Aesthetic things to draw
Chapter Introduction
Casper Holroyd
Learning Objectives
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
· 3-1Define aesthetics.
· 3-2List three things a teacher can do to help children develop their aesthetic sensitivity.
· 3-3List five benefits of aesthetic sensitivity in children.
· 3-4List at least three art elements to discuss with children.
NAEYC Program Standards
· 2a
Involving families and communities in their children’s development and learning.
· 4c
Teachers use a broad repertoire of developmentally appropriate teaching/learning approaches.
· 5c
Using their own knowledge, appropriate early learning standards, and other resources to design, implement, and evaluate meaningful, challenging curricula for each child.
DAP Criteria
· 3D2
Teachers plan curriculum experiences to draw on children’s own interest and introduce children to things likely to interest them.
· 1E2
Teachers foster in children an enjoyment of and engagement in learning.
Just as creativity is nurtured in the early childhood classroom, a child’s aesthetic sensitivity—the sense of and appreciation for beauty in the world—is cultivated in much the same way. In this chapter, we explore the concept of aesthetics and the ways in which early childhood teachers can create an environment in which the young child’s aesthetic sensitivity can blossom and grow.
Aesthetics
LO 1
The term aesthetics refers to an appreciation for beauty and a feeling of wonder. Aesthetic experience begins with and depends on the senses. It is seeing beauty in a sunset, hearing rhythm in a rainfall, and loving the expression on a person’s face. Each person has an individual, personal sense of what is or is not pleasing.
The Aesthetics Movement in the art world began in early 1800 and lasted the decade. In the art world, the term aesthetics was invented or adapted from Greek by the German philosopher Alexander Baumgarten, whose work Aesthetica was published in 1750. In this particular work, the word was defined to mean the “science of the beautiful” or the “philosophy of taste.” The word was used with its opposite, “Philistine,” which in this context meant “one lacking culture” whose interests were bound by material and commonplace things as opposed to the high-minded spiritual and artistic values of the aesthetes. By 1880, the Aesthetic Movement in the arts was a well-established fact and the name itself became a part of everyday speech.
In the center of the movement was a close-knit group of self-appointed “experts” who passed on to their followers standards of color, ornament, and form for all aspects of art. These standards were in direct opposition to the ornate Victorian style. The Aesthetic Movement preferred the simple and sensible over the ornate. One of the most influential figures of the whole movement was Oscar Wilde, who lectured and spread the word of the Aesthetic Movement. The famous painter, Whistler, was another supporter of the Aesthetic Movement.
Aesthetic experiences emphasize doing things for the pure joy of it. Although there can be, there does not have to be any practical purpose or reason for doing something. The goal of aesthetic experiences is a full, rich life for the child. You may take a ride in a car to feel its power and enjoy the scenery rather than to visit someone or run an errand. In the same way, a child plays with blocks to feel their shapes and see them tumble rather than to build something.
Young children benefit from aesthetic experiences. Children are fascinated by beauty. They love nature and enjoy creating, looking at, and talking about art. They express their feelings and ideas through language, song, expressive movement, music, and dance far more openly than adults (see Photo 3-1 ). They are not yet hampered by the conventional labels used by adults to separate each art expression into pigeonholes. Young children experience the arts as a whole. They are creative, inquisitive, and delighted by art.
Photo 3-1
Opportunities for aesthetic experiences abound in the early childhood program.
Casper Holroyd
On the contemporary arts scene, multimedia artwork , such as walk-in sculpture environments; mixes of live dance and films; and art exhibitions with drama, where actors move into the audience to engage it in the drama, are all ways adults are integrating the arts. Like young children, they are learning to experience the arts as a whole.
This exciting art form may be novel for sophisticated adult artists, but it is a familiar approach for young children. For instance, in early childhood programs, it is a common occurrence to find young children singing original songs while they paint or moving their bodies rhythmically while playing with clay. Young children naturally and unself-consciously integrate the arts—weaving together graphic arts, movement, dance, drama, music, and poetry in their expressive activities (see Photo 3-2 ).
Photo 3-2
Children grow in their aesthetic appreciation as they are actively involved in creative learning experiences.
Casper Holroyd
The capacity for aesthetics is a fundamental human characteristic. Infants sense with their whole bodies. They are open to all feelings; experience is not separated from thinking. A child’s aesthetic sense comes long before the ability to create. All of an infant’s experiences have an aesthetic component—preferring a soft satin-edged blanket, studying a bright mobile, or choosing a colorful toy. These choices are all statements of personal taste. As infants grow into toddlers, the desire to learn through taste, touch, and smell as well as through sight and sound grows, too. The ability to make aesthetic choices continues to grow through preschool (see Photo 3-3 ). Preschoolers’ ability to perceive, respond, and be sensitive becomes more obvious and more refined. This is obvious in their spontaneous creations using a wide variety of materials.
Photo 3-3
The capacity to make aesthetic choices continues to grow through preschool.
Casper Holroyd
To develop an aesthetic sense in children, one must help them continuously find beauty and wonder in their world. This is any child’s potential. In fact, it is the potential of every human being. To create, invent, be joyful, sing, dance, love, and be amazed are possible for everyone.
Children sometimes see and say things to please adults; teachers must realize this and the power it implies (Auzmendi et al., 1966). Teachers who prefer that children see beauty as they themselves do are not encouraging a sense of aesthetics in children. They are fostering uniformity and obedience. Only children who choose and evaluate for themselves can truly develop their own aesthetic taste. Just as becoming literate is a basic goal of education, one of the key goals of all creative early childhood programs is to help young children develop the ability to speak freely about their own attitudes, feelings, and ideas about art. Each child has a right to a personal choice of beauty, joy, and wonder.
Children gain an aesthetic sense by doing, that is, sensing, feeling, and responding to things. It can be rolling a ball, smelling a flower, petting an animal, or hearing a story. Aesthetic development takes place in secure settings free of competition and adult judgment.
TeachSource Video
Infants and Toddlers: Cognitive Development and Imaginative Play
© 2015 Cengage Learning
1. Using the material from your text, explain how the teacher in this video could expand the children’s aesthetic experiences in her questioning about animals.
2. Discuss how this teacher could involve more of the children’s senses in this activity.
Did You Get It?
· A kindergarten teacher discourages her young student from coloring with black crayons, and encourages her to use “pretty” colors such as pink and purple. From a creativity perspective, what is the main flaw in the teacher’s approach?
1. She is not helping her student fulfill her potential to find beauty in the world.
2. She is expressing ethnic stereotypes.
3. She is placing gender expectations on her student.
4. She is directing her student instead of allowing her to make choices on her own.
Take the full quiz on CourseMate.
Developing Children’s Aesthetic Sensitivity
LO 2
Aesthetic learning means joining what one thinks with what one feels. Through art, ideas and feelings are expressed. People draw and sculpt to show their feelings about life. Art is important because it can deepen and enlarge understanding. All children cannot be great artists, but children can develop an aesthetic sense—an appreciation for art.
Teachers can encourage the aesthetic sense in children in a variety of ways. For example, science activities lend themselves very well to beauty and artistic expression. Because children use their senses in learning, science exhibits with things such as rocks, wood, and leaves can be placed in attractive displays for children to touch, smell, and explore with all of their senses. With their senses, they can experience artistic elements such as line, shape, pattern, color, and texture in these natural objects.
Sensory awareness is nourished by teachers who help young children focus on the variations and contrasts in the environment: the feel and look of smooth bark and rippling rough bark, the heaviness of rock and the lightness of pumice stone, the feathery leaf and the leathery leaf, the slippery marble and the sticky tar. Aesthetic appreciation of nature is not confined to the sense of sight. Appreciation of the outdoors may include listening to the song of birds, the smell of newly cut grass, or the soft feeling of moss on a rock. All these are opportunities for expression in the arts, poetry, sound, movement, and many other art forms.
The arts are developed best as a whole. After hearing a story, some children may want to act it out. Some may prefer to paint a picture about it. Others may wish to create a dance about it, and some may want to make the music for the dance. These activities can lead to others. There should be a constant exchange, not only among all the art activities but also among all subject areas. This prevents children from creating a false separation between work and play, art and learning, and thought and feeling.
A teacher can invite, encourage, or stimulate children’s aesthetic experiences by:
· Offering possibilities for firsthand, vivid personal perceptions with trips, resources brought into the classroom, and new materials and equipment
· Asking questions to encourage personal, felt responses
Having one’s interest and energy invited is not the same as being persuaded to move toward a goal predetermined by someone else. For example, holding up a model of a finished product may stimulate the child’s desire to make one like it, or demonstrating how it is produced may invite the child’s interest in seeing if she can do it, too (see Photo 3-4 ). Although these approaches are direct and fast ways to get a group of children to work, by themselves they do not invite the individual child to raise his own questions or to draw upon his own experiences and interests.
Photo 3-4
Provide children with many opportunities to look at and talk about art.
Casper Holroyd
In the classroom, most invitations to art work are offered in the whole group situation. Yet, the teacher knows that effective aesthetic response is individual and freely given, and not always in line with the group project.
The early childhood environment can be set up in such a way as to encourage this type of aesthetic discussion by implementing the following suggestions.
· In addition to the typical art center, include books about artists in the reading area.
· Include “real” art books in the reading and quiet areas of the room. These do not necessarily have to be children’s books; young children will enjoy looking at artwork in any book.
· Display fine-art prints on bulletin boards and walls so that children can easily see them. Be sure to change them regularly. If they are up too long, they will quickly fade into the background.
· Include art objects on the science table, where appropriate. Geodes, shards of pottery, and crystals are all good starting points.
· Invite guest art educators into the classroom to show children art objects to look at, touch, and talk about.
· Give children an opportunity to choose their favorites from a selection of fine-art prints.
· Display fine-art prints near the writing and art centers.
Suggestions for Aesthetic Experiences with Older Children
Children experience a developmental shift around ages to that allows them to deal with more abstract ideas (more information about this shift is in Chapter 10). At this point, older children not only are able to experience the arts aesthetically but also begin discussing their own opinions, aesthetic tastes, and experiences. Thus, the teacher can engage children in grades 4 to 5 in discussions about what is art and why they consider something to be art or not. The following is an example of a combination th- to th-grade class involved in this type of aesthetics discussion.
This example demonstrates the type of environment for older children in which questioning is valued. In such an environment, students will feel comfortable raising questions about art and expressing their reactions to it. Teachers of older children need to encourage rather than suppress discussion of aesthetic questions as they emerge. This is done by providing students the time and environment for art-related experiences and inquiry.
In their unit on art and history, prints of the work of Civil War photographer Matthew Brady were displayed and discussed. The fact was brought up by the teacher that Brady frequently repositioned and rearranged bodies of dead soldiers and other objects in composing war scenes to be photographed. The teacher used this fact to encourage the students’ responses to her initial question: “Is there anything about Brady’s practice that should disturb us?”
This One’s for You!
Art, Aesthetics, and Nature in the Life of the Child
The outdoors has something more to offer than just physical benefits. Because the natural world is filled with beautiful sights, sounds, and textures, it is the perfect place for aesthetic experiences for young children.
Preschoolers learn much through their senses. Outside there are many different and wonderful things for them to see (animals, birds, and green plants), to hear (the wind rustling through the leaves, a bird’s song), to smell (fragrant flowers and the rain-soaked ground), to touch (a fuzzy caterpillar or the bark of a tree), and even to taste (newly fallen snow or a raindrop on the tongue). Children who spend a lot of time experiencing things through television and computers are using only two senses (hearing and sight), which can seriously affect their perceptual abilities as well as their aesthetic development.
In this overly electronic and technical world, it seems old-fashioned to include nature study in the early childhood curriculum. Yet, sometimes looking back is necessary to move forward for the sake of the child. Looking back to the teachings of Friedrich Froebel, the founder of the kindergarten, can help us see the value of nature study in the early childhood curriculum.
Froebel was a passionate advocate for art and nature studies as well as for their integration. He spent most of his life (1782–1852) in or very near the Thuringian Forest of central Germany, a breathtakingly beautiful area of wooded old mountains, rolling hills, and green valleys. As a young man, he worked as a forester, studied mineralogy, and collected and classified plants—anything that would keep him outdoors.
Nature study was the foundation of Froebel’s pedagogy. He saw it as an essential pathway to understanding the interconnectedness of all things. Froebel believed children’s intellectual, moral, and spiritual development were all dependent upon their relationships with nature. When referring to nature in his autobiography, he wrote, “Every contact with her elevates, strengthens, and purifies (Froebel, 1889, p. 82).
Froebel preferred to engage children in self-directed dialogue with nature, each other, and supportive adult guides. He believed that through nature, children would not only learn the secrets of the world around them but also learn about themselves and their unity with the world.
Today, our students may be quite familiar with how to search for stream beds on the Internet to write a report for their science class, but they might have never seen the phenomenon firsthand in a way that enables them to describe it using their own words or drawings.
When we look back, we find that even this divide between childhood and nature is not a new concern. In 1883, G. Stanley Hall published results of a study focused on what children did and did not know in a variety of areas, including nature studies. He found, among other things, that of – to -year-old children in Boston had never seen a crow, had never seen a sparrow, and had never planted a seed (Hall, 1883).
More recently, Louv holds that children need to interact with nature for the sake of their abilities to learn and create. Nature deficit, as explained by Louv (2008), has highlighted the need to reconnect childhood with nature. Art, as a natural language of childhood, is uniquely equipped to make the connection participatory and expressive, permeated with imaginative problem identification and solving.
So, we have a history full of rich rationale and examples to encourage early childhood teachers to return nature to the curriculum. As we have seen in this chapter, aesthetic development is easily encouraged in a natural setting. Many activities can be taken outdoors for the children’s aesthetic benefit. How much more exciting it is to hear a story sitting on the grass on a sunny day! How much more alive science activities can be when they are taking place in a natural setting!
Now when asked why your children are so often outside instead of in the classroom, you can say Froebel made you do it!
The discussion led the students in many directions involving such issues as differences between “real” photographic art and “staged” art and which was art in the truest sense. They also questioned the worth of Brady’s work in general, with students evaluating each in their own way. Some saw the work as “political” and of little artistic worth. Others saw it as an artist using his “props” just like any other artist does. One student compared it to a still-life painting the class had seen earlier.
Needless to say, this discussion led to a lot of research into Matthew Brady’s life and work. But more importantly, the discussion helped students learn how to reflect upon and present their own opinions of art and to consider the views of others.
This One’s for You!
The Real Christina’s World
Andrew Wyeth’s famous painting, Christina’s World, shows a crippled woman dragging herself across a field toward a farmhouse. A tour of the house, which was declared a National Historic Landmark, offers a fascinating, in-depth look at the real world of Christina Olson and her family. It also reveals Wyeth’s relationship with them.
Wyeth spent producing about works of art depicting the Olsons and their home. Wyeth met the Olsons in 1939 through his wife, Betsy. Wyeth’s father had a summer home nearby. Betsy, whose family also spent summers in the area, was when she met Christina, who was beloved by local children for her cookies and storytelling. After the Olsons died, the house was briefly used as an art gallery.
Wyeth got the inspiration for Christina’s World after seeing Christina crawling across the field in May when it was lush and green. But when he painted the picture, he used fall colors, adding to the painting’s stark and lonely mood.
And though he observed Christina from an upstairs window, heading away from the house as she pulled herself to a garden where she grew flowers, he chose to depict her heading toward the house, up a hill.
Christina was when Wyeth finished the painting, but the figure in the painting is of a young, shapely woman in a pretty dress. Wyeth used his wife and an aunt as models for this painting.
When the work was finished in 1948, the Wyeths hung it in their home and invited the Olsons over for dinner. Not a word about the painting was said during the meal, but afterward, Christina kissed Wyeth’s hand in a sign of approval. The painting was then shown at a Manhattan gallery and was purchased by the Museum of Modern Art for . Wyeth received ; the gallery got .
Christina’s World remains an immensely popular and well-known painting, but experts also consider it a masterpiece of twentieth-century realism in the American Gothic tradition (Harpaz, 2011).
If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.
— Buddha
Did You Get It?
· A fourth grade teacher demonstrates how to make a model of the constellations. The teacher’s approach might fail to ignite a sense of aesthetics because it
1. asks them to view the world around them as something that can be copied.
2. science-based and art-based.
3. shows them something that naturally occurs instead of something that they create.
4. does not invite the children.
Take the full quiz on CourseMate.
Benefits of Aesthetic Sensitivity
LO 3
An aesthetic sense does not mean, “I see,” or “I hear.” It means, “I enjoy what I see,” or “I like what I hear.” It means that the child is using taste or preference. Aesthetic sensitivity is important for children because it improves the quality of learning and encourages the creative process. Aesthetic sensibility in children has many other benefits, too.
· Children are more sensitive to problems because they have more insight into their world. This means they can be more helpful to other children and to adults.
· Children are more likely to be self-learners because they are more sensitive to gaps in their knowledge.
· Life is more exciting for children because they have the capacity to be curious and to be surprised.
· Children are more tolerant because they learn that there are many possible ways of doing things.
· Children are more independent because they are more open to their own thoughts. They are good questioners for the same reason.
· Children can deal better with complexity because they do not expect to find one best answer.
3-3aAesthetic Experiences
Aesthetic experiences for young children can take many forms. They can involve an appreciation of the beauty of nature, the rhythm and imagery of music or poetry, or the qualities of works of art. Far from being a specialized talent, the recognition of aesthetic qualities comes quite naturally to children.
This One’s for You!
Van Gogh’s Yellows
It’s hard to imagine some of Vincent van Gogh’s signature works without the vibrant strokes of yellow that brightened the sky in Starry Night and drenched his sunflowers in color. But the yellow hues in some of his paintings have mysteriously turned to brown, and a team of European scientists has figured out why.
Using X-rays, they found the chemical reaction to blame—one never before seen in paint. Van Gogh’s decision to use a lighter shade of yellow paint mixed with white is responsible for the unintended darkening, according to a study published in Analytical Chemistry.
In some of Van Gogh’s paintings, the yellow has dulled to coffee-brown. The discoloration is serious in about of them, said Koen Janssens, an analytical chemist at Antwerp University in Belgium who co-authored the study.
The problem is the lead-chromate paint he used. It was called chrome yellow, part of a generation of paints that were far brighter than previous yellow ochre shades. Soon after their introduction in the nineteenth century, it became apparent that chrome yellow would degrade under sunlight.
Although conservators took pains to protect Van Gogh’s paintings from the sun’s ultraviolet rays, the gradual darkening continued. The effect was unpredictable, afflicting the yellow in some works, while sparing others.
What was causing Van Gogh’s sunflowers to wither and the golden tone in his daylight scenes to dim? And why did the victims appear to be picked at random?
After trying other tests without success, the researchers hit the paint with a high-intensity X-ray. They found that the colorfast samples were made of chromium in its pure, crystalline form.
The darkened sample contained sulfates, which are associated with white pigment. Those sulfates, Janssens said, probably helped reduce the chromium’s oxidation state from chromium- to chromium-, taking on an increasing greenish hue that contributed to the overall darkening (Van der Snickt et al., 2009)
For instance, let us consider art appreciation . What adults have come to regard as strictly a “museum-type” experience—seeing and appreciating good artwork—is an enjoyable experience for young children whose fear of the “intellectual” is not yet developed. Art appreciation can occur in the early childhood program through the combined experiences of learning to look at and learning to create visual arts. Introducing young children to art appreciation should be a series of pleasurable experiences with time to look, enjoy, comment, and raise questions. It is a time when children learn to “see” with their minds, as well as their eyes. They begin to feel with the painter, the sculptor, or the architect and to explore their ideas and techniques.
As early childhood teachers, we don’t ask ourselves whether language appreciation should be emphasized in our programs. We automatically encourage children to express themselves verbally and reflect on the words used by others. We want children to have fun with language, to appreciate its variety and its shades of meaning. Why should we not do the same for visual imagery—that is, encourage children to go beyond art’s functional aspects and find satisfaction in its aesthetic possibilities (Epstein, 2001)?
Early childhood teachers have a responsibility to provide the very best our culture has to offer by introducing young children to a range of fine art by recognized artists, not merely what is easiest or most familiar.
Most children have plenty of exposure to cartoon characters, advertising art, and stereotyped, simplistic posters. These do not foster aesthetic development and are sometimes demeaning to children. Teachers often say, “Children like them,” but the fact that children like something—for example, candy and staying up late at night—does not necessarily mean it is good for them. Children might never have seen a Van Gogh sunflower, a mother and child by Mary Cassatt, or a sculpture by Henry Moore. Yet, young children can learn to appreciate such fine art as these, as well as arts and crafts from many cultures, if introduced to them in the early years. From such experiences, children also gradually learn the concepts of design.
Colors speak all languages.
— Joseph Addison
3-3bMulticultural Aesthetic Experiences
Aesthetic experiences can also be multicultural aesthetic experiences. Multiculturalism is so much more than curriculum—it is a worldview. Art is an ideal means of conveying multiculturalism. Multiculturalism honors heritage, community, and tradition. Art objects from different cultures expand beyond their mere physical experience. A Pueblo pot, a Peruvian textile, and a Celtic illumination each represent centuries of culture and civilization. Works of art are valued for their artistic contribution, originality, purpose, collective identity, and universal appeal. In using art reproductions and actual art objects such as pottery in the early childhood program, you are not only providing amazing aesthetic experiences, but you are also bringing the cultures of the world into children’s daily lives.
In the past, roll sheets that once listed Billy, Betty, Jack, and Sue are now joined by Jamar, Okezie, Shanta, Esperanza, and Thuy. Every one of the names on the roll sheet brings tradition along with hopes, fears, and dreams. Each student brings the gift of self and of culture. What a thrill to see a big smile grow on the face of a shy student who is new to the United States when the art activity or object is a familiar reminder of family and home! We all want to feel valued and recognized. Pride in cultural heritage helps students learn. Art is a reaffirmation of who we are. Thus, multicultural art objects provide more than aesthetic experiences to young children.
The work can wait while you show the child the rainbow, but the rainbow won’t wait while you do the work.
— Patricia Clifford
Did You Get It?
Thomas, age , is concerned when his friend Luke starts to cry. He 3-4aSome Other Art Terms
The following list includes more art terms to use in the classroom:
· Foreground, middle, and background. The areas in a piece of art that appear closer to the viewer, next closest, and farthest away.
· Contrast. This is created by putting lighter colors next to darker ones.
· Light. The illusion created with lighter colors such as white.
· Design concepts. Three design concepts in art are pattern (repetition and rhythm), balance , and unity .
1. Pattern (repetition and rhythm) is created when a particular shape, color, or motif (design) is repeated in a rhythmic way. Patterns provide harmonious or decorative effects in works of art.
Example: “Tell me how you made that pattern around the edge of your picture.”
2. Balance is the principle of design that deals with visual weight in a work of art (see Photo 3-7). Balance may be symmetrical, radial, or overall.
Photo 3-7
When a child adds trees to each side of her drawing, she is creating balance.
Casper Holroyd
Example: “Adding flowers on both sides of your house gives your picture balance, Sally.”
3. Unity is the feeling of wholeness or oneness in an artwork that is accomplished by using the elements and principles of art (see Photo 3-8). A unified artwork seems harmonious; nothing should be added or removed.
Photo 3-8
A unified artwork seems harmonious. Nothing needs to be added or removed.
Casper Holroyd
Example: “Rose, that round grouping of flowers gives your painting a sense of unity, bringing it all together.”
Teachers can make children’s art experiences meaningful through thoughtful dialogue. For example:
· Use descriptive rather than judgmental terms when talking about art. Say “I see …” or “It makes me think of …” rather than “I like it” or “It’s pretty.” Praise such as “Good work!” sets the teacher above the child artist in a superior judgmental position. It may leave the child artist anxious about whether you will at some later time announce that you do not like the child’s efforts. And if you inadvertently pass over one child, does this overlooked child then worry that he or she is not “a good artist”? Respond to the child’s efforts not from your head, but from your heart. Rather than pronounce a judgment, try describing your heartfelt response to the art. Use, “In your art, I feel (an emotion)” statements. For example, “I feel happiness, sadness, fear, love, power.” You will create a better connection with the child by saying “I feel an emotion” rather than “I feel THAT YOU are showing (an emotion).” The “that you” makes an assumption. Thus, avoid phrases such as “I feel … that, like, as if … you are showing ….” Using your own emotions, no one can argue about what you feel (see Photo 3-9).
Photo 3-9
Children develop their aesthetic senses by doing, sensing, and responding.
Casper Holroyd
· After a small-group art activity, encourage children to look at one another’s work and ask them, “Why do you think they look so different from one another even though you all made them out of the same paper and markers?”
· Introduce language to talk about the affect and aesthetics of the artwork. For example, “These colors look sad” or “All these little dots look busy on the page” or “This big, bright circle makes my eye keep coming back to it.”
· Ask children to reflect on artistic intentions and feelings. “Why do you think this artist makes little pictures but that artist makes big pictures?” is a question that young children can ponder.
Aesthetic experiences for young children should be chosen according to their interests and level of understanding. For young children ages to , use artwork that is colorful and reflects a subject matter familiar to them, such as children, families, and animals. Older children can explore more abstract imagery, although research suggests that young children, while preferring both abstract and realistic art, tend to gravitate more toward abstract art (Danko-McGhee, 2006). Such details as dates and the social–political implications of a piece of art or music have no relevance for young children. Instead, a painting may appeal to them because of its bold colors as well as familiar subject.
Art appreciation also includes the development of an awareness of the aesthetic qualities of everyday man-made objects (see Photo 3-10). Children are surrounded daily by an endless number of objects such as furniture, clothing, toys, buildings, and machines, along with countless images in films, television, newspapers, books, magazines, advertisements, and exhibits. Examples of good and bad design can be found in all areas of the environment. With guidance and experience, children will become more sensitive to their environment and eventually will develop more selective, even discriminating, taste.
Photo 3-10
Children gain an aesthetic sense by using many kinds of art materials.
Casper Holroyd
· approaches Luke and tries to comfort him. Which benefit of having developed an aesthetic sense is Thomas demonstrating?
1. independent thinking
2. more sensitivity to problems
3. an appreciation of complexity
4. a willingness to question
Take the full quiz on CourseMate.
Language for Talking about Art: Art Elements
LO 4
During group discussions, children should be encouraged to talk about the design qualities of a specific color, the movement of lines, the contrast of sizes and shapes, and the variety of textures. They should be helped to think and feel, as individuals, about a certain art object or piece of music. Their understanding of aesthetics, and their willingness and ability to discuss its concepts, will increase with experience.
As you talk about art with young children, start to introduce the language of art. For example, the teacher may say, “You made a secondary color here,” or in another instance, “I see you drew straight lines, zigzag lines, and diagonal lines in your drawing of our school.” Talking about art in this way strengthens language development at an age when children are quickly developing a language system and vocabulary (Althouse, Johnson, & Mitchell, 2003).
The language of art is an expansion of the language of the early childhood classroom. Each language has its own system of words and rules of grammar. The language of visual art has its own system. The words of the language are the elements of art. They are the basic visual symbols in the language of art. Just as there are basic kinds of words in a spoken language such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, there are basic kinds of art elements : line, shape/form, color, space, pattern, and texture. These six elements are the visual building blocks that the artist puts together to create a work of art. No matter what materials are used, the artwork will contain one or more of these visual elements. Sometimes one element will be more important than the others. The following are definitions for each of these elements with examples of using them in discussing art with young children.
· Line is a continuous mark on a surface. Lines have a direction: horizontal, vertical, and diagonal. Lines may be straight or curved, fat or thin, or long or short.
Example: “I notice you made your house with vertical and horizontal lines.”
· Shape and form are two terms to describe the contours of enclosed spaces in art. Shape is used to refer to two-dimensional works such as drawings and paintings that can be measured by height and width. Form is used for three-dimensional pieces such as sculpture and architecture that can be measured by height, width, and depth (see Photo 3-5 ). Shapes and forms may be described as geometric, organic, or free-form.
Photo 3-5
This artwork reflects the art elements of shape/form, color, and balance.
Casper Holroyd
Geometric forms are mathematically precise forms based on the following geometric shapes: square, rectangle, triangle, circle, oval, and diamond. Organic forms are those that are natural. Free-form shapes are images made of straight or curved lines or a combination of both.
Examples:
· “Look at that big yellow circle in the center of your drawing!” (geometric)
· “Did you see how Mark made an organic-shaped design with his printing tool?” (organic)
· “Watch how Eric uses his crayons to make a free-form design for a border.” (free-form)
· There are three characteristics of color : hue , value , and intensity .
1. Hue is the color name, such as blue-green. There are primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. The primary colors are red, blue, and yellow. The secondary colors are orange, violet (purple), and green. The tertiary colors are red-violet, red-orange, blue-violet, blue-green, yellow-orange, and yellow-green.
Example: “You used so many nice primary colors in your collage—red and blue especially.”
2. Value refers to the relative lightness or darkness of a hue. Tints and shades are made when white (tint) or black (shade) is added to a hue.
Example: “I see you have made a lovely green tint for the leaves on your tree.”
3. Intensity is varied by adding a hue’s complementary color, the color opposite it on the color wheel, to the hue. For example, red becomes duller, less intense, when its opposite color, green, is added to it.
Example: “The intensity of your red flowers is great!”
· Space refers to the areas above, below, between, within, and around an object. Space is created as an illusion in two-dimensional artwork (see Photo 3-6 ). A three-dimensional art form—a sculpture, for example—has actual space such as width, height, and depth. Young children learn to create space by several means: overlapping, scale (size), and placement of shapes.
Photo 3-6
Space is created as an illusion in two-dimensional artwork.
Casper Holroyd
Example: “Scott, I can see in your picture how big your house is in your neighborhood.”
· Texture refers to the way something feels or looks like it would feel. It can be rough (such as a sandpaper alphabet letter) or soft (such as a chalk drawing); it can be furry (as in a piece of fabric) or slick (as in manipulating finger paint). It can be real, such as a piece of tree bark glued in a collage, or it can be visual, such as the implied bark of a tree trunk drawn with crayons.
Example: “I see you used that piece of velvet to give the puppet’s face a soft, smooth texture.”
3-4bThe Aesthetic Environment: Art Elements in Action
The classroom environment can help young children develop their aesthetic sense. The elements in the early childhood classroom, just like those in a painting, all work together to produce a unified, aesthetically pleasing environment for young children. Simply visualize the early childhood room as a canvas, and each part of this canvas (room) is important to the entire composition (program). Next, consider the basic art elements listed below and how they are applicable to an aesthetically appealing early childhood environment.
Color/Hue.
Just like in a piece of artwork, the use of color can create very different effects. Lots of blue in a painting gives the viewer a calm, quiet feeling. Bright reds and oranges create the opposite effect. Just as bright colors can dominate a painting, the same applies to color in the classroom. Too many bright colors may detract from art and natural beauty. If you have a choice, it is best to choose soft, light, neutral colors for walls and ceilings. This neural background allows children’s artwork to stand out.
Just as color can be used to create unity and balance in a painting, it can also be used to create an aesthetically balanced early childhood classroom. For example, you can use color to coordinate learning centers so that children begin to see them as wholes rather than as parts. For the same reason, avoid having many different kinds of patterns in one place, as they disturb the balance in the room and can be distracting and overstimulating for young children.
Space.
The way the artist creates space in a painting either gives the viewer a definite sense of “openness” or “closeness” or maybe a feeling in between the two. In the classroom, the sense of space is created by placement of the furniture and equipment.
Group similar furniture together to enhance the spacious feel of the room. Keep colors of furniture, such as shelving, as natural and neutral as possible. This helps focus children’s attention on learning materials on the shelves. When choosing furnishings, select natural wood, which is more aesthetically appealing than metal or plastic. If furniture must be repainted, use one neutral color for everything so that there is greater flexibility in moving it from space to space. Instead of a mismatched collection that breaks up the space in the room, one color of furniture creates a sense of spaciousness because all things “fit together.”
Balance.
When a child adds flowers to both sides of her house, she is creating balance in her art. In the same way, a teacher can create balance in the early childhood classroom by arranging materials in an orderly, aesthetically pleasing manner. For example, rotate materials on shelves rather than crowding them together. Crowded shelves are unbalanced as well as unattractive. They are also hard for children to use and maintain. Aesthetically pleasing containers for holding materials are natural wicker baskets and storage tubs. If storage tubs are used, put all of the same kind together on one shelf to maintain a sense of balance. For the same reason, if cardboard boxes are used for storage, cover them with a neutral color paper or paint them.
Composition.
Just as this art element refers to the arrangement of the objects and spaces in a piece of art, it can also apply to the various arrangements in the classroom. To create an aesthetically pleasing environment, be conscious of the fact that everything in the room has an aesthetic effect. For this reason, decorate your classroom with care. Mount and display children’s artwork rather than simply taping it to the wall. Provide artwork by fine artists from many cultures and avoid garish, stereotyped posters. Make sure that most artwork is displayed at the children’s eye level. Be careful to avoid too many visual stimuli when displaying materials in the classroom. Consistently use one pattern or color combination on all display areas throughout the room. Display work by every child, but not every child’s work in every display. Allow children to choose what they want displayed. Encourage children to help you create and change displays. They will take pride in seeing their work go on display.
Use shelf tops to display sculpture, plants, and items of natural beauty such as shells, stones, and fish tanks. Avoid storing teachers’ materials on the tops of shelves. If there is no other choice, create a teacher “cubby” using a covered box or storage tub.
The information in this section can help you create a “masterpiece” environment for the young children in your care.
Did You Get It?
· When setting up her preschool classroom, a teacher chooses to group all the tables together. Which element of an aesthetic environment is she introducing?
1. hue
2. space
3. balance
4. composition
Take the full quiz on CourseMate.
Think about It
Aesthetic Awareness in Young Children—Theorists’ Views
Many theorists study and write about young children and aesthetics. As teachers of young children, it is important to be aware of this area of early childhood education and how it relates to classroom practice. The following summary of some of their ideas provides more ideas about young children’s aesthetic development and how to enhance it.
Teaching young children ways to appreciate art is not the daunting task that it appears to be. At a very young age, children are quite capable of having an aesthetic experience on their own, whether it is the delight of mixing different-textured foods on the high chair tray or becoming visually engaged with a mobile suspended over the crib (Danko-McGhee, 2006).
When children express preferences for colors, shapes, sounds, tastes, and textures, they are actually making aesthetic choices. Long before young children can speak, their responses to shapes, colors, and other stimuli around them help to form their own special style of interacting with the world (Schirrmacher, 2005).
As young children grow, they continue to exercise their aesthetic senses while observing lines, textures, shapes, colors, and designs found in their environment. This includes images in picture books and artwork found in museums and in the popular media. These aesthetic experiences provide a starting point for understanding that there is a “language of art” (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005, p. 4). Knowledgeable teachers can facilitate this learning process by pointing out to the child what is to be found in the beauty of an object or work of art.
Developmentally appropriate ways of engaging young children in appreciating works of art include play, conversations, and authenticating the experience (Danko-McGhee, 2006). Play involves finding connections between an artwork and the child by using tangible objects. Conversations engage the child in talking about the artwork with a focus on language details. When viewing art, adults can serve as role models for young children by using rich language to describe aesthetic qualities found in nature and in works of art. And finally, authenticating the experience guides children into related art activities. During this “appreciating” process, children develop their perceptual discernment. “Looking at, reflecting upon, creating, and experiencing art teaches, guides, and refines perception. True perception requires thought” (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005, p. 16).
Having an aesthetic experience is the result of being deeply affected by sensory perception and in-creases our cognitive (mental) abilities. Through sensory perception, we are prompted to reflect and think (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Eisner, 2002; Goodman, 1984; Parsons & Blocker, 1993; Siegesmund, 2000; Smith, 2002).
Aesthetic education need not be exclusive to art activities. Eisner (2002, p. 43) suggests: “Aesthetic experience is in no way restricted to what we refer to as the fine arts…. Aesthetic experience, therefore, is potentially in any encounter an individual has with the world.”
Maxine Greene (2001) suggests that teachers follow the thoughts of Herbert Read and instruct students to experience what it “feels like to live in music, move over and about a painting, travel round and in between the masses of sculpture, dwell in a poem.” We should teach our students to pay heed to and use their senses and feelings to understand the qualities of what is perceived in everything. In so doing, we should create more chances for students to find those “a-ha” moments by simply asking questions or calling attention to the elegance of uncomplicated tasks and everyday situations (Flannery, 1977).
Teachers can help their students to slow down, to smell the bread baking in the school kitchen, to listen to morning sounds, to catch and taste a raindrop, and to feel the stippling on the cinder block hall walls. Teachers can extend these lessons by allowing time for students to talk to their peers and write about their feelings and responses to their aesthetic experiences. Students begin to embrace authentic and meaningful learning as they come to realize that they are the agents that create these experiences, and they do not need to have something that an artist delivers to the classroom for passive appreciation (Heid, 2005).
Summary
· 3-1Define aesthetics.
The term aesthetics refers to an appreciation for beauty and a feeling of wonder. Aesthetic experience begins with and depends on the senses. Each person has an individual, personal sense of what is or is not pleasing. Aesthetic experiences emphasize doing things for the pure joy of it. The goal of aesthetic experiences is a full, rich life for the child.
· 3-2List three things a teacher can do to help children develop their aesthetic sensitivity.
· Provide many opportunities to create art.
· Provide many opportunities to look at and talk about art.
· Help children become aware of art in their everyday lives.
· 3-3List five benefits of aesthetic sensitivity in children.
Aesthetic sensitivity in children provides the following benefits:
· It improves the quality of learning and encourages the creative process.
· Children are more sensitive to problems because they have more insight into their world.
· Children are more independent because they are more open to their own thoughts.
· Children are better questioners for the same reason.
· Children can deal better with complexity because they do not expect to find one best answer
· 3-4List at least three art elements to discuss with children.
Basic art elements to discuss with children are line, shape/form, color, space, pattern, and texture. Some other art terms to discuss are foreground, middle and background, contrast, light, balance, and unity.
