National Art Education Association

Art before CollegeAuthor(s): John O'NeilSource: Art Education, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Apr., 1962), pp. 11+22-23Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3186720 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 04:56

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

National Art Education Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ArtEducation.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.105 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 04:56:48 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

What should be ftaught in high school?

A director of a university art program gives his

ideas on content for high school art courses in ...

ART BEFORE COLLEGE JOHN O'NEIL

In recent years, art instruction has been hypersensi- tive to the need for the preservation of the intuitive faculties, neglecting perhaps some of the intellectual

disciplines that are also necessary in the personal synthesis that is part of the creative act. It is well understood that high school art instruction occurs at a critical time in the formation of personality, when the creative faculties have ordinarily lost the directness and freshness of vision characteristic of childhood. But at this point the student is quite ready to study art as a subject, made up of fundamental principles and mediums. In this sense, the study of art in high school and in college should not differ basically. It

might vary in degree of concentration, but hardly in its goals.

Even though a limit cannot be placed on the amount of time required for learning, it is generally agreed that four years of formal study on a college level are

hardly enough to prepare a student for the demand- ing and hazardous profession of art. For this reason, and others, he usually continues into two, three and sometimes even four additional years which will culmi- nate in a master's degree in the field. Regrettably, high school preparation for the advanced study encountered in college often is of very little help; it may even hinder the student by ignoring fundamental principles, by approaching art as a hobby, by offering a dozen mediums to the student but not permitting him to

develop a skill and sensitivity in the use of any.

Fewer Mediums Are Desirable If art instruction in high school were concerned

with fewer subjects and fewer mediums, it could make the transition to college study much smoother. But often concentrated work is unlikely, particularly if the

high school art department has succumbed, under constant pressure, to being in large part a service unit to the rest of the school. Such a situation makes a serious professional attitude impossible. The student

might even mistake the cartoons he has been com- missioned to do for the yearbook, and the posters he

has been assigned to make for the senior play, as works

calling up his best creative efforts. Even though these forms can be, and have been, works of great merit when handled by a trained and sensitive artist, they are hardly suitable mediums of instruction on a high school level. Being specialized applications, they demand a control of drawing and design which the student has not had time to acquire. Such fringe activi- ties should therefore be considered superfluous, and even harmful, since they are weak substitutes for fundamental study.

It is hardly arguable that art, at its highest plane of functioning, is basically non-useful, as are, for

example, science and philosophy. And as with these

subjects, theory, with all its attendant excitement of

discovery, should come first; the application of

theory must await necessity; the application may also

represent a choice of direction made by a mature individual. Thus any stress on the commercial aspects of art is wrong, for the student will soon enough need to meet and resolve the demands of the market-place. He is being cheated of the profounder meanings of art if he is allowed, at the formative stages of his study, to think of art as a business, as therapy, as fun, as a

pastime, or as any other thing which it is not.

Avoid Too Difficult Techniques If a multiplicity of mediums, emphasizing the means

of art rather than its meaning, has its dangers it is also true that ignoring the technical difficulties of some mediums can also lead to the misguidance of creative activity. Most of the crafts will fall into this

group, since they require a knowledge of processes and materials that is beyond the scope of the high school program. Nor are students of this level experi- enced enough and confident enough of their esthetic

judgment to make the art in utilitarian objects greater than the craft. In high school art exhibitions, the

quality of the crafts is usually only a cut above that of the roadside curio.

What Can the High School Offer? But if the mediums and techniques of the crafts, of

commercial art, and one might very well add, of interior design, photography, illustration, and fashion

continued page 22

John O'Neil is Director, School of Art, University

of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma.

APRIL 1962 11

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.105 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 04:56:48 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

O'NEIL . from page 11

drawing should not be taught in high school, what should? A core curriculum for instruction certainly should include painting, sculpture, drawing, design and art history. The mediums used, if they are not to lead to frustration, must be simple to handle, and capable of both spontaneous expression as well as sustained development. For this reason the oil medium, with its need for rather slow development under somewhat special studio conditions, can very well await study in college or professional school. Both opaque and trans- parent watercolor, however, are excellent mediums for early instruction, and can be employed for rapid im-

provisations as well as more studied compositions. In sculpture, the three dimensional world can be

easily entered through the use of paper and cardboard, bent and cut to modulate the light. Carving hard sub- stances, or modelling soft ones, would seem to come under the heading of sculptural specialization.

The fundamental drawing disciplines, easily taught and directly assimilated, are currently unpopular in

many schools. Instruction in perspective, for example, is even viewed with distaste by some teachers who fear its inhibitive effects on individual expression, but it does form a part of a body of knowledge that can hardly be ignored. Actually, this would seem to be an excellent time to learn the important traditions-

perhaps doctrines is not too strong a word-in draw-

ing, which the student may choose to employ or ignore on a more advanced and personal level of expression. Since the creative balance occurs somewhere between the two poles of feeling and knowing, it would seem that learning what artists of other times believed in is just as important as orienting one's self in the con-

temporary scene.

Introduce Art History The study of past cultures is one most easily fitted

into the high school curriculum, but oddly enough, it appears at the present time to be absent from many. Although art appreciation is sometimes taught in high schools, art history rarely appears. The former, which can develop the power to make esthetic judgments and

intelligent discriminations, performs a useful service; the latter can be a vital subject for the student if the teacher, in addition to being well-informed, is able to present the material with some degree of poetic insight. Art history and the studio disciplines will then complement each other, and the student in his own work will learn to feel that he is immersed in the process of forming the history of art, that he is adding to its tradition.

Of course studying art history should mean con- frontation with original works of art as often as

YOUSIMPLY R IT

Instant Lettering is an incredibly simple method of lettering - anyone can do it. Self-adhesive letters, printed on a special plastic sheet, are just rubbed down into position on any art or drawing, wood, paper, glass, acetate, even crackle finished metal and rough textured papers. The finished result is superb - no background film to letters, clean definition and sharp color. Letter sizes range from 8 point to 11/2 inch display letters in a wide selection of type faces

Send for sample and complete type chart

ARTHUR LI :1BROWNY'i & :JROOrINC

NAEA SUPPORTING

MEMBER

SCHOOL ARTS

Printers Building f Worcester 8 Massachusetts

[ ILTIIN

Proven Aids to Rich Achievement in

ART EDUCATION MILTON BRADLEY MILTON BRADLEY Crayrite Crayons Trutone Crayons

Poster Colors Finger Paint Water Colors Modeling Clay

School Art and Library Furniture

MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY Springfield, Mass 0 Chicago * New York * San Francisco

Handlweaver & Craftsman

Published Quarterly

Sample copy FREE to schools

I yr $4 2 yrs $7.50 3 yrs $10 5 yrs $15

Handweaver & Craftsman 246 FIFTH AVE., NEW YORK 1 OREGON 9-2748

The International Standard

of Excellence

La Norma Internacional de SuPerior adIl

Le Standard International d'ExcelleI HIGGINS WATERPROOF DRAWING INKS

22 ART EDUCATION

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.105 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 04:56:48 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

r0%

AMACO

MY

has everything for the ceramic craftsman: KILNS

FOR POTTERY AND METAL ENAMELING 9 POTTERS' WHEELS

CLAYS 9 GLAZES 9 DECORATING COLORS 9 METAL ENAMELS

free catalog on request

W, Vase-Cecil G. Strown, Jr.

AMERICN ARTC]AY OMPANI eII 7ItL2,N A

possible. The color slide and color reproduction are acceptable substitutes where travel to see the originals is impractical, but there is little reason to depend upon them exclusively. In high schools located in communi- ties distant from galleries and museums, it is impera- tive that exhibitions be brought in for display in halls and classrooms.

The principle of simplicity of mediums, and prob- ing study of those few would seem to apply whether the student goes on to college or not, or whether he majors in art or some other subject. In either case, he would have gone to the heart of the problem, and that experience cannot do less than make him aware of the profundity and mystery of the creative imagina- tion, and of the satisfaction to be obtained in the creative act. If he lacks the ability, energy and oppor- tunity to become a creative artist in his own right, he could do worse than develop into that welcome person, an informed and enthusiastic patron.

SUMMER MEETING JULY 4, 1962

DENVER, COLORADO During NEA Convention

TRY

LIQUID TEMPERA PAINT in Plastic Squeeze Bottles Highly concentrated color in "gel" form

-always ready for smooth-as-silk brush-

ing -deep, rich coverage-no bleeding- no settling-no hardening. 30 brilliant colors--2 oz., 4 oz. bottles, pints, quarts, gallons. INTRODUCTORY OFFER! Send $2.00 for six 2 oz. bottles, ass't. colors with instructions, ppd. Regularly $2.25.

"Gel" Consistency

EBER COSTELLO CO 1248 McKinley W EBER COSTELLO CO.Chicago Heights, III. Manufacturers of: Chalkboard, Chalk, Erasers, Art Materials, Maps, Globes.

FREE CATALOG FINEST ART MATERIALS Technical Literature * Art Literature * Art Appreciation Literature

BUY DIRECT FROM: UTRECHT LINENS 119 WEST 57 ST., N. Y. 19, DEPT. 8 * Manufacturers & Distributors

APRIL 1962- 23

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.105 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 04:56:48 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions