Chapter 2 Finding Meaning in Aesthetics
Freedman.
This chapter was a lot more interesting to me than the last one. I have never thought about aesthetics in the way that Freedman said that they can uplift us and make us feel good. but they can also make us aware of our weaknesses, they make us believe what they want us to whether it be stereotypes, or buying objects we don't need (page 24). I think this is very true, and I never thought about advertisements in the form of aesthetics before, for some reason. Under the Rejection of Symbolism section I found a couple points very interesting and quote-worthy. "Art should exist for its own sake, rather than conveying literary or moral ideals." -Whistler. I thought it was funny, and after looking at the painting mentioned in the section, understood it more, that his use of symbolism is quite obvious, and everything seems quite deliberate, from the painting on the wall and the fact that she is holding a handkerchief in her hand. Then in the next section, and I don't know why I didn't know this, perhaps because the public school system only teaches what they want me to know, but I did not know that artists and artists communities were being blacklisted because of communist affiliations. Not really anything significant to our class but I found this interesting.
On page 33 when Freedman said "The problem of curriculum is not form, it is an overreliance on formalism in the classroom." I think this is so true. I went to a high school where it was all just skill building. WHile I believe that those are important steps in moving forward in art, I am surprised that I wasn't bored out of my mind, like many other students. This is why we need meaning making in the art room.
Last, and my favorite part of the whole chapter is on page 40, "..denied the common assumption of many of his contemporaries on art that great works of art have inherent universal qualities that make them great."..."Art is made as a result of something 'occasional, something having its own date and place'" I loved this quote from Dewey. I also loved the discussion on how art has a different affect on everyone, not one person sees the same thing you do when looking at a piece of art.
Eisner Chapter 3&4:
Chapter 3, aptly named, teaching the visual arts, is exactly how it sounds. In a somewhat repetitive nature, Eisner goes into this chapter talking about what affects a students time in the art room. The curriculum, and how that curriculum is taught. A great quote that is found on page 48 could sum up the chapter "Wonderful plans can be scuttled by weak teaching. Conversely, good teaching has no virtue if the content students engage in is without value: if the ideas or skills being taught are not worth teaching, they are not worth teaching well." It is our job as educators to engage the students in what they are learning, while still TEACHING them something. Now, I know it is asking a lot to try to get a student to care about their school work, but putting that meaning into the artwork is what is going to hook them, and keep them engaged. The next part of the chapter is facilitating this learning and scaffolding it to becoming wonderful pieces of art. Materials, instructions, play, and exemplars have to be utilized for the purpose of the art to come out. Guiding them in the beginning of the unit, follow-up, talking with the artist constructively about their work, artist works, all help in this task. Chapter 4, What the arts teach and how it shows, to me can be summed up rather quickly. (Mostly because I feel I am rambling) I nuts and bolts of this chapter is learning to put meaning into the work through imagination and content that is expressive and personally meaningful, interpreting their own, and others' work, criticism, and being able to talk about pieces of art is what needs to taught in a successful art class. How it shows? Through the students' work, of course. A teacher can determine very quickly, even after the first day whether the students are grasping the idea. That is why discussions are needed, why in-progress critiques are useful, and why being able to talk to students on an advanced level about their artwork is so important. You are not going to get meaningful work from students if you cannot have a discussion with them about what they are thinking.
BARRETT
The ENTIRE time I was reading the articles from Barrett I was thinking about the VTS we did with Mary Franco my first semester at Mizzou. This article goes hand in hand with teaching students how to interpret art through VTS. The student are asked those three questions.. What's going on in the piece? What do you see that makes you say that? What else can we find? The article goes along withall of the rules, looking at what in in the piece, not who made it, not the name, not looking at an artist statement. Previously I stated how important it is to remember that everyone interprets art differently and gets a different meaning from it, this is why we need to teach students to not just look at art and say "oh that's pretty" but get to the deeper meaning.