Arts education and creativity enhancement in young children in Hong Kong

The present study aimed at assessing Hong Kong young children’s gains in creativity and their teachers’ application of arts education after a one-year artists-teachers collaborative arts education project that involves various art forms (i.e. drama, visual arts and integrated). Participants included 790 young children, 217 parents and 65 teachers in seven kindergartens and nurseries. Measures included the Test for Creative Thinking–Drawing Production, Story-Telling Test (STT), the subscales of parent-rated creativity, communication and motivational characteristics, and the adapted Scale of Application of Arts in the Classroom. Among the three art forms, children in the visual arts group demonstrated highest gains in verbal creativity as evaluated by the STT. Based on parents’ report, there were significant differences in children’s communication characteristics across the three art forms. Significant differences across art forms were also found in teachers’ confidence in teaching arts to 3–4?years old and their perception of arts for arts sake. Both teachers and students take advantage of the professional and artistic input and guidance of practising artists in arts appreciation and production. Implications and limitations were discussed.     

浅论叶圣陶美术序跋中的美育思想

叶圣陶先生虽不从事美术专业研究,但他从美育的研究需要出发关心所处时代的美术发展,有不少精辟的美术论述,主要集中在为当代美术家所作的序跋中,这些美育思想在今天仍有指导意义.     

Social Expectations and Workplace Challenges: Teaching Artists in Korean Schools

Social interest in art integration for curriculum enrichment and innovation, particularly at the turn of the century, has promoted extensive institutional partnerships between cultural organisations and public schools in many countries. Stimulated by social demands for innovative educational practices, these institutional partnerships have increased the numbers of teaching artists sent to schools. These artists are expected to contribute to the development of students’ creative imaginations by providing learning opportunities beyond conventional classroom practices. However, the extent to which teaching artists are able to develop creatively within their socially expected roles remains unclear, especially considering the marginal status of the arts in formal education settings. A recent survey‐ and interview‐based study conducted by the present author in South Korea demonstrated that teaching artists in schools find the structured educational system often limits the scope of their classroom practice. This article reviews the teaching artists’ concerns and needs identified in the study context and discusses ways to support their professional development and expand the roles of institutions in improving the quality of their teaching practice. The discussion also examines historical and socio‐political factors that have influenced the persisting challenges of structural issues inherited in the Teaching Artists in Schools Program in South Korea to provide suggestions for more sustainable and instructive collaborations.     

Moving Fiercely Linear Preservice Teachers into the Joys of Integrating Art in the Classroom: An Artist Residency in a University Early Childhood and Special Education Program

How can artist residencies for preservice teachers plant seeds for future classrooms? Teacher educators and a teaching artist describe a two-tiered residency in an early childhood and special education program that transformed preservice teachers' attitudes toward visual art and arts integration. Findings are based on teaching artist and instructor reflections as well as a qualitative analysis of student journal entries. Preservice teachers who had no prior art training and were resistant toward abstract painting began to enjoy it and appreciate the value of art for children's learning. They came to recognize visual art as a tool to support social development and children with special needs, understood the importance of process in children's art experiences, and considered ways to integrate art throughout the curriculum. We urge teacher educators and teaching artists to incorporate artist residencies into teacher education programs to prepare future teachers to integrate the arts into the classrooms of tomorrow.     

破碎与融合——论后现代艺术对现代艺术的传承与创造

现代艺术和后现代艺术家的艺术作品有着密不可分的关联,现代艺术的很多样式和创作方法,思维观念对后现代艺术家的创作产生了极积而深远的影响。因此,后现代艺术无论是创作方法和艺术样式多是在现代艺术的基础上传承和创造而来的。     

Enhancing Early Childhood Development Through Arts Integration in Economically Disadvantaged Learning Environments

Education in the arts continues to struggle for inclusion in PreK-12 classrooms as public schools face increasing challenges from high stakes testing, Common Core politics, and endless budget cuts. Advocates point to the growing body of research linking art education to academic achievement as justification for arts’ continued inclusion in the curriculum. In its 2005 report, the National Association of State Boards of Education highlighted this research trend and called for stronger emphasis on arts in educational curricula (Meyer in Arts Educ Policy Rev 106(3):35–40, 2005). Yet despite the evidence, school districts across the nation have been slow to include more arts programming within the classroom. This study, however, examines one school district that did. In a collaborative project between a large urban school district and a local arts and science council, an arts integration program called Wolf Trap was implemented in economically disadvantaged pre-Kindergarten and first-grade classrooms at selected schools across the district. Objectives of the program were to: (a) improve school readiness skills among participants; (b) increase capacity of classroom teachers to learn and implement effective arts-based teaching strategies; and (c) increase the capacity of teaching artists to acquire and model effective arts-based teaching strategies. This study evaluates the effectiveness of the program using data from the teaching artists, classroom teachers, and the external evaluators. We discuss the program in detail and explain the methodology used in our evaluation. Finally, we present evidence that indicates the program’s success and we offer recommendations for program stakeholders.     

Learning about ourselves from others: transformation of artists’ identities through community-based arts practice

Community-based arts projects can act as powerful learning opportunities in a variety of lifelong and life wide contexts. Many of these projects involve artists, who usually undertake a leading role to ensure that some type of transformation takes place for those involved. The impact on the leaders—in this case the artists—is difficult to identify, even if they have been involved in several community-based arts projects. In this paper I provide insights drawn from my doctoral thesis. There I explored the cumulative impact on artists who work on community-based arts projects, what transformations and learning occurred for them as a result of working on these projects, and how those experiences contributed to their identities. My study involved hermeneutic phenomenological/narrative research approaches based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with 12 visual artists. Data were analysed using a recursive and spiralling process and were subsequently presented thematically as a neonarrative. The findings discussed in this article relate to the artists’ attempts at reconciling aspects of their individual, social and cultural identities by challenging their own as well as the community’s perceptions of artists. The cumulative effect of being involved in community-based arts practice also provided the artists with ongoing identity capital in that they came to realize that they learnt about themselves by connecting with others. The findings contribute to the emerging debate that challenges the narrow view of measuring the value of community-based art projects based on instrumental and public worth, and invites exploration of the private and intrinsic impact on individuals.     

Room 13: The Movement and International Network

Room 13 is a global uprising of creative and entrepreneurial children who are responsible for a growing international network of student‐organised art studios. Each Room 13 studio facilitates the work of young artists alongside a professional adult artist in residence, providing an exchange of ideas, skills and experience across the ages. The result is an ongoing collaboration between adults and young people and a thriving culture of philosophical enquiry driven by a motivation to think and to learn. My own experience with Room 13 spans from that of the student, to adult artist and practitioner. Working under the direction of subsequent student‐management teams, I have been fortunate to be involved in the process by which Room 13 has gone on to establish an international network of student‐run art studios, serving an expanding global community of young artists. The emerging global movement surrounding these studios calls for a serious revaluation of what art is – and who is qualified to make it. Room 13 not only augments the case for the work of young artists, but presents a challenge to the current systems for art education. As the quality of formal arts education is eroded by a universal need to standardise educational experiences, the training that Room 13 provides motivates individuals and develops their creativity in a way that outstrips anything that schools, or even art colleges, can currently offer.     

明清时期西方文化艺术对中国美术的冲击和影响

明末清初,西方文化艺术如潮水般涌来,给中国传统美术带来了强烈的冲击。对西方新奇美术种类和绘画的写实手法,中国美术界的反应在前后期表现出明显的差异。如何面对外来文化的冲击和影响,两个时期都存在着值得思考的问题。西方美术的涌入,不仅丰富了中国美术的种类和样式,拓宽了中国画家的眼界和技法,而且影响了中国画的发展进程。但从不同文明相互交流的角度看,这未尝不是一件有意义的事情。     

Effects of Art Education in Secondary Schools on Cultural Participation in Later Life

This paper reports on the effects of art education in secondary schools on the cultural participation of Dutch students 10–20 years after leaving school. We draw our conclusion from a sample survey among 1034 students from 31 schools, half of whom took art as a subject of examination. Art examination subjects were more often chosen by students who were already active in the arts, come from culturally active families, and who more often chose languages and other humanities in their examination package. However, in spite of their affiliation with art prior to choosing an examination package, training in the arts during secondary school was found to add to their participation in cultural activities ten to twenty years later. The effects are restricted to the same art discipline as the art lessons attended, and apply to both receptive [enjoying art of artists] and productive [producing art] cultural participation.     

Teacher as Conceptual Artist

Teachers in arts education frequently struggle with their professional identity. When asked, arts teachers often answer that they believe that their main responsibility is education at the expense of understanding themselves as artists. The Mexican‐American artist and teacher Jorge Lucero questions whether an occupation as teacher necessarily impedes a creative practice. The finding that both progressive pedagogy and conceptual art share certain characteristics forms the basis for his concept of ‘teacher as conceptual artist’. In short, Lucero proposes that a teacher’s practice, in and beyond the classroom, simultaneously can be his or her creative practice. This qualitative intervention study explored whether or not the concept of teacher as conceptual artist holds the possibility to narrow down the gap between teacher and artist identities. The intervention consisted of a three‐day project led by Lucero in which nine arts teacher students were familiarised with modes of operation as a conceptual artist. In the three following months, these students implemented lessons in primary and secondary education based on those modes. Prior to the project, ‘elicitation‐interviews’ were used to explore how students perceived their professional identity and at the end of project semi‐structured interviews were conducted. The findings suggest that through the modes of operation as a conceptual artist, students who mainly identified as an artist were able to integrate a teacher identity in their artist identity, but the modes of operation also gave students who withheld their artist identity from the classroom an opportunity to live their artist identity in the classroom.     

Encounters of the Traditional Kind: Reflections on the In‐Service Teacher Training of Traditional Filipino Arts

This article presents the second segment of a qualitative study on the integration of traditional arts in tertiary level art and design education in the Philippines. It is focused on the experience of artist‐teachers as participants in an in‐service teacher training programme that aimed to prepare the teachers for the trial integration of traditional Filipino arts in art and design courses. Taking the view of the participants, journals written by the artist‐teachers were sourced for their reflections about their encounter with traditional Filipino artists during field visits. This phase of the study takes the form of action research as it involves the participants in gathering data that could inform the methods and content of the learning of traditional Filipino arts in the schools of art and design. The findings reveal that artist‐teachers acknowledge the traditional artist as a valuable source of traditional knowledge and expertise. They also recognise their own essential role in the transmission of learning between the traditional artists and the students. The prerequisites of the course take the artist‐teachers beyond teaching in the classroom and extend their tasks to research.     

ZBrush艺术家及其图形呈现

运用图形软件进行图形创作,开辟了新的视觉艺术空间,视觉艺术家运用图形软件ZB rush进行艺术创作是一个新的艺术现象。本文对ZB rush图形软件特点的分析,从不同的视角解读ZB rush艺术家创作的图形作品,解析视觉艺术家在运用图形软件创作所形成新的视觉艺术表现语言,研究图形软件功能以及图形艺术创作规律,或许对视觉艺术家从事图形艺术创作有着一定的启示。     

从"格式塔"看装饰艺术与艺术的关系

19世纪以前，装饰艺术与艺术之间并没有一条泾渭分明的界限。历史上许多著名画家包括拉斐尔和弗拉戈纳尔在内，都从事过装饰艺术的创作。在传统观念里，装饰艺术不过是指以手工制作的或生产数量有限的奢侈品。1791年西方才第一次使用“装饰”一词。19世纪的装饰艺术常用来泛指机器生产的小型艺术品和用于物品表面的艺术装饰，以后又被视为廉价产品生产的一个要素。现在，装饰艺术家既设计大批量的产品，也用手工方式制作个别的产品。可以说，只有到19世纪末20世纪初，装饰艺术与艺术的区分才明朗化。但富有戏剧性的是，近几十年来，许多艺术家通过装饰艺术作品参与当代艺术问题的讨论，结果使装饰艺术与艺术的界限又变得难以明确划分了。文章应用格式塔心理学来讨论二者的关系。     

Making a Difference? An Evaluation of Professional Knowledge and Pedagogy in Art and ICT

The paper presents a research perspective on a Secondary school‐based project,, Art on the Net, which explored the interaction between practising artists, students and teachers using digital technologies in the visual and performance arts in school settings. The study illustrated the role that art education plays not only in providing an authentic context for the use of digital technologies, but also in offering insights into conceptualising the nature of ICT capability. The analysis for this paper highlights key themes arising for participants engaged in such intervention projects and illustrates the interaction between professional knowledge and pedagogy in Art and ICT.     

Aesthetic Modernism in the Post‐Colony: The Making of a National College of Art in Pakistan (1950–1960s)

With the formation of Pakistan as a modern Islamic republic in 1947, the institutions of art and design education were transformed under the sway of modernization theories of development. A conceptual and physical infrastructure was put in place to modify existing institutions and to create new ones for encouraging modern art and artists in the country. The 1950s saw major developments taking place in the former Mayo School of Art which was upgraded to the National College of Arts to train designers, artists and architects to meet the requirements of a new nation. The distinction between arts and crafts formed the discourse through which the changes in art education were articulated. The process of change unleashed in art education is emblematic of the changes taking place in the other sectors of economy and culture. The Bauhaus influence which formed the initial impulse to bring artists and craftsmen in the service of national industry gave way to the competing fine art movements in painting resulting in abandoning the synthesis of arts and crafts envisaged in the earlier approaches to art education.     

传统文化在现代设计中的延伸

通过研究现代艺术设计与传统文化之间关系,发现外国的学者对我们自己常常忽略的传统文化与艺术如此流连忘返……艺术是需要不断创新的,但是,我们也决不能因为要创新,而对传统文化一概加以否定。创新,对传统文化与艺术而言,是扬弃,不是否定!如果割裂了传统文化与现代艺术设计的联系,那么,现代艺术与设计也将黯然失色,甚至会自我窒息而亡。     

Artful Dodgers: an arts education research project in early education settings

Artful Dodgers is an arts education project developed by two artists and delivered in two early years settings located in two areas of urban disadvantage. It is a music and visual arts programme designed and implemented with early years teachers of children aged 3–5 years. It explored whether the provision of high-quality arts experiences could enhance children’s emerging literacy and numeracy. A novel ‘artist in(formed) residency’ model was developed within a unique arts education research design. Piloting a tripartite relationship between researchers, artists and early years teachers, this study was situated within a qualitative action research paradigm, with both artists located in both services weekly over a 12-week period. The evaluation of the programme indicates changes in pedagogical planning and style in the early years teachers over the period of the artists’ residency. Their language became more reflective and their practice incorporated a wider and richer range of materials; there was greater evidence of more child-led activities and unstructured play opportunities over the duration of the study. The data suggest that children’s social, cooperative and communication skills were enhanced. Recommendations have implications for the professional development of artists and teachers working in early years settings.     

究竟什么是“复合模式”：试探抗战期通俗文学的想象力

抗战的严峻态势促使战时文艺工作者抛却成见,广泛汲取一切有益因子,最大程度地进行抗日宣传。于是通俗文艺被纳入“抗战”叙事的洪流,并创生出崭新的“抗战通俗”类“复合模式”,此种“复合”模式既推动了抗战文艺的想象力,又有力地展现了抗战文艺的多样风姿。     

Recent Rhetorics of Purity in the Visual Arts. Infection,Dissemination, Genealogy

The rhetoric of purity has been foundational in the visual arts of this century, particularly in the advent of abstract art. Is it still a potent discourse? There can be no question that contemporary artists address this issue. As examples, I analyze the relationships between Kazimir Malevich's art, especially his notion of the “supplemental element,” and new work by Taras Polataiko, who is “infected” by the earlier artist. I extend this analysis of medical discourses of infection, purity, and impurity to the group General Idea's recent manipulations of the images and ideas of the quintessential Modernists Piet Mondrian and Ad Reinhardt. My readings suggest that purity as a concept in the visual arts remains powerful — both in the genealogy of artists and in individual works — but in a mutated form.