ART CRITICISM IN EDUCATION.   Term Paper ID:24337 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines definitions, theories, obstacles, techniques, roles of students & teachers, teaching standards, studio instruction, perceptual & conceptual responses.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines definitions, theories, obstacles, techniques, roles of students & teachers, teaching standards, studio instruction, perceptual & conceptual responses. Paper Introduction: Attempts to set and implement national standards for art instruction have met with little success in the United States. The process of developing such standards has, however, produced a number of novel approaches to teaching art. Among the most prominent innovations are the proposed incorporation of the concepts of art criticism, art history, and aesthetics into the arts curriculum. Yet, to take a single example, the idea of introducing art criticism into teaching has met with enormous resistance from entrenched interests, from those who assign a very low value to arts education, and from numerous parties who simply fail to see how such ideas are relevant to the education of children and teenagers. Reactions to the general idea range from outrage over the apparent desire to eliminate studio art classes, to rejection of the idea based on the inadequate arts Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Of course, not every student will become an art critic. In the critical process, theindividual work is examined against the demands of "a vision, an ideal, ofhow things could be" (Wolff and Geahigan 75). Instead, as they fail to recognize, DBAE favors usingall four disciplines in a complementary manner. Stinespring andKennedy argue, for example, that studio teachers involve students "in theverbal and analytical aspects of art by having them see how other artistshave dealt with problems of subject matter, technique, expression, andformal organization," and, they add, "a properly equipped studio" hasreference materials that are available to students (35). If students are interested in a particularwork, they may begin discussion without much prompting. In this approach, these structuresare peculiar to each discipline. This group also assumed that the addition of content and methodsfrom other disciplines, along with the values they embodied, wouldinevitably impede "the natural unfolding of students' psyches" (Anderson,"Attaining" 135). Yet, the assessment ofmerit could only be irrelevant to art practice, art history, and aestheticsif such assessment were understood as an activity that involves only otherpeople's work, which is subjected to strictly contemporary standards, andwhich is considered apart from any philosophical questions about thereasons why a work is made, or how it can mean. Greer has noted, for example,that it has often been "the power and influence of the Getty Center,"rather than the ideas the center supported, that engendered resistance(92). Some, such as deconstructionist deepdescription, are not applicable to the classroom use of art criticalmethods. Even though they operate from an ideal that they value, teachers canalso foster an openness toward art that admits that there may be variousideals that make different demands on the individual's critical processes.It is often difficult for teachers to work in critical terms that differfrom those to which they give the greatest weight. The DBAEapproach proposes that art education will be more effective if the conceptsand activities of various interrelated disciplines--artistic creation, arthistory, art criticism, and aesthetics--are incorporated into instruction.This does not mean that the four disciplines are to be taughtindependently. Implementation of the standards has been verylimited, and demand for the NAEA's "support materials to assist states,districts, and teachers to implement the standards" has been low (Hatfield12). First, art education facilitates students' access to theenormous body of human creative efforts. "Critical Conversations About Art: A Description of Higher-Order Thinking Generated through the Study of Art Criticism." Studies in Art Education 48 (1995): 17 -88.Sullivan, Graeme. Reactions to the DBAE initiative exemplify theresistance to change that inhibits consensus on these questions. "National Art Education Association, National Standards: A View from the Arts Education Associations." Arts Education Policy Review 97.5 (1996): 12-4.Leshnoff, Susan. In the averageAmerican school, in grades ranging from kindergarten through high school (K-12), very little time is devoted exclusively to the study of art.Researchers have found that teachers dedicate an average of only 29 hoursper year exclusively to art instruction. The gradual change from the initial response came about as studentsapplied art critical methods to the works, thereby dealing with preexistingstandards they were not even aware they possessed. Theodore F. Smith. But their uncertaintyengendered a range of responses that modulated from initial disgust andamusement with Hanson's people, to growing comprehension of his intentions,which were "critical of a lifestyle but still compassionate" (Leshnoff 55). Ratherthan relegating art instruction to a minor frill in the educationalprocess, many scholars now claim that, as with other subjects, "the purposeof the study of art is ultimately to acquire lenses or structures that weuse to construe the world" (Greer 93). Dwaine. Essentially, thefailure of understanding inherent in this argument is that oddly, for artteachers, Stinespring and Kennedy fail to give much attention to theimportance of looking and reflection. The idea of employing art critical concepts in education derives froman understanding of art education as a complex, and vital, process. Thus, teacherstended to present art criticism as pre-set "series of discrete steps orstages," through which students would progress in order to describe andanalyze a work of art (Wolff and Geahigan 143). Nor is the art historian's systematic analysis of the relationshipbetween art of the past and present a feature of art criticism. Students who are confronted by a variety of worksthat challenge their preconceptions about the nature of art, can raisetheir own questions about the contexts in which works of art were created.Wolff and Geahigan suggest that these questions are best answered bystudents themselves, as they engage in library research aimed at expandingthe amount of "biographical and contextual knowledge" needed to "enhance[their] ability to find meanings in works of art" (147). Yet, the emphasis is less on rapidimplementation of standards, than on eventual re-education of teachers.Among the NAEA's immediate recommendations, for example, is a rapidincrease in "teacher preparation on content such as aesthetics andcriticism" (Qualley 14). When art works are examined, to thegreatest extent possible, in their own cultural context, it becomes clearthat whatever the similarities and differences in their formal qualities,and the cultures' formal criteria, it is this human context that givesworks meaning and value. Some scholars hold that contextual and historical materials must beavailable to students at the time of their exposure to the works of artthat will be subjected to critical inquiry. "Time, Money, and the New Art Education: A Nationwide Investigation." Studies in Art Education 36 (1995): 84-95.Qualley, Charles A. This is the type of leadership that is needed,and an authoritative voice might help reduce the confusion and conflictsthat have greeted DBAE-style proposals. But, for example,Anderson suggests that this is one of the most valuable functions of artcriticism in cross-cultural contexts. To some extent, deconstructionism's emphasis on the culturalembeddedness of art works rendered formalism less appealing. Though Wolff and Geahigan claim that art educators have "increasinglycome to view the fostering of [art critical] learning as a majorresponsibility," the change is slow in coming (133). Leshnoff describes student reactions to DuaneHanson's life-like sculptures of lower middle-class Americans. . DBAE proponents recognize,however, that it is only the synthesis of the various critical tasks thatcan produce the final critical evaluation of a work's merits. Instead of attempting to adhere to the performanceparadigm, instructors in all the arts need to focus on what students canlearn beyond the skills needed to produce occasional, ephemeralentertainments. The"integrated thinking," which produces "a synthesis of description,interpretation and evaluation," works best when all the relevantinformation (which depends on students' levels of sophistication) isavailable during the process of searching for meanings (Stout, "Critical"181). Assimilation of these methods ofdescribing an art work allows the student to perform exploratory criticismin which she "makes an initial evaluation, cautiously and tentatively," andthen uses descriptive methods as the means of searching for those qualitiesthat "either support or disprove the initial judgment" (Anderson,"Defining" 2 2). Narrowviews of the function of art instruction, and a desire to protect alreadyclaimed turf, join with incomprehension about DBAE ideas to block theirgeneral acceptance. Then, the critic attempts to relatethe art work to the "larger world" in "physical, social, or psychological"terms (Anderson, "Defining" 2 1). But, when oneconsiders that access to human creative endeavors in the visual artsdepends on the ability to think critically in the art domain, it seemsapparent that art educators need to consider discipline-based approaches toart instruction. Art, Ambiguity and Critical Thinking." Art Education Sept. The DBAE approach has insisted upon the integration of studioinstruction into art education from its inception. In general terms,critical thinking "consists of thinking skills that develop from those at abasic informational level to higher level skills such as synthesis andevaluation" (Garoian 34). In a similar fashion, studio instructorsacknowledge that not every student will become an artist. As Feldman noted, it is a fundamental precept of this expandedversion of art education that the art teacher "must assume a role vis-à-visman-made imagery that is analogous to the role of the teacher of readingand literature" (cited in Stinespring and Kennedy 34). The intellectual environment in which she thinks about art isimproved for herself, and for those with whom she may share herdescriptions. Cognitive psychologists have discovered that thedevelopment of these higher order skills tends to be domain-specific. It is, however,instruction in the development and use of these methods, rather than thediscovery of an absolute set of critical standards, that is pursued by arteducators. Since the other arts, such as music, with itsorchestras and bands, or drama, with its staged performances, have madeperformance the mainstay of educational efforts, instructors in the visualarts often feel that their efforts should be analogs of these subjects'approaches. Wolff andGeahigan suggest, for example, a unit in which different painters'depictions of cities be compared during class discussion (267). There are several kinds ofdescription in art criticism. "The National Arts Education Association: Meeting the Challenges of Reform and Change." Arts Education Policy Review 94.3 (1993): 12-17.Smith, Ralph A. Finally, there wereothers who assumed that the primary value of art education lay in itsability to enhance human development. It is physical involvement withthe processes of making art that enables children to learn about art. "Defining and Structuring Art Criticism for Education." Studies in Art Education 34 (1993): 199-2 8.---. As childrenreach grades 4 to 6, they are capable of comprehending whole units ofinstruction geared to basic critical tasks, such as comparison. "Toward a Cross-Cultural Approach to Art Criticism." Studies in Art Education 36 (1995): 198-2 9.Feldman, Edmund Burke. Once art criticism was understood in thisway, scholars began to view the acquisition critical inquiry skills as aprimary function of art education. If astudent has acquired descriptive tools from the study of art, she will beable to perform critical functions in a limited fashion--depending on thelevel of sophistication she develops. Other opponents of discipline-based instruction value the personaldevelopment aspect of studio creativity above other possible functions ofart instruction. Thus, theacquisition of background knowledge moves the students into the evaluativephase of critical inquiry. Some critics of the idea have alsoassumed that criticism is not possible without extensive grounding inpractice, history, and aesthetics. The DBAE approach is not restrictive in terms of teachingmethods, "but rather countenances the legitimacy of many kinds ofinstructional activities," including class discussion, lectures, libraryresearch, and others (Wolff and Geahigan 147). In addition,the poststructuralists' insistence that "meaning is never finished [but] isalways open to re-interpretation," meant that command of the inquiryprocess was essential for anyone who hoped to apprehend contemporary worksthat "stretch traditional interpretive boundaries" (Walker 81). Despite the inherent overlap of the disciplines, therefore, themethods of art criticism are distinct from those of the others.Criticism's methods are the description, analysis, and evaluation of"specific works or types of art" (Wolff and Geahigan 7 ). As studentsengage in this type of search for information, they are engaged in tryingto satisfy questions that the critical process raised during theirreflection on the works of art. The student who is capable of performing this descriptive procedureis then able to perform the various critical functions. The personal reaction of a student who is educatedin the art disciplines will be, therefore, a very different reaction fromthat of a student who has not received such training. The student needs guidance in developing an understanding ofhow works of art operate, and how they can be evaluated in terms ofwhatever ideal the critical viewer holds. Works CitedAnderson, Tom. Inthe process of description, one views the structural relationships of thework of art formally and thematically, in the attempt to perceive itsconceptual unity. Thus, for example,formalist criticism, which lends itself to such step-by-step procedures,became the dominant mode of art critical discourse in American classrooms.Art criticism was rendered into a form of discourse that could be performedby anyone with an outline, and a basic knowledge of the formal elements ofart. It should be clear that "when justification for artseducation is made in terms of increasing competency, understanding, andappreciation," rather than as a break from serious work, the arts will beviewed as "legitimate subjects for instruction" (Greer 98). The description of the work also takes into account those pointsof view that "emphasize whatever it is that the critic holds to beimportant," in the context of her own point of view (Anderson, "Defining"2 1). The notions of excellence that would, they presume, beimposed on students by other art disciplines, would "put them in a creativestraightjacket" (Anderson, "Attaining" 135). It is either ameans of developing self-expression, a relativist, value-neutral arena forcreativity, or a means of achieving psychological growth. "Art Education and the Conception of Images." The Arts, Human Development, and Education. Models of criticism foreducation begin with personal reaction, the "initial, global, intuitive,evaluative response," and proceed to the process of description in whichthe object is described in technical, subject-matter, and formal terms(Anderson, "Defining," 2 5). Yet, though these are primary sources of opposition to DBAE, it mayalso be true that much of the resistance to discipline-based educationderives from the failure to see how teachers can use the methods of thevarious disciplines in the classroom. The initial evaluation of the student, or critic,consists largely of the personal reaction to the work of art. The term "critical thinking"refers, of course, to much more than the acquisition of the criticalmethods applicable to art, to literature, or to history. This,however, is only the view of teachers who are well disposed toward thenotion of art criticism in education. Criticalinquiry reflects the stages of any type of critical thinking in general,and, therefore, directly "involves engendering those metacognitivecapacities associated with higher order thinking" (Sullivan 18). As soon as criticism isconsidered in a broader sense than this, it becomes apparent that artcritical thinking is an important component of the other disciplines aswell. This problem of acquiring knowledge about art and integrating it intothe critical process exemplifies the twofold value of teaching studentsabout art. "Teaching Critical Thinking through Art History in High School." Design for Arts in Education 9 .1 (1988): 34-39.Greer, W. Overall, resistance to DBAE ideas has been strong, and the NAEA, inthe attempt to fill the art education leadership vacuum, is not fullysupportive of the vastly expanded conception of art instruction espoused byFeldman, Greer, and others. Yet, when they list the elements of academic studythat students are trying to avoid, they conspicuously omit "looking," anddo not reformulate the list for an academic, discipline-based art course.There is, of course, a considerable difference between learning by doingand learning by looking. In the case of art criticism, part of the problem stems from theambiguity inherent in the use of the terms "criticism," "describe,""analyze," and others. Their assumption, for example, that artists simply tried torepresent, accurately, what they saw in front of them, will be challengedby comparisons of works that take different approaches to similar subjectmatter. Studio production accounts for56% of this time, and the remainder is allocated among art history, artcriticism (1 %), and aesthetics (Mims and Lankford 9 ). And, othersbelieve that art instruction properly serves only a very limited number ofends. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1997. When the same student, with plenty of studio experience,views works from another period, her ability to understand the role ofhistorical context or style in a work is dependent on a knowledge of arthistory--no matter how much she knows about the methods of painting orsculpture. The complete lack of an ideal standard is noteven a desirable situation in the classroom. Unaware that they were failing to make this important distinction,those who created classroom models of criticism often viewed the disciplineprimarily in terms of the explication of critical statements. As Wolff and Geahigan put it, the difficulty is surmountedwhen the combined roles of perception and conception are understood.Students can perceive and object quickly, but will only begin to thinkabout it, to conceptualize, when they "confront a problematic situation"(Wolff and Geahigan 183). Art criticism is often confused with art history, misinterpretedas a reference to critiques of student art work, or taken to refer to themere expression of likes and dislikes. "Thelast thing young people need is the heavy hand of professional authoritysetting up impossible standards and then condemning all who fail to meetthem" (Wolff and Geahigan 75). In their study, the incorporation of artcritical concepts into the teaching process was, according to self-report,attempted by a number of respondents. This does not mean, of course, thatteachers should not, or will not, "make conscious content choices [thatwill] foster their students' attainment of a given ideal or end-goal"(Anderson, "Attaining" 135). The leading versionof this approach is Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE), developed underthe aegis of the Getty Center for Art Education in California. This refusal to cling to narrowly orthodox versions of an artideal is itself an ideal for most professional art critics. This grouptended to confuse the statements of some critics with the process ofcritical inquiry which was value-neutral in itself--so long as differencesin cultural contexts were taken into account. This view of arteducation implies that the subject's role in the curriculum needs to beexpanded--either with more art-exclusive class time, or more art historyand criticism integrated into other subjects (e.g., history or writinginstruction). "Developments in Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE): From Art Education Toward Arts Education." Studies in Art Education 34 (1993): 91-1 1.Hatfield, Thomas A. They actually advocate art coursesthat are presented as an alternative to "yet another class of reading,listening, writing, and talking about," and can, therefore, "attractstudents seeking more than just another 'academic' subject" (emphasesadded, Stinespring and Kennedy 35). The description approaches the work at a number oflevels, from the most superficial and obvious to the most substantive andsubtle. But, for high-school students,such a procedure may simply overwhelm them. It is thesepractical aspects of art criticism that are relevant to the classroom.They are the methods by which a critic reasons about the merits of a work,and arrives at a critical valuation of its merits. Ideally, students acquire a moresophisticated ability to understand art works, and will learn to "inquirein the manner of discipline experts" (Greer 93). The strongest opposition to DBAE concepts comes from advocates ofstudio instruction. The study of art criticism's methods andactivities enables "the reasoned judgment of artistic merit" (Smith ix). Berkeley: McCutcheon, 1976.Garoian, Charles R. Thecritical tools that are acquired in the study of art are, therefore, noless valuable than those acquired in other disciplines. "Attaining Critical Appreciation Through Art." Studies in Art Education 31 (199 ): 132-4 .---. Answers to this question vary according to the age ofthe students. "Primary School Teachers' Conceptions of Teaching Art Criticism." Studies in Art Education 37 (1996): 16 -69.Mims, Sandra, and E. No matter how many times thecategories of art criticism were employed to put forward doctrinaire views,such rigidity was not an intrinsic part of criticism. Louis Lankford. But, in general, this appears tohave amounted to little more than encouraging students to view their own,and others', work in terms of the level of technical accomplishment. Finally, her ability to appreciate the variousvalues of art works will be enhanced by her ability to see the relationshipamong the work's parts that are the basis of such values. Among the most prominent innovations are theproposed incorporation of the concepts of art criticism, art history, andaesthetics into the arts curriculum. DBAE opponents argue, however, thatdiscipline-based instruction sacrifices valuable learning by doing.Stinespring and Kennedy argue that students do not actually learn what ispresented to them in a book or lecture, they only learn what thatexperience then causes them to do (36). Teachers can also draw on the ambiguity that is inherent in many artworks to avoid the constraints that might be imposed by rigid adherence totheir own standards. Art Education: A Critical Necessity. But, the DBAE position is that the two types oflearning complement each other. "Discipline-Based Art Education Neglects Learning Theory: An Affirmation of Studio Art." Design for Arts in Education 9 .2 (1988): 33-4 .Stout, Candace Jesse. At this point, the information will not be able to affect themeanings that students have discerned in the works, and historicalknowledge has, therefore, little importance. Instead, they are to supply "the justifications, subjectmatter, and methods as well as exemplify attitudes that are relevant to thecultivation of percipience in matters of art" (Smith ix). But, studentswho learn the methods of making art also learn how to "enhance self-expression, develop the 'vocabulary' of symbolization, and become asskilled as possible in nonverbal communication" (Stinespring and Kennedy35). Yetthey also claim that the student may, simultaneously, learn something aboutart history, criticism, and aesthetics. As teachers decide to address students' acquisition of these skills,they must proceed to an analysis of how critical methods are best organizedfor the classroom. This comes to 3hours per year devoted to art criticism, and Mims' and Lankford'scategories were very broad. In acquiring facility in the methods of art criticism, therefore,students are not supposed to become experts in criticism. "Preface." Art Criticism and Education. Art-Based Art Education: Learning That Is Meaningful, Authentic, Critical and Pluralist." Studies in Art Education 35 (1993): 5-21.Walker, Sydney R. But,personal reactions vary in quality or, more accurately, in usefulness forthe process of understanding the work. Art Criticism and Education. 1995: 51-56.Levi, Albert William, and Ralph A. Teachers, she found,tend to view their role in "the learning process of students . The addition of the process of critical inquiry to artinstruction tends, therefore, to facilitate such development. The confusion results from a common tendency toconflate critical inquiry, which is "criticism as a set of activities"performed by critics searching for meanings, with criticism as "a set ofspeech acts," including the critical statements that are the result ofthese acts (Wolff and Geahigan 141). A single aspect of critical method will serve as an example. In the first phases, the goal is to havestudents engage in reflection about the work of art. National leadership from a group that represents a large number ofAmerican art educators might alleviate some of this misdirected concern,thereby allowing teachers and administrators to concentrate on ideas ratherthan on politics. Rather than retreating into the status quo, art educatorsneed to promote standards that truly make art accessible to every student. Acquiring familiarity with the methods of art criticism, or the otherthree art disciplines, seems like a reasonable standard for artinstruction. From junior high school on, students are capable of engaging in allphases of critical inquiry--reaction, description, analysis, andevaluation. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1991.McSorley, Julie. The disciplines are, of course, closely interrelated. "Thinking Strategies for Interpreting Artworks." Studies in Art Education 37 (1996): 8 -91.Wolff, Theodore F., and George Geahigan. It is not, however, the jobof the teacher to set a particular ideal as an immutable standard. The nextlevel of description addresses the formal relationships within the work, interms of composition and style, for example. Yet, to take a single example, theidea of introducing art criticism into teaching has met with enormousresistance from entrenched interests, from those who assign a very lowvalue to arts education, and from numerous parties who simply fail to seehow such ideas are relevant to the education of children and teenagers.Reactions to the general idea range from outrage over the apparent desireto eliminate studio art classes, to rejection of the idea based on theinadequate arts backgrounds of most teachers in elementary and secondaryschools. Ittakes place in particular social, personal, or discipline contexts(Sullivan 18). But, this does notoften happen spontaneously. But, what is replaced is studio instruction thatfunctions without adequate reference to other disciplines. Each painter uses her critical apparatus to make judgments about herown work, art historians often select works for consideration on the basisof either historical or contemporary critical judgments, and aestheticiansare frequently concerned with how an art work can have its effect, i.e., bemeritorious, in some sense. The National Art Education Association (NAEA) hascalled for improvements and standardization in art education. Though, for example, theinterpretation of the visual world is accomplished by the means that aremade available to students of the methods of artistic creation, this doesnot necessarily mean that they also acquire the means peculiar to otherdisciplines. ix-x.Stinespring, John A., and Linda C. Thecapacity for critical thinking is transferable across contexts. Formal qualities, such as"color, shape, line, light, value, texture [and] space," and designprinciples, such as "balance, repetition, rhythm, focal point, contrast,unity [and] variety," are the most common guides in the formal analysis ofart works at this level (Leshnoff 53). She will also possess higher expectations with regard toother descriptions of art works that she encounters in conversations,instructors' comments, art reviews, art historians' assessments, andprofessional criticism. Thus, educators' attempts toformulate a set of instructional activities are often confounded byuncertainty over whether it is the ability to perform exploratory,inquiring critical activities, or skill in elucidating the verification andjustification of critical speech acts, that students need to acquire. The process ofdeveloping such standards has, however, produced a number of novelapproaches to teaching art. In schools, critical description consists of recognizing,deciphering, and conveying a sense of "the literal, illusional, andexpressive properties" of a visual image (Anderson, "Defining" 2 1). As Anderson notes, it iseasy to imagine students wondering how they can possibly disagree with, oradd to, the lucidly stated judgments of art historians ("Defining" 2 5).But, those who consider contextual and historical information relevant onlyduring the later stages of evaluation, tend to leave this step until toolate. Yet, although they limitthe potential of art education so severely, all these positions, taken as agroup, constitute a powerful lobby in favor of maintaining the status quoof studio instruction as the predominant form of art education in theUnited States. But, everystudent should have the opportunity to acquire the tools that make criticalappreciation of art possible. Second, it does so by developingstudents' critical thinking skills. But, at a time when the development ofcritical thinking skills is, once again, becoming an educational priority,those who favor the addition of critical concepts and activities to artinstruction believe that the discipline can advance the acquisition ofthese skills, while providing students with visual literacy that isequivalent to the skills used in deciphering written and mathematicalsymbols. For older students, the problem of integrating contextual andhistorical materials into critical inquiry provides a demonstration of howart criticism is operationalized in the classroom. Another group of critics assumed that art criticism was adiscipline permanently imbued with the "outmoded values" that, theysupposed, accompanied the "older, now outmoded, content and methods" towhich criticism must be committed (Anderson, "Attaining 135). Attempts to set and implement national standards for art instructionhave met with little success in the United States. Neithercategory is irrelevant to art criticism. In any critical approach to art,the viewer must draw on her knowledge of art history, her experience increating art, and her understanding of the nature of art--no matter howlimited or how extensive they may be. Yet, the student who acquires some facility withcritical methods is, at least in a small way, capable of these activities. Inpractice, most critics employ "an open, pragmatic approach toward thediverse and often complex thematic, formal, and technical aspects of art"(Wolff and Geahigan 3 ). Three methods of creating such a problematic arethe comparison of alternative responses, confrontation by controversialworks, and comparing works of art. They treat the DBAE claim that"much cognitive activity in art can come through art production and thatstudio work can develop critical thinking," as a DBAE concession to theirpoint of view (37). . In some ways,of course, this is true. Yet, as Greer points out, if arts instruction is limited toperformance and creation, the occasional "holiday decorations, songs forthe season, and a holiday pageant" can appear to be the desired end of suchinstruction (98). Ed. On the simplest level, the critic describes the obvious subjectmatter (e.g., this is a cow), or the most obvious aspects of the physicalentity itself (e.g., this is oil paint applied to a wood panel). Thestudents' initial reactions were uncertainty in the face of art works thatdid not fit their preconceived notions of art. Qualley argues that the NAEA, while it must continue to "keep itsavenues of dissemination and exposure open to all points of view," alsoneeds to become "more aggressive in setting forward association positions"on important issues (14). But, itwas largely because of the renewed emphasis on critical thinking skills, inall aspects of education, that the activities of critical inquiry weretreated as distinctive tasks that preceded critical speech acts (and neednot even produce such acts). In the case of art criticism, the painter will only be able toevaluate the potential merit of her work when she is able to use artcritical methods of analysis. Rather than benefiting fromthis extended input, studio production would become as rigid, and devotedto orthodox expression, as these critics presumed art criticism and arthistory were. But most teachersfind that observation of the works only goes as far as identification, andthen it stops. In addition, though political and budgetary constraints are theprincipal reasons that national standards have been slow in coming, thefailure of art educators, and the education establishment in general, toagree on the necessity, purposes and goals of art instruction have not madethe process any easier. Yet, these ideas have not been readily adopted on anysignificant scale. There is, therefore, a need toclarify the concept, and convey a sense of its value. A professionalart critic performs a variety of functions that do not necessarily lendthemselves to incorporation into the classroom setting. If Smith'sdefinition of criticism seems narrow, this is merely because he sought tolimit himself to what was unique to criticism. Thisapproach is best described by McSorley, in her study of primary schoolgeneralists' conceptions of teaching art criticism. In finding the answers, students will thenfind themselves in a much improved position vis-à-vis the evaluation ofartists success in meeting goals that they set for themselves. For younger children, classdiscussion is the primary mode in which critical skills are developed.But, since the students' stage of cognitive and perceptual developmentprecludes much reflection, or making connections among the parts of acomplex whole, critical discussion "is best viewed as an adjunct to studiopractice" (Wolff and Geahigan 266). Her ability toperceive art has been heightened by the acquisition of descriptivemethodology, and she is able to conduct a reasoned assessment of the work'squalities. Wolff and George Geahigan. Kennedy. Many teachers are anxious to preserve their hard-won territory, andbelieve that art can only survive as an appealing alternative. Such a profoundlydisinterested approach would reduce art criticism to a mere technicalexercise, in which formalist criticism would have to emerge as an end initself. For these authors, art classes are atime when students are free of the intellectual rigors imposed on them inother subject areas. Therefore, proponents of the discipline-based approach argue thatcontextual and historical information properly belong to the analyticstages--following the formulation of personal meanings that the studentsderive from the work. Yet, studio teacherstend to view it as a replacement for their type of teaching. Then,because art criticism was "defined explicitly in terms of the performanceof certain kinds of speech acts," any attempt to include critical inquiryin the process was constrained within the prevailing "narrow focus" on theproduction of critical statements (Wolff and Geahigan 142). Thus, the student understands that, unless artworks are "examined for their human meanings rather than [just] for theirsurface or design qualities," the viewer will be unable to judge whetherthey possess artistic merit (Anderson, "Toward" 2 3). Only a veryfew adhere to a single vision based on a constraining set of standards. Other teachers, confusing twomeanings of the word "criticism," have even interpreted art criticism ineducation as, "having teachers and students make negative remarks aboutworks of art" (Wolff and Geahigan 134). It is at this point that "background knowledge is an aid tocritical reflection [as] it suggests alternative possibilities forunderstanding works of art" (Wolff and Geahigan 186). Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1997. Anderson's notions about this particular use of cross-cultural study,and Leshnoff's use of artistic ambiguity, are important because theydemonstrate the fact that, on acknowledging that no one standard issufficient, teachers have a number of options for conveying this idea tostudents. Students can be encouraged to talkabout their work, or teachers might have children compare their ownapproaches to subjects with those taken in other works of art. Psychological growth was, they held,facilitated by the value-free arena of creative expression, and this wasthe reason art instruction was included in school curricula in the firstplace. The tools ofthese disciplines are the structures with which one construes the world--but none of them operates entirely on its own. The incorporation of "amethodologically consistent professional model of art criticism" intoteaching is one of the primary means by which students develop these skillsin art courses (Anderson, "Defining" 2 4). Elliot Eisner. In each of these types of opposition to DBAE, its critics holddefinite views on the specific function of art education. Art criticism, on the other hand, is seldomconcerned with "general questions about the nature, meaning, and value ofartistic expression," which is the realm of aesthetics (Wolff and Geahigan7 ). When the last of these methods isselected, teachers employ carefully selected works of art to challengestudents;' prevailing assumption that "what they see and understand in awork of art is the only way that it can be seen and understood" (Wolff andGeahigan 186). But, art critics tend to draw onthe results of these specific functions of aesthetics and art history,rather than performing the functions themselves. The functions ofart criticism are, "to cultivate artistic perception, to make a reasonedassessment of artistic quality, to improve the intellectual environment inwhich we think about art, and to appreciate art's multifarious values"(Levi and Smith 87). A brief survey of responses to the notion of teaching artcritical concepts is followed by a discussion of the means by which theconcepts can be incorporated into practice, and the value of doing so. Theassociation's proposed standards, and its statement on excellence in arteducation, are based on the use of the four disciplines, and they form "aparallel position to DBAE" (Greer 93). Thus, merely by considering thedifference in the level of sophistication that affects the personalreaction of the student and the professional critic, it becomes clear thatstudents are in the process of acquiring these types of knowledge andunderstanding at the same times that they are acquiring skill in deployingart critical methods. None of theseparadigms of art education encompasses the notion of art education as ameans of providing students with the tools they need in order tounderstand, evaluate, or even to describe art. as oneof advocacy rather than as a formulated interaction" (McSorley 165). But, when and howthat knowledge should be acquired and assimilated into the critical processis subject to some debate. At the same time that theyreceive this background information, they are also exposed to the criticalevaluations of those who wrote their textbooks. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

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