Education and Art - PowerPoint to provoke discussion

1. EDUCATION AND ART Part 1b

2. CONTENTS
Domestication of art
Expressivity versus skill
High art versus popular art
Role of the viewer
Social role of art

3. DOMESTICATION OF ART
Art has become part of the educational curriculum
Necessary part of a balanced education
‘The arts are marvellous, and that is how I got into the
field. But such a narrow view, for creativity as a whole, if
it persists today, cannot help us position broader
creative curricula in school’ (Richards 2010b:213)

4. EXPRESSIVITY VERSUS SKILL
Art in the curriculum
Debate – skill and talent or for all?
Importance of creative expressivity for human self-actualisation
would suggest that art should be an
essential subject for every learner regardless of talent
Value of art: expressive and transformative quality rather
than its technique

5. Balance between skill and expression
Teach technical skills in order to facilitate expressivity

6. HIGH ART VERSUS POPULAR
ART
Help critique popular culture
Use popular art as a means of introducing high art
Explore the canon of great work to develop taste and
discrimination

7. ROLE OF VIEWER
Viewer as important
Viewer as participant
Not passive but active
Teach vocabulary and methods of critique
Encourage and discuss issues of neuro-aesthetics (how
the brain sees art)

8. SOCIAL ROLE OF ART
Art is part of a cultural inheritance by which society
defines and describes itself
Mirror to society
Collective symbolic and transformative experience
Economic role in society
Political context of art

9. END