Searching Training

Walter S. Goodnough (1852–1919) remembered walking to the Massachusetts Normal Art School (MNAS) in Pemberton Square on opening morning with the director. Goodnough had some previous art training, including classes at Bridgewater State Normal School, and decided to specialize in visual art. As soon as he heard about Smith, Goodnough went to him, attending Smith’s first Summer Art School for Teachers of Drawing. Although Goodnough completed only one credential from the normal art school, Certificate A in 1874, he was recognized at the first ceremony awarding certificates in June 1876.

This Great Industrial Battle

Smith’s comment that he had experienced happier moments than the first commencement may have reflected his growing irritation at criticisms of his methods and results. During Smith’s first years in Massachusetts, Board of Education reports praised his knowledge and experience. Newspapers published summaries of his regular Thursday lectures at the normal art school, even one on preparing for final examinations. By the time Smith wrote his fourth annual state report in late 1875, he complained that his system was not being followed exactly, particularly in evening drawing classes where students were given inappropriate choices.

Alma Mater Par Excellence

In the years before the Great Depression, normal art school alumni no longer constituted a majority among the field’s leaders in the USA. Their network of administrative professionals, however, extended into international art education. As mentioned in Chap. 7, Henry Turner Bailey was a delegate to the 1898 Congress on Public Art in Brussels; discussions on technical instruction during this congress contributed to formation of the Friendly Society of Drawing Teachers, Paris, which organized the first international congress to promote art education and develop closer relationships between art and industry in 1900. Alumnus Charles M. Carter attended this congress. Fred H. Daniels was an official delegate to the 1904 congress in Berne, where James Hall’s exhibition of artwork from the Springfield, Massachusetts, schools received praise. Invited to chair the US delegation for London in 1908, Hall chose fellow alumni Carter of Denver and William Woodward of New Orleans as his executive committee.