Seeking lucidity : a reimaging of the visual arts curriculum
Abstract
The impact of modernism and postmodernism on contemporary pedagogy is
broad and deep. Kant's philosophy provides the framework for a reality based on
rationalization of facts and emotions while Nietzsche's influence reduces human behavior
to the search for authenticity and power.
Contemporary art inspired by these thinkers has influenced the secondary art
classroom by providing a historical foundation built on aesthetic, emotional expression,
fact-based scientistic reasoning, personal identity, and cultural provocation.
Unfortunately, the promise to increase the development of critical thinking and
creativity has gone largely unkept, hindered by the inherent theoretical implications
associated with the pursuit of facts, feelings, power, and empathy. At best, modernism
and postmodernism promote the exploration of individually-created realities which
renders morality and thought relative and thus empty. At worst, it justifies arrogant sociocultural
themes via a provocative pursuit of identity based on assertions of authenticity
and power. !
Proposed is a reimagining of modern pedagogy in the secondary art education
classroom. Central to that task is the work of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, curator of the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, whose work remains vitally important to the field of art
and art history. Coomaraswamy's scholarship advocates that for art to be educational,
study must include an exploration of the theories behind the artist's work "in order to
understand the things they made by art." Additionally, students must be free to critically
analyze those theories to determine their validity, a necessary component of
Coomaraswamy's overarching theory that the education of art must challenge a student's
worldview in order to determine whether different views of reality may be, in fact, truer
than their own. !!!! !
Subject
Art - Study and teaching - Secondary
Art - Curricula
Education - Secondary - Curricula
Permanent Link
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/69528Description
A Thesis Submitted In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of
Master of Science-Educational Leadership