learning to look, learning to think

Today I asked my students to use the ‘principles of art’ to describe a tangerine. Talking about the tangerine, inside and out, they were great. From the peel’s smooth texture to the thin veins in each slice, every student had plenty to say. Then I put up a slide of an image from David Taylor’s, “Walking the line” exhibit. It was a simple landscape photograph, absent of anything too complex. I was gearing them up to see his show at the Joseph Gross Gallery on campus.

“Okay, what do you see here you guys?” The room was silent.

Abigail Housen explores how people experience art in, “Art Viewing and Aesthetic Development: Designing for the Viewer.” She addresses their reactions and skills towards art-viewing as aesthetic development – a term I first disdained, reminding me of when art education in the 1950s was meant to prepare students to be consumers of beautiful things.

However, Housen’s intention is based on the reasoning that creative and critical thinking is linked to aesthetic thought and development, that in the “processes of looking at and talking about art, the viewer is developing skills not ordinarily associated with art” (p. 172). She also mentions the viewers’ ability to interpret images evolves and progresses over time (given the viewer is exposed to a sequenced series of artwork).

Housen introduces 5 stages of aesthetic development based on patterns shown and processed through viewer understanding:

Stage 1: Accountive, viewers are listmakers and storyteller. They make simple, concrete observations: Lines, ovals, squares

Stage 2: Constructive, viewers set about building a framework for looking at art, using the most accessible tools at hand: their perceptions, their knowledge of the natural world, and the values of their social and moral world. Observations have a concrete known reference point.

Stage 3: Classifying, viewers adopt the analytical stance of the art historian. Studying the conventions and canons of art history, wanting to know all that can be known about the artists’s life and work, from when and where an artist lived to how the work is viewed in the panoply of artists. The chain of information becomes increasingly complex and multilayered.

Stage 4: Interpretive, viewers seek an interactive and spontaneous encounter with the work of art. They explore the artwork, letting the meaning of the work slowly unfold, appreciating formal subtleties. Viewers discover new themes in a familiar composition, and distinguishes comparisons and contradictions.

Stage 5: Re-Creative, viewers have established a long history of viewing and reflecting about art, and are now willing to suspend belief – seeing the object as semblant, real, and animated with a life of its own. The viewers begin an imaginative contemplation of the work, transcending prior knowledge and experience, giving permission to encounter the artwork with childlike openness. “A trained eye, critical stance, and responsive attitude are his lenses as the multifaceted experience of the artwork guides his viewing. A familiar painting is like an old friend, known intimately yet full of surprise…”

Housen’s stages are a wonderful backbone for developing effective programs, allowing us to select artworks based on our visitors’ needs and understanding, in hopes of fostering and facilitating aesthetic growth!