Ralph A. Smith

The sense of art : a study in aesthetic education

Introduction: Building a Sense of Art 1. Art in Cultural Context 2. Art in Philosophical Context 3. Art in Educational Context - The Concept of Aesthetic Criticism 4. Examples of Aesthetic Skills 5. Teaching Aesthetic Skills 6. Toward an Artworld Curriculum 7. Issues: The Two Cultures and Policy 8. Issues: Ideology and Postmodernism

Teaching Aesthetic Criticism in the Schools

has resulted in considerable downgrading of the value of critical analysis. Indeed it seems we are well into a cultural trend that heaps ridicule on intellectual integrity and professional judgment of practically any kind.l The revolt against authority is especially intense in the aesthetic domain, and since the practice of responsible art criticism is obviously tied to reflective judgment, it will be necessary to get some bearings on the aim of criticism in an open society before suggesting a concept of art criticism that is teachable in the schools.

The Changing Image of Art Education: Theoretical Antecedents of Discipline-Based Art Education.

Although there are precedents in the literature, 1 the belief that art can be taught as a school subject with distinctive goals, content, and methods is one that has been systematically articulated by a number of writers only over the past three decades. The result of these efforts has been the transformation of an essentially psychological conception of art education, that is, one that values more highly the development of creative dispositions than it does the mastery of subject matter (Lowenfeld, 1957),2 into one that emphasizes the importance of content and an educated understanding of art itself. Such understanding is grounded in a number of disciplines, namely, the disciplines of artistic creation, the history of art, art criticism, and aesthetics (Greer, 1984). During the same period the National Art Education Association was experiencing professional maturity, one sign of which was the publication of its research journal, Studies in Art Education, in 1959.

Justifying Aesthetic Education.

A defensible policy proposal for the inclusion of aesthetic education in the curriculum should supply satisfactory answers to two basic sets of questions: (1) What is the function of aesthetic education in the life of the individual and society? Is it distinctive and significant? And (2) Is it necessary that the content and procedures distinctive of aesthetic education be acquired through formal schooling? Is it possible in other words to demonstrate or argue that the skills, concepts, attitudes, and dispositions involved cannot be acquired through the informal processes of acculturation? Many subjects taught in schools today have little difficulty qualifying on the first count. It is superfluous to plead the need for teaching English, mathematics, and the sciences. The issues are not nearly so simple, however, in the case of aesthetic education which, as here characterized, amounts to instruction in ways of understanding works of art. What do both the individual and society stand to gain? What is the study of works of art good for? Since schooling is a practical enterprise dependent on various sources for financial support to sustain and advance its activities, such questions, however much one would like to avoid them, cannot be burked. To ask for a positive function of art locates analysis in the most prob-

How We Understand Art: A Cognitive Development Account of Aesthetic Experience

The seminal theory of the development of our understanding of the visual arts presented in this book has much in common with the Piagetian theory of cognitive development and the Kohlbergian theory of moral development, but the author considers the differences between meaning in art and in science.

The New Pluralism and Discipline-Based Art Education

I s ikiere an ideal curriculum for v iswl arts education, one that woold balance tradition and multiciilturalism? Harold Best’s belief that such is possible iri music education (see preceding article) reminded me of a similar claim I o w e made [hat featured an interpretatiiw o f discipline-based art education (DBAE). At the time, DBAE was an apprwioh to art education associated with the tklucational efforts of the Getty Center f i ,w Education in the Arts, an operating entity of the J . Paul Getty Trust.’ Ah4 the result of a change in leadership aiid reorganization in the late 1990s i i ~ Ihe (jetty, the Center for Education i r i the Arts was renamed the Getty lnslitute for Education in the Arts, and shortly thereafter was discontinued. Since h m . the terminology of DBAE has becoi:nr less evident in the writings of art edircators, but not the acceptance of the hiihic idea. Indeed, the influence of DBAE has been spread far and wide, in part h~cause its basic assumptions have beeii current i n the field of art education for’ wnie time. An impression of the continuing interest generated by the Getty’s elforts to improve the teaching of art caii be gained from a perusal of a two-year *itudv of DBAE-related literature puhli,\hed between 1982 and 1998.? But tei-minology is less important than thc [ask of coming to grips with new challenges. In the present article, I attempt a synthesis of the best in traditional thinking about art education, including DBAE, and the new demands of multiculturalism. Some might consider it too idealistic or even utopian. Yet it conveys a view of what is involved in acquiring a well-developed sense of art within a general education program. To the charge of impracticability, I retort, Never underestimate the power of ideals. Before discussing a plan, however, some background and history are in order.

Justifying Aesthetic Education: Getting It Right

A major contribution of Bennett Reimers writing is his having gotten right the aesthetic justification question. At a time when a number of theorists of art education are either denying the existence of aesthetic experience or downplaying its significance, it is reassuring to read the work of one who understands what makes the experience of art special: its constituting a distinctive kind of cognition in which content, function, and feeling play important roles. For Reimer, then, the central purpose of aesthetic education is the development of the capacity for aesthetic knowing. In discussing Reimers epistemology I will follow his analysis in the NSSE yearbook The Arts, Education, and Aesthetic Knowing,1 after which I will indicate how some recent aesthetic theorizing reinforces his interpretation.

An Excellence Curriculum for Arts Education

Returning to Morningside Heights to talk about the arts and aesthetic education at Columbias symposium on arts curricula was a special pleasure for me. It was after all in the early and late fifties-that so-called quiet decade-that my interest in the arts was stimulated by studies on both sides of West 120th Street and by frequent journeys into the artworld of Manhattan. I recall that Friday afternoons were the time reserved for visiting galleries and museums. Rosenbergs on East 79th Street was the usual starting point, after which I wended my way downtown making sure that I hit the Sidney Janis and Betty Parsons galleries before ending up at the Museum of Modern Art, which was simply the most exciting place of all for one reared in an industrial valley of western Pennsylvania. Weekends were reserved for the Met, the Frick, the then new Guggenheim, and the Cloisters. The decade of the fifties, in other words, is deeply engraved in my memory and thinking. And for good reasons. Recall that the fifties were a time when modernism was in bloom and New York City was becoming the center of the international artworld. Everywhere cultural studies were expanding and enjoying a new popularity, especially as the decade wore on. At Columbia, Meyer Schapiro was exciting graduate students with his perceptions of Postimpressionist art, Howard Davis was revealing to appreciative undergraduates the excellences of Northern and Italian Renaissance painting, and Lionel Trilling was remarking the capacity of literature

Introduction: Visual Culture Studies, Part Two

he articles in this issue of Arts Education Policy Review on visual culture studies and arts education continue the critical examination that the journal has been conducting regarding the pervasive role of visual images in contemporary society. There are those who believe that because of these visual influences, arts education, especially visual art education, must radically alter its course. Contributors to the June/July issue of Arts Education Policy Review discussed the origins and goals of the approach and raised questions about the broad range of visual phenomena that it encompasses, its preferred methods of study, and the politics of its advocates. Also discussed was the disposition of the proponents of visual cultural studies (VCS) to favor a sharp break with past traditions of arts education and to feature the study of the ordinary and, occasionally, the ugly at the expense of the extraordinary and beautiful. Similar issues and concerns are discussed by contributors to this issue. They include an interdisciplinary array of thinkers from varied disciplines. Because proponents of VCS champion interdisciplinarity, the editors of Arts Education Policy Review thought it apt to organize a review of the ideas of the proponents of VCS by their peers. An English professor with a broad knowledge of theory who is also at present at the National Endowment for the Arts, Mark Bauerlein provides a probing analysis and critique of VCS, focusing first on how ideas are borrowed from their original sources and put to use in different contexts where they are made to serve different purposes. The result, Bauerlein says, is usually distortion and oversimplification of the original idea, and, in this respect, Bauerlein finds the proponents of VCS culpable. He also questions the cogency of their ideas, the qualifications of arts teachers to discuss complex social and political issues, and the arts education classroom as an appropriate place for political action. He finds, as others do, that it is doubtful that the products of popular culture are just as rich in their composition and significance as works of high art lineage. Such beliefs, Bauerlein says, are “as ephemeral as the works preferred.” John Richardson, both an artist and a professor, brings to the discussion a variegated background in the creative arts and the humanities, as well as experience in the commercial world of art and design. The breadth of his interest encompasses both high and popular culture as well as involvement in the culture wars of recent decades. It is, therefore, not surprising that he recognizes in the visual culture venture what he calls “a conflict between transfigured factions surviving from the 1960s.” He observes that the ideology of the contemporary New Left, which is seriously committed to postmodernism and political correctness, is evident in the language and deconstructive techniques of proponents of VCS in art education. He sees its ideology as expressive of a world view that has little respect for Western economic and cultural institutions. Although Richardson concludes that there is some value in some of the premises of VCS, he thinks that its proponents often lack common sense when it comes to pedagogy. He also questions their rejection of hierarchies of value— for example, their belief that the fine arts are a mere affectation of privileged classes and their judgment that there is something inherently sinister in Western values and institutions. In her discussion of VCS, philosophy professor Anita Silvers reminds us that visual meanings and values are a dimension of all societies. Nevertheless, she concedes that the pervasiveness of visual imagery in modern society deserves the attention of art educators. She has reservations, however, about some of the stated goals and methods of proponents of VCS. In setting out these reservations, she contrasts the characteristic stance and pedagogy of VCS to the stance and pedagogy of mainstream aesthetics and art education.

Rembrandt, Educational Standards, and Policy

The author describes an ongoing National Endowment for the Humanities project that is devoted to building multiple competences by studying Rembrandt and seventeenthcentury Dutch culture. Its uniqueness consists in its designing of a state-of-the-art Web site that interrelates the humanities, social studies, visual arts, and technology. A major goal of the projects pedagogy is the development of standards-based instructional strategies that are informed by the national standards of the social studies and visual arts. Informing this effort is a recollection of the national standards movement and an assessment of its strengths and limitations. Policy relevance consists in avoiding the miscues of the standards movement.