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Eyes on Art Rationale
Several main areas were considered in developing Eyes on Art. Each
is discussed below:
Using the Art Resources on the Web
With the advent of the World Wide Web, students have access to the
world's art treasures as they never have before. Some of the great
museums have online Web sites that feature works from their
collections and exhibitions. Some particularly good sites are The Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, The
Thinker Imagebase from The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the virtual museum Mark Harden's Artchive (caution- Artchive contains popups and ads).
The only drawback to most of these sites is that they do not offer
the activities or projects that teachers typically use (and learners
need) as a basis for arts education. One exception is the ArtsEdNet by The Getty
Center for Education in the Arts which devotes quite a bit of
expertise to providing educators with online activities and projects.
Thus, Rationale #1 for Eyes on Art: to make educational use
of the wealth of Internet resources.
Choosing Instructional Strategies
The California State Visual and Performing Arts
Framework identifies four components to an effective arts
curriculum:
- Component One:
Aesthetic Perception - Developing an Aesthetic Awareness
- Component Two:
Creative Expression - Artistic Knowledge and Skills
- Component Three:
Visual Arts Heritage - Historical and Cultural
- Component Four:
Aesthetic Valuing - Analysis, Interpretation and Judgment
Thus, Rationale #2 for Eyes on Art: given the goal of
creating an instructional Web site for the visual arts, the above components would be included whenever possible.
Using Arts Education to Promote Higher Level Cognition
Research and writing by such people as David Perkins and Howard
Gardner suggests that looking carefully at art is both a fulfilling
activity in itself as well as a superior way to develop more expert
thinking strategies. Their work has informed many of the activities
in Eyes on Art. The best article I've found on this idea of using
viewing art to promote thinking is Art
and the Art of Intelligence from David Perkins' The
Intelligent Eye: Learning to Think by Looking at Art (David N.
Perkins, The Getty Center for Education in the Arts, 1994).
Thus, Rationale #3 for Eyes on Art: Specific activities will
challenge higher level cognition whenever appropriate.
Viewing Art: an Aesthetic Joy
Even though the analytic/synthetic approach and higher-level
cognition are promoted in Eyes on Art, it must be remembered by
teachers using the Web site that viewing art can be an inherently
pleasurable activity and that we should not risk missing an
opportunity to share one of life's joys. As stated in "The Art of
Seeing," by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly & Rick E. Robinson (The J.
Paul Getty Trust and the Getty Center for Education in the Arts,
1990),
The rewards of "seeing" art are "feelings of personal
wholeness, a sense of discovery, and a sense of human connectedness"
(p. 178).
Thus, Rationale #4 for Eyes on Art: An emphasis on the affective, aesthetic nature of viewing art must infuse each activity. |
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First posted 1995.
Last modified
Thursday December 04, 2008
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